Transforming Healthcare Access: Navigating Challenges and Unlocking Data with Particle Health's Troy Bannister

In this episode, Meg is joined by Troy Bannister, the co-founder and chief strategy officer at Particle Health. Particle Health is a company revolutionizing the accessibility, sharing, and utilization of healthcare data to simplify navigation for patients and healthcare providers. Troy shares his inspiration behind starting Particle Health and dives into the challenges and strategies the company employed to navigate regulatory compliance and foster successful partnerships in the highly regulated healthcare industry.

The conversation delves into the importance of caring passionately about the mission, overcoming setbacks, and the role of partnerships in achieving Particle Health's mission. Troy provides insights into the evolving landscape of healthcare data sharing, emphasizing the potential for emerging trends and technologies to democratize healthcare data, leading to increased innovation and benefits for individuals.

This episode provides valuable insights into the challenges, strategies, and future trends in healthcare data access and innovation, making it a must-listen for those interested in the intersection of technology and healthcare. Connect with Troy on LinkedIn for further discussions and updates.

https://www.particlehealth.com/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/troy-bannister-259a3235/ 

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https://www.qualio.com/

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https://www.qualio.com/from-lab-to-launch-podcast

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Music by keldez

Transcript

Meg Sinclair: 0:17

Hi everyone. And thanks for tuning in to, from lab to launch by Qualio. I'm Meg, your host, glad to be here and really excited for today's episode. Really quick before bringing on our guest today, we'd love it. If you'd rate the podcast, it's easy to do and share with any of your science or nerd friends. We know you have some, if you'd like to be on the show, please see the show notes for an application. And we'll get connected that way today. We're excited to have Troy Banister, co founder and chief strategy officer at Particle Health. Particle Health is a company that's revolutionizing the way healthcare data is accessed, shared, and utilized, making it easier for both patients and healthcare providers to navigate the complex world of medical information. You can read more about Troy and the Particle Health in the show notes. So let's get to it. Welcome to From Lab to Launch, Troy.

Troy Bannister: 1:09

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Great.

Meg Sinclair: 1:11

So to start us off, Troy, what inspired you to start Particle Health?

Troy Bannister: 1:15

Oh, man. Um It was a, it was a mix of a few different things. I think, um, going way back, uh, when I was in college, I was an EMT, and I worked in an ambulance, and, um, it was kind of amazing to me that, you know, I'd pick up a patient, I'd know nothing about them, um, I'd drop them off at the hospital, they'd know nothing about them. And they'd start, you know, pushing drugs or, you know, X, Y, Z, um, and you just think that there might be a computer in the ambulance or a computer at the hospital that would be able to look up your medical history and we've all experienced this, right? When you walk into a new doctor office, but you think like a massive hospital with all the latest tech would have something, but it just didn't. And that was a big surprise to me. And this was, you know, maybe 15 years ago, um, I ended up going to medical school and again, this was like over and over again, I kept seeing collect the entire patient history, right? Um, why it shouldn't be there. Um, it shouldn't be a problem. And then I think the boiling point for me. Um, was when I was actually I was working with entrepreneurs and health care for a while as a venture capital, and none of them had a solution to this either. But when I was in San Francisco for a conference, I saw Joe Biden speak. Um, he was actually the vice president at the time. So it was a while ago, and he was talking about his son, um, Bo, who had brain cancer. Actually passed away from brain cancer a while ago. Um, when he was the acting vice president, he couldn't get his own son's medical records from hospital A to hospital B. And that was mind boggling to me that the acting vice president of the United States couldn't get his son's medical records from A to B. Um, and so I, I kind of became obsessed with the problem for a while. I was like, how is

Meg Sinclair: 2:56

this, how

Troy Bannister: 2:56

is this possible? Um, and this, the answers are, you know, pretty complicated. But, um, It was something that I decided was worth spending a giant chunk of my life and a lot of energy solving. So I just jumped in blindly and started particle. Wow.

Meg Sinclair: 3:12

What an inspiration. Um, from EMT to a conference to, um, yeah, here you are at particle. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so the life science and healthcare industries are, as we know it, highly regulated industries. Um, and we here at quality, I know this all too well because we provide quality management software. How have you navigated the regulatory challenges and compliance requirements while pushing the boundaries of innovation at particle health?

