Metairie-based health tech company lands big customer | Innovation

Metairie-based health tech startup Docpace has landed a partnership with Access Health Louisiana, a health care provider that operates a statewide network of health centers qualified to receive federal grants.

It’s one of the biggest customers to date for Docpace, a venture that won a pitch competition hosted by The Idea Village startup accelerator in 2020 and now employs a team of 20 full- and part-time workers, headquartered in the Heritage Plaza office tower.

Access Health has paid an undisclosed sum to license Docpace’s patented software, which is designed to increase the efficiency of scheduling appointments.

Docpace founder Shelby Sanderford Dabelich said her technology works behind the scenes to reduce wait times for patients and ease staff workload.

“We’re playing a giant game of Tetris with all these moving parts so offices can be more efficient,” Dabelich said by phone Wednesday during a break at a health care event in Columbus, Ohio. “We stack all these appointments — or blocks, to continue the metaphor — on top of each other to fit seamlessly.”

Dabelich said every time a patient makes an appointment with a doctor or clinic, they’re actually scheduling appointments with several different people: the front desk team, nurses, technicians and doctors.

“Our software predicts how long each of those steps will take and what resources are needed to complete them,” Dabelich said. “Do you need an exam room, a nurse or specific equipment? We take all of this into account.”

Access Health said it hopes its alliance with Docpace will streamline operations, reduce wait times and improve patient access. The network operates community health centers and school-based health centers in 16 parishes, serving more than 60,000 patients annually.

“Docpace allows our operations team to view productivity data by clinical location and by provider in real-time,” Chenier Reynolds, a company vice president, said in a news release. “Instead of our team having to sort through multiple reports, we obtain all of the data in one dashboard allowing us to make more strategic decisions.”

A key Docpace feature is a text messaging system that lets patients know the best time to arrive at the office.

“If any changes happen during the day, our software texts the patient to give them a heads up,” Dabelich said. “That means less wait time and it improves the overall experience.”

Slow burn

Dabelich first dreamed up the idea for the company a decade ago when she was an undergrad at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. In hindsight, perhaps, it wasn’t surprising: Her father, Britton Sanderford, has obtained more than 80 patents and launched and sold several companies, including Advanced Metering Data Systems and Axonn.

Dabelich shadowed a professor who was the president of a local hospital, and she noted the hospital’s struggle to boost patient satisfaction scores, which are important for Medicaid reimbursements. Low scores can mean millions of dollars lost, and long wait times were the biggest reason patients gave a provider low marks.

After that initial inspiration, and while she was earning an MBA at Tulane University, Dabelich led a team developing the software.

She interviewed doctors, tested early versions of the product in doctors’ offices and found a law firm in Washington, D.C., to help her navigate the legal complexities of patient confidentiality.

It’s been a slow burn for a venture firmly entrenched in the world of “deep tech,” meaning it requires extensive research, development and specialized expertise.

“Shelby has been steadily building momentum solving a difficult problem in a complex industry,” said Jon Atkinson, CEO of The Idea Village. “This new partnership represents a potential inflection point to demonstrate the proof that the technology can work at scale.”

“We’ve been really focused on building out a very seamless solution,” Dabelich said. “In health care, it can be a more lengthy integration and onboard processes. I wanted to have something that providers could plug in and have up and running in a week.”

Docpace works by integrating with electronic health records software created and managed by other health tech companies, the biggest and most well-known being Epic and Oracle. Athenahealth, Docpace’s current EHR partner, has a smaller but solid percentage of the market, with an emphasis on outpatient facilities.

By adding more customers like Allied Health and integrating with other EHRs, Dabelich hopes to increase Docpace’s market share.

“We’re going to continue to grow and try to get this into the hands of as many practices and groups in the U.S. as we can,” Dabelich said.