The People behind Healthcare Innovation: interview with Dor Skuler, CEO and Co-Founder of Intuition Robotics

As part of our work, we have the privilege to speak with many inspiring innovators. Although the business community usually focuses on companies, pitches, and valuations—and less on the innovator—we thought it would be interesting to learn a bit more about the people behind healthcare innovation. In this series, we’re sharing some of our conversations with innovators in a condensed format to gain insights into their experience, their opinions, and their learnings.

The latest conversation is with Dor Skuler, CEO and Co-founder of Intuition Robotics, creators of an AI-powered social robot designed to keep older adults active and engaged.

Gila: What’s your story and how did you become an innovator in healthcare?

Dor: We got into healthcare somewhat unexpectedly when we started this company—although we knew there was a healthcare component to what we wanted to do, we didn’t know it would be a direct play. Ultimately, we founded this company to help older people remain happy and independent as they age. 90 percent of older adults would prefer to live at home, but there can be many challenges and safety concerns as people age in their own residences. We understood that loneliness and social isolation was (and still is) one of the biggest issues that older people have to deal with, and there hadn’t really been any notable innovations in that area. As we began working with older adults and the surrounding ecosystem over the past five years, we found that the impact we were making also had a direct tie-in with healthcare.

Gila: Where do you see elderly care moving to over the next ten years?

Older adults are living with some of the most advanced technology out there.

Dor: If you go to an elder’s home today, you’ll likely find there aren’t many technologies deployed there at all. We tend to think of seniors as late adopters of technology: look at the level of internet adoption, their use of digital tools or e-commerce, and so on. But I think that’s going to flip—particularly because there is an acute problem with elder care, and technology can solve a lot of the problems—so you’ll see some of the early adopters of the latest technology actually being older adults. ?

You can see this with the product we build. Called ElliQ, it’s the first companion robot for older adults on the market. It’s a proactive digital companion that lives with you and keeps you company throughout the day. It initiates conversations, asks you how you’re doing, builds context, and offers support in every aspect of life. It can connect you to your doctor and help with healthcare, mobility and food-security needs, or keep you connected to your family, loved ones, and caregivers. Having a friendly presence (which some equate to that of a roommate) that offers advice, humor and companionship has proven to reduce loneliness. ?

Who would have thought that the first people to deploy genuinely proactive, character-based AI with a cognitive ability would be our elders? Yet that’s exactly what we’re seeing. Older adults are living with some of the most advanced technology out there.

Gila: Looking more broadly, what are the biggest opportunities and obstacles you see for innovation within the healthcare environment?

Dor: I think there’s a problem with there being a lot of point solutions out there (whether for monitoring or interventions). Most people, especially seniors, are not going to deploy bespoke solutions, use each one independently, and then connect it back to the payer, provider, or others in the ecosystem. That’s just not going to happen. ?

The biggest problem is not with the point solutions. It is with bringing everything together and working within context. If you have a holistic understanding of what’s going on with the individual, then you can instigate the right monitoring capabilities, encourage the right behavior change, and present a well-rounded and accurate picture to their physicians. ?

I think what we’re starting to see now is a lot of point solutions in the home, but they’re completely disconnected (also on the physician side). None of them offer enough value to move the needle alone, so it’s important to have a home health hub. Users need to know how to operate this hub, and it needs to create context around what they’re going through, build trust and also understand how to tap into the data, interpret it and know what to push forward on the other side. Having much more integration on the provider-payer side would allow us to harness a lot of the innovations that are coming down the road.?

I'll touch on one more opportunity that we think is incredibly important. People are increasingly realizing that this is not just about traditional healthcare. There are all the wellness aspects to consider, physical exercise, stress reduction, food security, meeting people’s mobility needs, creating social connections between individuals dealing with loneliness—all the areas you could call “social determinants of health.” Wellness has a tremendous impact on overall health outcomes and the cost of delivering care.

Gila: When you look at the health system as a whole (pharma, providers, payers, doctors, patients) who do you see driving innovation the most??