Troy Bannister: 3:39

So I actually am a believer that highly regulated industries, if you get to understand them really, really well provide opportunities. It's not that you're not allowed to share a medical record from A to B. It's that there's a hundred rules about how you share a medical record from A to B. So if you understand those rules, then you can build. technology that can solve for those things. So in the United States, for example, there's a rule called the patient right of access, which means a patient, any patient, the United States has the right to access their own medical records upon request. And so that is a legally binding, right, um, uh, authorization that can essentially force data out of any covered entity. And get that data to where that person wants it to go and understand, like, how to utilize those rules and how to leverage those rules to give power back to the consumer, um, is kind of like the thesis behind particle at its core. Um, it just so happened that around the time I was starting particle and I kind of knew about this, but not as it wasn't going to, it wasn't as I didn't know it to be as profound. Founders that ended up being was these two new regulations that were forcing data liquidity in health care. One is called the anti information blocking rule. And like it sounds, it says, hey, those organizations out there that have all that patient data, you're not allowed to block access anymore. It's very prescriptive against blocking data. Um, and there's big models, monetary fines if you do, if you are found out to be blocking access to data. And then another rule is just starting right now, um, called TEFCA. It's, um, T E F C A and it stands for the Trusted Exchange Framework. In common agreement. And this is creating a standardized way of sharing data across the United States, both in like the data standards and in the exchange methodologies, also in the legal agreements between entities sharing. So without going too deep into the regulations, there's there's a lot of it out there. But once you dive into it and start to really think about Utilizing the rules and the regulations, it becomes a superpower. And so that was, that was how we thought about it at Particle. I love that. Regulations

Meg Sinclair: 5:43

as a superpower. I guess so. Yeah, I like that. Um, so thinking about more about the world of healthcare and technology, partnerships and collaborations are crucial, especially, I imagine, for Particle. Can you share some strategy, strategies you've used to build successful partnerships with other healthcare organizations?

Troy Bannister: 6:04

Yeah, so ours is interesting, right, in that we think of the world in two sides. There's the data holders. Um, these are, you know, it could either be a hospital system or an electronic medical record vendor. Um, and then there's data seekers, and these are, it also could be an EMR or, or a hospital. But, um, we found more often it's typically a, a newer incumbent, whether it's like a telemedicine company, for example, right? They don't really have the, you know, 30 years of experience of, of building and, and partnering. So they're, they're relatively new to the market. They want access to clinical records because when you show up on a telemedicine call, they want to know what meds you're on. So they can be better at prescribing safe drugs, for example. Um, so how do you get the data holder to give data to the data seeker? And in our world, the data holders do not want to release data to the data seekers. It's very valuable to them. It exposes risks to them. There's a lot of reasons why they don't want to share. Um, so we had to use the regulations and the new rules and policies that the government was rolling out to get access to the data, and then we would package that up into a product and sell that to the data seekers. Um, then there's the question of, okay, we have EMR data that we're sharing, but what about pharmacy data? What about claims data? What about all the other types of healthcare data that are required to run a successful business? Those had to be partnerships as well. So, um, I think the way that we think about partnerships and is in more of a give and take sense and that there are groups that need to share it and there are groups that need to have it. And so how do we build those incentives? Um, in a, in a product that aligns everybody in the right way, that could be revenue share. It could be whatever, um, but you have to have those incentives aligned, or you're just not going to make it happen.

Meg Sinclair: 7:50

And how have making those partnerships helped accelerate your mission at Particle Health?

Troy Bannister: 7:57

Well, I mean, without the partnerships, we'd have nothing, right? Because we are, we are the, the. The, um, platform in the middle, we are the, the, the pipes between the data holders and the data seekers. So that was, that's the hardest part, right? Like, how do you, today we have access to about 320 million Americans medical records. So pretty much everybody, but you don't just get that on day one, you have to build it up and up and up. So we had to kind of look for the highest. Entities on the food chain that could get us the farthest the fastest with one with one swipe. Um, and that took a while to figure out. Um, first we thought maybe we'd go hospital hospital practice to practice clinic to clinic. No, not a chance. Um, there's just too many and they don't get it. They don't want to. Then we thought we'd go state to state. There's state health information exchanges that we could go partner with. Those were really difficult to work with, too. So then finally, we kind of said, let's just go from a national perspective and try that. And that worked really well. Interesting.

