A coffee with… Michael Rosenthal, CEO & founder, HRTC Technology

It was during his time processing insurance claims that HRTC Technology founder and CEO Michael Rosenthal was inspired to create a healthcare business. But speaking to TechInformed at the recent HIMSS conference, he revealed that he had always been attracted to the technical side of work.

What motivated you to start HRTC?

I was always passionate about solving problems and helping people. But I knew that just being one entity, one person, I could only do so much. I wanted to form an enterprise and a team to duplicate what I do and expand, then get out there and make a difference.

Take us on your start up journey…

I’ve always been a tinkerer, even as a kid. I went to college and got a computer information systems degree; I’ve always been geared towards technical skills, anything tech or math.

My journey in healthcare started with working for an insurance company processing claims. That’s where I learned about healthcare workflows — through how the billing was processed. But I learned a lot about healthcare because insurance companies work with the hospitals. They provide insurance for the patients.

It wasn’t my intent, but I knew then that it was where I wanted to be, in healthcare technology, because it’s an exciting world.

What challenges have you had to overcome?

Sometimes, the biggest challenge is trying to get through certain doors. I had learned what I needed to learn in school, had the certifications and all that, but then trying to get through the door of companies where you find yourself applying for a job and not receiving a call back, or they tell you you’re not qualified, that wasn’t easy all the time.

I overcame that by, number one, keeping a positive mindset all the time. And two, you know the old saying: closed mouths don’t get fed? Networking, going out to career events, to business events, going into any circles that might have any potential contact or resource, or any person I can tell who I am, what I do, that can help me get into a company.

What are the issues in the healthcare industry that HRTC is solving and how?

Providers need to make the most informed patient decisions. They need the most accurate patient data at their fingertips to enable them to make informed patient decisions. So right now, we have a lot of times that all of the different healthcare systems — there are many different healthcare systems — where the data is siloed so they don’t talk to each other.

When the provider doesn’t have access to that data in its entirety, it may not be able to make the most informed patient decision, or you might miss patient data. And that creates gaps in care. You have gaps in care due to the fact that you also have a high risk of inaccuracies and human error.

As far as costs, these can be increased due to the lack of data going in a cohesive way.

What HRTC’s technology addresses is bridging the gaps between patient data, and bringing it all together to the EHR (Electronic Health Record), in one single setting that the provider can access.

We can bring it all from multiple sources into the EHR so the provider can make the most important patient care decisions. And basically, that’s how we fill that gap. And there’s many different systems that talk in different languages. They have different architectures, and we streamline that data and bring it to the provider’s fingertips.

AI and automation are a big topic at this year’s HIMSS. What impact is AI having on HRTC  and how does it impact healthcare data exchange?

AI can definitely help with analysing and predicting possible patient disease ahead of time, and can help them with preventative medicine, because AI can actually trend the patient’s data, like lab data or any clinical data. That can be used to assist the provider in caring for the patient. And it also helps the provider more accurately treat the patient, and it eases provider burden. So those are some of the things that AI is doing, and we are incorporating some of those technologies into our service model and into our products that assist providers.

Where do you see interoperability in healthcare in five years?

I see it continuing to migrate towards the more modern, open integration standards. So what you will see is EHRs and integration platforms, their ability to talk to more platforms and more systems and more endpoints will expand due to the continued adoption of the newer standards, like HL7 FHIR (a standard for the secure exchange of healthcare data).

Those will allow more integration possibilities between more systems, which is going to bring more information to the provider and the patient’s fingertips. In the next five years, as we see the introduction of more standards and the increasing [adoption of] AI, this will help to enhance the efficiency of integration and interoperability.

What motivates you to continue doing what you do?

I love making an impact on the world. At the end of the day, patient care is behind everything that we do. No matter what we’re building, what we’re designing, what we’re coding, we know at the end of the day it’s going to help save lives, help to enhance patient care and help to make the world a better place. That is what we get up in the morning. That’s our passion, and we’ll continue to do that.

How do you take your coffee?

I love a good cappuccino with oat milk, and some brown sugar.

Other than caffeine, how do you recharge?

Having me time—free time to think, just time with myself, just by myself, to just relax, be away from people. I am an introvert, so my battery can drain quite a bit from talking to so many people. But once I need to recharge, I just go into my private space and relax.

Read more: A coffee with…Caspar Lee, partner & co-founder, Creator Ventures