What is the one word that springs to our mind when we think of digital technology?
For many, it’s connectivity. If there’s one thing the digital revolution has successfully been able to do, it is to bring the world closer together as a single community. That has certainly been the case for my business partner, Laura Bourdeanu, and I. We started our digital healthcare company, OncoGambit, while living half way across the country from each other. For us, there is no doubt that connectivity is vital to keeping our work-from-home business running smoothly!
Improved Communication
Communication is the key to the success of any business endeavor! That stands true for the healthcare business as well. Running a successful organization that helps cancer patients on a daily basis requires constant communication. It requires daily meetings, conferences, and interviews. Without today’s technology, it would have been impossible, but it isn’t.
Digital connectivity allows us to communicate with each other from thousands of miles apart. My partner Laura works from her home in San Antonio, Texas, and I work from my home in Pasadena, California, but it feels like we are in the same office! Technology allows us to bridge the physical differences on a daily basis. It helps us share concerns, identify problems, develop solutions, implement them, and evaluate the output. It keeps the innovation cycle running.
Our story
The formation of OncoGambit, and its subsequent success, is proof of the power of digital connectivity in improving the healthcare service delivery. Digital innovation in healthcare is all about identifying problems and working together to develop solutions.
The experience of working with cancer patients on a daily basis, and a shared passion of improving access to healthcare for those patients, helped us in the innovation process. It helped Laura and I correctly identify the problem which, in this case, was the lack of available treatment information for many.
When it comes to working together to create solutions for the patients, that’s when we felt the true impact of digital connectivity on improving the standards of healthcare. Without access to digital technology for both of us, OncoGambit would not exist. We would not have been able to co-found the business and work on it daily together while being thousands of miles apart. We certainly attribute technology to the reason we were able to have the opportunity to develop the first-ever online personalized cancer treatment website as well as the software behind the site which aggregates the treatment recommendations from multiple national guidelines agreed upon by 1100+ cancer experts.
This technology allowed us to improve the experience of thousands of cancer patients when it comes to access to healthcare delivery. It also directly helped improve patient survival rate.
The Work from Home Experience
Digital technology has allowed OncoGambit to hire top talent with no geographic limits and has put OncoGambit on the map on a national scale!
While I personally feared being lonely or left out working from home, I’ve found quite the opposite to be true. With the huge range of communication tools available now, I find that we not only communicate more frequently but we have a little fun together with features like emojis and video chats. Working from home has afforded me a less stressful environment, a quieter atmosphere, and no long commutes or traffic. I also feel we are more productive without the distractions of everyone being physically around you all the time. We are able to refine our ideas or concerns which helps save time. Most importantly, digital connectivity helped bring together two people with shared passions to create an unlikely business partnership.
About OncoGambit:
OncoGambit. fills a BIG gap in the healthcare system by aggregating up-to-date information / studies from 1100+ cancer professionals onto their website. Its state-of-the-art web-based platform allows patients to compare and confirm customized treatment recommendations in real-time with the recommendations of their doctors. It saves patients time and money in getting multiple opinions so they can feel confident in starting their treatment as soon as possible, and focus their energy on recovery. OncoGambit was developed by two female entrepreneurs from the oncology world: (Dr. TheHang (Hannah) Luu, MD & Laura Bourdeanu, NP, PhD.