Meg Sinclair: 8:54

I would think the local ones would be easier, but yeah, interesting that that was not your,

Troy Bannister: 9:01

your. Yeah, I think what's what's interesting is as you go down right from federal to state to local, you get another layer of of regulations and policies, right? There's a federal. rule, HIPAA, we all know HIPAA, every state has their own privacy framework, and then every organization in that state has their own local policies and practices and regulations. So the farther you go down, the more layers of reasons to say no.

Meg Sinclair: 9:32

Oh, these regulated industries. I know. Um, so this is speaking of more, uh, data security and privacy, um, patient privacy. Those are paramount here in healthcare. What steps have you taken to ensure the trust of both patients and those healthcare providers, those data owners, data seekers, in your data sharing platform?

Troy Bannister: 9:52

Yeah, it's interesting because it's not, we don't debate this very much at Particle because the answer is always what's the maximum we can possibly do? Like when you just have, we just have to, right? Um, so, you know, it's all the basics, like all data is encrypted at storage and transit. It's all that fun stuff. Then there's all the certifications that we did. We did SOC 2. We did HITRUST, which is a healthcare specific security standard, which is a huge one. Um, and then there's all the extra stuff on top of that that isn't even required by HITRUST, but we do anyway. Um, like for some of our customers, we just delete the data. Like, there's no risk if we don't hold it. We just delete it. Um, so there's things extra. The things we do, um, on top of even the industry standard, um, you know, platinum gold standards for sure. Going

Meg Sinclair: 10:36

above and beyond. It sounds like particles gold

Troy Bannister: 10:38

there. Great. Yeah. We just, we just can't risk it. You just, that's just not a game you want to play. Indeed.

Meg Sinclair: 10:46

Yeah. So the journey of a founder is often filled with ups and downs. Can you discuss a significant challenge or setback you faced while building particle health and how you overcame it?

Troy Bannister: 10:58

Yeah. Um, okay. So here's a funny one. I don't know if I should name names, but, um, there was, so I mentioned earlier, the question for us was how do we go get everybody's medical records, right, and make an API for them. Um, and, and the big challenge was who, you know, we can't go do this on our own as a small startup with very limited amount of cash runway, we have to go, we have to go find somebody that can, where we can work with. And so we went to a vendor who will not be named and we worked with that vendor. Um, they were all, they were a web app. Um, and so they kind of had like. It was basically an E. M. R. In the cloud, like a doctor would log into it. And in that E. H. R. You could type in someone's name, date of birth, address, phone number. Click search, wait, you know, maybe two minutes, three minutes, four minutes. And then the records would pop up from around the country. And it was a cool product. Our thesis had always been doctors. Don't want a new web app, a new workflow to, to go to. They need to be embedded in their existing workflow. So we were always been API first. So we went to this group and we said, we're going to build an API, you know, parallel to your web app. You can sell it. We can sell it, you know, whatever. So we built the, we did the integration. It took us a long time as our first, like real implementation as a small team with. Two engineers at the time. Um, yeah. Oh yeah. We were tiny. Um, we did the implementation, we built the API, we got our first customer and I actually remember we were up all night, several nights because we would get a list of patients from them that they wanted us to pull records on so that when those patients showed up at their appointments the next day, the doctor would have. The medical history is on hand to treat those patients with and we were up all night typing those patients names into the through the API, downloading the data and getting into our customer system. And we had to do it all night. So we like order p. It's a, and we're drinking like Coca Cola at like 3 a. m. Like over and over again, typing, typing, double checking. We had a whole process in place to double check. It was the right record, all that stuff. Um, and then I think maybe a week into our customers, you know, implementation, we got a cease and desist letter from that vendor that we were connected with. And they said, you're stealing our business. We're going to build an API now you can bugger off. And so we were just left devastated after, you know, spending three, four months implementing, building our own API. And, um, and eating pizza at 3 a. m. And eating pizza at 3 a. m. And now we had no product and a customer that wanted a product. So we had to start from scratch. Um, the good news was we learned how they did it through that exercise. So we, we were able to kind of go piece it back together ourselves. Well, I'm glad that you

Meg Sinclair: 13:30

hung on and hopefully there haven't been too many more 3am pizza nights for you and the team since then.

