By: Lauren Hatcher
Nashville’s Healthcare Ecosystem
At the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, we like to say that Nashville is more than just Music City. At its heart, Nashville is all about music and healthcare, which is why it’s also known as “the” Health Services Capital in the country. While it started out as a hospital town with the creation of HCA Healthcare, Nashville companies are now disrupting every sector of the industry.
Nashville’s vibrant and collaborative culture attracts innovators and disruptors, and programs like Project Healthcare provide the resources and support for those individuals to succeed. It’s no wonder that over 500 healthcare companies (17 of which are publicly traded) call Nashville home. There is something tangible about being a part of the healthcare ecosystem in Nashville, making it the perfect city to host ViVE 2023. Whether an investor, entrepreneur, provider, marketer, or seasoned healthcare executive, the ViVE conference was a place to learn, grow, and be inspired to move the needle in healthcare.
ViVE Brings a Fresh Perspective to Healthcare
As a medical trainee at Vanderbilt University, my ViVE takeaways are likely unique because I have a specific lens through which I view healthcare. My training has taught me to think about healthcare as the four walls of the hospital or clinic, the patient, and the care team. The rest – the revenue cycle, compliance, data analytics, workforce retention, and cost reduction – is new to me. (Newsflash: they don’t teach you healthcare in medical school – they teach you medicine, and those two things are distinct.) One of my goals in attending ViVE was to continue learning about what healthcare is beyond just patient care.
Healthcare is indeed much more than what my medical training has taught me. Healthcare is Liz Ashall-Payne developing national standards for safe digital health technology through ORCHA. It’s Dr. Adam Silverman training AI on why patients call hospitals to automate and improve this experience with Syllable.ai. It’s Taylor McPartland helping innovators implement their solutions through ScaleHealth. For front-line workers that are overwhelmed by burnout and problems seemingly too complex to solve, these companies, and many more that were present at ViVE, offer hope to those of us that often feel like working in healthcare is a losing game.
My Key Takeaways
As an aspiring entrepreneur and a medical trainee, my takeaways from ViVE are the following:
- If you are a provider, plug in to the ecosystem, and do it before you burn out. Being a part of the progress in healthcare is a way to help your patients in a unique way and protect you from developing a tainted view of healthcare delivery.
- If you are on the business side of healthcare, figure out how to describe what you do in simple terms. The most inspiring companies at ViVE could describe their mission and their impact quickly and in a way that makes others want to be involved. To get others on board, always communicate how you are simplifying the industry or benefiting patients.
- Big businesses can be built on simple value propositions. As Bobby Frist, Founder and CEO of HealthStream emphasized, “The simpler your business model, the faster you will grow.”
- Know your customer. For Bennett Graham, the President of Main Street Health, this means that their company is built on the notion that rural healthcare is relational. For Keith Fernandez, Chief Clinical Officer of Privia Health, this means that they ensure that a practice is fully engaged prior to assisting them in taking on risk. The successful companies at ViVE all had this in common: they know who they serve and what they need.
- Healthcare is a team sport. Work alone as a provider or an innovator, and you won’t make it far. Join the Nashville ecosystem, and see you at ViVE 2024!