Dor: Today’s earliest adopters of innovation are the patients. Clearly, there are other pockets, but the healthcare system is so fragmented: you have tech-enabled providers; you have tech-enabled, value-based care primary care also adopting technology relatively quickly. But in terms of a willingness to try new things… Let me put it this way: we find it much easier to change the behavior of an 80- or 90-year-old who hasn’t ever used technology, than to change the behavior of their physician.

Gila: How has COVID-19 affected receptiveness for innovation in healthcare?

I think we have all come to an understanding: all of us have felt—whether we’re old or young—what it’s like to be alone during lockdowns and quarantine. I think this has created awareness, so loneliness is now an acceptable topic to talk about and deal with.

Dor: Over the course of the pandemic, we’ve seen the devastating effect that loneliness can have - in general, but particularly on the older adult population. Since ElliQ was designed to enter the home as an intervention for loneliness and social isolation, our users have shared just how important it was for them during the pandemic, how they didn’t feel alone. They felt like they were able to talk about their lives and somebody was with them, acknowledging them, asking them how they’re doing, caring for them, teaching them new things, and so on. ?

I think this has led to something really, really important that will be long lasting, by bringing the topic of loneliness and isolation out into the open. When we were talking to older adults and their caregivers prior to COVID-19, this topic of loneliness and isolation was kind of taboo. It was there in the background, but it wasn’t discussed openly. Now when we ask customers about their primary reasons for looking at the product, one of them is: “I want somebody to keep me company; I want to be motivated to get off the couch and take care of my own health and wellness. And I want somebody to say good morning to me.” I think we have all come to an understanding: all of us have felt—whether we’re old or young—what it’s like to be alone during lockdowns and quarantine. I think this has created awareness, so loneliness is now an acceptable topic to talk about and deal with.?

Gila: The COVID-19 crisis has raised further awareness on health equity issues. What role (if any) do you think innovators should or could play to address health inequities??

I hope that the lesson for innovators is that, if you really want to look at equality and healthcare, it’s not just about the racial and demographic or economic disparities; it’s also about making technology accessible to everyone

Dor: I think we need to widen our perspective a little bit. In general, before the pandemic, when we talked about health inequalities, we would often look at racial disparities or income disparities, but we wouldn’t so much consider the technology divide. I think with COVID-19, we all saw that if people were less able to navigate technology products, they were left behind. I hope that the lesson for innovators is that, if you really want to look at equality and healthcare, it’s not just about the racial and demographic or economic disparities; it’s also about making technology accessible to everyone, making it, dare I say, “delightful” in healthcare. That will mean people having an equal opportunity to use technology, rather than just tech-savvy people being able to benefit from digital health solutions.?

Gila: What do you know now that you wish you had known when you were starting out as an innovator and entrepreneur???

Dor: You know, we make mistakes and learn lessons all the time. I would simply say having a comprehensive understanding of the barriers to entry into healthcare. Perhaps somewhat naively, I thought at first that, if you have a solution that meets a need in a very unambiguous way and patients say that they feel better, that they’re healthier, that they’re happier, that they have a more positive outlook on life, then integrating it into the healthcare system would be relatively straightforward. It turns out that there are no shortcuts in healthcare. You have to do the clinical trials; you have to have the longitudinal data; you have to create control groups; you have to do the ROI analysis and actually model it. In retrospect, if we would have understood that fully, we probably would have started working on those aspects earlier than we did.?

Secondly, I see a lack of innovators entering the senior care space and I really think that’s a shame. Not only from an altruistic perspective, but because financially speaking, there is a major growth pocket in healthcare. Medicare Advantage is expected to reach $590 billion by 2025. And while I see lots of innovation in other spaces, I see few technologies being built for the elderly—those built on an understanding of the problems they face, really thinking it through from a usability and design perspective and bringing forward products that are delightful and fun but also serve an important purpose. ?

So, for any founder or prospective innovator reading this, I would recommend considering this space. There’s a lot of room to do good, to be successful, and we need more of you to enter this area. Even compete with us; that’s OK: there’s more than enough to go around because there are hundreds of millions of people who need your innovation.

For more info see Dor Skuler , Intuition Robotics , and ElliQ .

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and the guest contributor and do not reflect the views of McKinsey & Company.