Troy Bannister: 13:36

None work related. Okay. Well, that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

Meg Sinclair: 13:43

so on that note, what advice would you offer other founders who are dealing with similar challenges or just starting out?

Troy Bannister: 13:50

I mean, I think one of the greatest lessons. Since I learned, and I think the reason we got Particle to where it is today is because I actually gave a lot of, I'm not going to swear. I cared a lot. I cared a lot about the problem. And in the worst moments, I would wake up earlier, not because I thought I had to, because I just did. And I would work extra and I'd work hard and I'd make sure the right person was on the right call. We got the outcome that we needed. And it was just because I cared a lot. And so I think founders know what they have to do. Not like you, you typically don't know the right answer. I think deep down, you typically do know the right answer. It just means you have to work really, really, really hard and try really, really hard to make it happen. And if you, if you do that, you're successful. And I think that is the biggest difference between successful and unsuccessful founders is the ones that really care. And when I say care, it can be about the mission. It can be about the people that work for you. It can be about your customers. Um, it can be about money. Like if you just want to make it, if you really want to make a ton of money, Then you might wake. Couple early and try, but that's the thing that that really got me on the line. I really cared about the mission I really did so I would wake up early and try really really hard for a long time. It almost killed me. I'm gray hairs You can't tell cuz I'm blonde, but I got gray hairs in there That's just cuz I really cared so I think that's my greatest advice is if you're gonna start a company and you're gonna commit five six seven eight nine ten years of your life and and You know, it's either going to be a one or a zero typically, right? Either the company is successful and you find an exit, um, or it's unsuccessful and you don't. And so I think if you want to find that exit, you have to pick something you are truly passionate about. Um, otherwise you just don't have that extra oomph and the competitors beat you. That's great

Meg Sinclair: 15:35

advice. It's great advice for our new, our new founders out there. Yeah. Having that ethos behind what you're doing every day when you hit those lows is really great advice. I think that, that probably kept you going through this. Um, and I think there's a lot of people that struggle with that vendor and there's a

Troy Bannister: 15:52

lot of struggles. In the earlier, like I think around series a time range, you know, plus or minus six months around that, like there's just like constant issues, the markets falling apart or you're, you know, best employed leaves or your, your best customer, you know, quits on you. Like there's, there's always going to be a handful of these things. No one gets away with a perfect, perfect, you know, growth, uh, startup growth pattern. Um, so you just gotta, you know, they're there. I think like. The thing I always told the team is we are on a road and we're driving down the road. The road has potholes in it. Some of those potholes you're going to be able to swerve around. Some of them you're not. It's inevitable. You're gonna hit potholes. So what do you do when you hit a pothole? Do you pull over and get out of your car and quit? No, you like, you keep going. Um, you're on the road. You got to get to the end. It's just, it's, you're on the path.

Meg Sinclair: 16:43

Giving me flashbacks of the 710 freeway in Long Beach there. Lots of potholes there. Or here in Colorado for that matter. But

Troy Bannister: 16:50

you got home, right? You got home every day. Yeah,

Meg Sinclair: 16:53

yeah, I've called AAA once or twice, but yeah, most of the time I made it home, kept going, never gave up, um, always wondered what my tax dollars were

Troy Bannister: 17:03

doing, so. We call our board sometimes, you know.

Meg Sinclair: 17:07

Terrific. Well, looking to the future, what emerging trends or technologies in life sciences and the healthcare sector most

