Arrivederci WebMD!

Late in 2013, the most trusted brand on the Internet with the broadest reach of health-focused individuals as well as healthcare professionals acquired Avado (the company I co-founded). It’s been quite a ride and I’m now moving on to my next rodeo.

tl;dr: I’m as energized as ever about the massive opportunity to reinvent healthcare and am going evaluate a bunch of options for what I do next. In play: CEO role, consulting, open source project, documentary, startup, speaking, writing and providing some (board) expertise to healthcare's transformers — check out https://healthfundr.com/u/dave-chase (I wish I’d had this at earlier stages in the startup process). Whether you are transforming from within or outside of current market leaders, this is going to be a fantastic resource. Imagine being able to get on-demand McKinsey-esque caliber advice for 15 or 30 minutes to ask a vexing question or get an outside perspective.

With the success of Avado, a whole new set of opportunities has come into view including a fundamental reshaping of the industry embodied by exciting new care/payment models such as Direct Primary Care. For the last 16 months, I’ve been focused on getting Avado integrated into WebMD (“Connectivity Services”) and teaming up with a bunch of terrific people internally to bring it to market. I feel great about the progress and how deeply enmeshed Avado’s technology has been woven into the WebMD. As the tl;dr teased, there are several opportunities I’m looking at diving deeper into.

In the immediate future, I’m wrapping things up and then taking my family to Europe for a couple weeks enjoying some great Italian wine, hikes, bikes, food and people.

If you are a glutten for punishment, read on for some tidbits from the past 5 years (the best part is the crowdsourced list of out-of-office messages you can use for future vacations). If this was an Oscars acceptance speech, the music would start playing now :)

• Avado was incorporated when I was living and working in Sun Valley and idea developed as I was hiking and snowshoeing the trails outside my back door. Has a great idea every originated in a conference room? For me, ideas percolate while I’m hiking, biking, running, snowshoeing, nordic skiing, etc. Get outside your office...now!
• While I was ideating, Bassam and John were incubating “Axonage” which became Avado’s technology. They needed a “business guy” (I guess they didn’t want my COBOL skills) and I needed a product team. After getting introduced and getting to know each other, we teamed up. I couldn’t have asked for better people to go through the wild ride that a startup is all about. [Thanks Katie Thompson for introducing us!]
• A random call with the Executive Editor of TechCrunch about an article I was writing led to him asking about my “stealth mode” startup. Long story short, we became a TechCrunch Disrupt finalist. Two minutes before we went on stage before thousands of people, our datacenter crashed. As we were walking up the steps to demo, the site came back up. I was warming up my tap dance shoes up until that moment.
• Building out an amazing team was one of the best parts of the last 5 years. While I may have a lot of Twitter “followers”, Bassam has a lot of real world “followers” who love working with him. I understand why. We were lucky to hire amazingly talented developers, testers, architects and business people. When it’s all said and done, working with a great team will be the most memorable part of me.
• The extension of the team was the "family" of Healthcare Transformers that was fantastic to be a part of thanks to being one of the early entrants in StartUp Health. Not only was Unity, Steve, Polina and the staff of StartUp Health a great help, the network of startup co-founder peers was invaluable. I attribute all our AngelList fundraising success as a result of tapping the peer network for how to have a successful AngelList campaign.
• It’s still funny to me that some people perceive me as a writer (writing was torture for me in my schooling as a math/science guy). It was humbling when I was asked to co-write the seminal book on patient engagement that HIMSS published and when it won the book of the year. Even more so when I was stunned to find myself on a list of top influencers in healthcare. That would be meaningless if the “influence” didn’t change things. Coincidentally, before I had a chance to send this today I got a call from a leading pharma company that is strategically reorganizing into what they call divisions organized around patient value (rather than products/brands). Apparently, my most read ever article had a significant influence on them. I can’t go into confidential details but it’s incredibly gratifying when I hear the stories like this that come in more than I ever would have imagined. The initial reason I wrote was it was simply an efficient way of doing Customer Discovery. Short of the president, it gave me carte blanche to speak with any executive or policy maker I wanted.
• One day, I picked up a cold call from a New York area code. Ex CEO and current board member, Kevin Cameron, was on the other end of the line. Thus began a courtship that went on for awhile. I joked my wife’s 48 hour labor with our first child prepared me well. Nick Altebrando was and is instrumental in bringing us into the fold. I haven’t worked with anyone else at WebMD that is stronger than Nick. His understated manner may cause some to under-estimate his value to the organization. That would be a mistake.
• The winner of the best industry repartee is Matthew Holt of Health 2.0 fame. He’s had some of the best barbs headed my way. As one who doesn’t mind some verbal jousting done in fun, it’s been fun to be on the receiving end of his crotchety, Old (and I do mean old!) English humor. He’s given me the most LOL moments of anyone.
• I made a lot of friends inside WebMD. I have particular fondness for a group that many outside WebMD don’t know exists — Medscape Education. I believe I heard they did 60% of all online CME which is roughly 30% of all CME. I’d argue that the industry has never needed more re-tooling with all the new demands. Perhaps even more exciting was the opportunity to help launch WebMD Education. The reality is most care that is "delivered" is self-care and care provided by non-professional caregivers. Helping launch WebMD Education was a great experience and speaks directly to the challenges Pew Research and Susannah Fox have highlighted. I think the Medscape/WebMD Education team are unsung heroes. I enjoyed working with Chris, Rej, Howard and the rest of the Education team.
• WebMD has an incredible brand and huge reach so it’s particularly gratifying to see the technology we conceived of at Avado play such a foundational role in the Company’s connectivity offerings. I’m particularly proud of the work we did to build the foundation of a universal sign-in system, enhance the Physician Directory, and help WebMD establish a stronger industry presence. Years before the Avado acquisition, I called WebMD the top “patient portal” (over little-used EHR patient portals). I had a chance to see the traffic reports in a market like Seattle — it’s stunning how more than half the population of some cities visits at least once per month. As healthcare shifts from a B2B to B2C market, I’m surprised that more health systems aren’t taking advantage of WebMD’s reach and brand halo. You’d be amazed at the high percentage of consumers who make an appointment after visiting WebMD. It is truly the consumer gateway to engaging with the provider community.
• When WebMD acquired Avado back in October 2013, I committed to do everything I could to help the company accelerate its connectivity strategy. Sixteen months later, Avado’s technologies are foundational to those efforts, and the team is being more deeply integrated within WebMD.
• None of this would have been possible without incredible support from my amazing wife, Coleen, and my kids. My daughter is still baffled why anyone would want to follow me on Twitter with the boring stuff I post. She still supports me nonetheless.

Arrivederci WebMD! [I’m headed to Italy for a couple weeks at the end of the month] With your ubiquity, I look forward to teaming up in the future.

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This will be my Out of Office Message later this month: "I'm off the grid and out of the country until April 15. I will get back to you shortly after my return so please be patient."

Or if you prefer, I have some alternative out-of-office messages below...

• I am currently out of the office at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Please be prepared for my mood.
• You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn't have received anything at all.
• I will be unable to delete all the emails you send me until I return from vacation. Please be patient, and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.
• Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for the first 10 words and $1.99 for each additional word in your message.
• The email server is unable to verify your server connection. Your message has not been delivered. Please restart your computer and try sending again. (The beauty of this is that when you return, you can see who did this over and over and over....)
• Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queuing system. You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks.
• Hi, I'm thinking about what you've just sent me. Please wait by your PC for my response.
• I've run away to join a different circus.