Troy Bannister: 17:14

excite you? Yeah, I mean, I'll speak, you know, into my world just because I know it so well. As regulation forces this data open, um, it creates these organizations that become kind of de facto data sharing networks and health care. We've never had data sharing networks and health care. And I think what's really interesting about it is it's looking a lot like the telecommunications act where. We now have AT& T Verizon and, you know, T Mobile or whatever, right? I think it's a great analogy where we're gonna have networks like that for healthcare data. Um, you know, we, we don't necessarily, a developer doesn't necessarily go to AT& T and build an app. They do it through a platform like iOS or Android, right? So what I think is gonna happen in healthcare, and this is Matt, is this will create insane amounts of innovation, I think, in healthcare, is these, these networks that are exchanging data, Will become utilities. They'll become commodities where data because they all have to do the same thing based on regulations. So the only thing they're gonna be able to compete on its price. So we're going to see price drop, you know, very, very quickly over the next couple of years on accessing patient medical histories and and clinical records. So what that means is we're going to have platforms built on top of these, these national networks that are going to create developer tool sets and developer, um. Um, communities and, you know, everything a developer needs to build a health care company. Um, and that means direct to consumer, it means to life sciences, pharma, it means to everybody. So, fast forward five years, patient data is going to be cheap, there's going to be these powerful platforms built on top of them, and the democratization of health care data is finally kind of realized. And that means we're going to have kind of this Cambrian explosion, I think, of health care innovations for the first time ever. The best analogy I can think of outside of this telecommunications one is plaid in the fintech space where all the banks were kind of. Conglomerated together under plaids API. And we saw companies like Venmo pop up for the first time. I don't even remember the world before Venmo, but what a convenient, I use it all the time, like what a convenient tool, because it was built for consumers. Um, there were ways to send money from your bank account to your friend's bank account, but it was built by the bank for the bank. It wasn't built by a developer for consumer. So once we get this, this cheap data and these powerful tools out of the box. People will build things for patients and for consumers in healthcare for, I think, truly for the first time ever, not for insurance companies, not for hospital systems, which everybody goes to because they have the money, but for, for individuals. And so I think that's what's right around the corner for us. And that's, that was, that is the most exciting thing I can think of in healthcare.

Meg Sinclair: 19:59

And what do you think patients will do with their health care data when it's democratized that way?

Troy Bannister: 20:04

I think this is the interesting thing, right? I think patients don't know what to do with their health care data, right? If you had all your health, all your records on your phone, okay, cool. What's, what's more valuable is an application that can tell you something to do. Right. So it's not you analyzing your own records and coming up with, you know, good things to do. It's an application or a tool saying based on your medical history and based on your insurance plan, here's the best for doctors in the area for you to go to based on their quality, based on their, um, you know, context to your conditions or medical history. You know that today we go on ZocDoc or whatever and we're like, you know, looking at, it's just like, there's no intelligent way to navigate the healthcare system today because it's not contextualized based on who you are as a person. That's just one example. There's probably, and I don't even think we've scratched the surface. Like when, when Plaid started, they'd never even heard of blockchain before, right? But now like all of crypto runs on Plaid. Um, and so that wasn't even on their radar when they started the company. So like, what will happen in healthcare? I have no idea. But there's a, we all know there's a lot of room for improvement. Yes,

Meg Sinclair: 21:13

lots of room for improvement. And I see if, if patients have access to this. Could public health have access to this and have some good predictive models for what could be coming and what we should be focusing preventive care actions that that primary interventions for so

Troy Bannister: 21:31

yeah, so public health is baked into the I'd mentioned Tefka earlier that new rule. It's a centerpiece of that where we're public health will have access to all of our records and probably the identified sense. But, um, I don't know.

Meg Sinclair: 21:45

Interesting. Very interesting. It's been a very fun conversation. So to close us out, our last question is more of a fun one. We'd love to ask each of our guests, if we ran into you at a bookstore or your local library, in which section would we find you?

Troy Bannister: 22:00

Hmm. Right now, probably sci fi. Okay. I think sci fi. I've been reading some sci fi books lately and I've been kind of on a little streak. You're very forward thinking.

Meg Sinclair: 22:14

So that doesn't surprise me.

Troy Bannister: 22:16

Maybe. Yeah. I find them. I find it interesting. Yeah.

Meg Sinclair: 22:20

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us on from lab to launch by polio today. Where can our listeners go to follow along and connect with you, Troy?

Troy Bannister: 22:29

LinkedIn is the best. I'm on LinkedIn all the time. So shoot me a message on LinkedIn. If you want to connect.

Meg Sinclair: 22:34

Great. We'll post that in the show notes. Thanks so much, Troy.

Troy Bannister: 22:37

Thank you.