Meet Steer Health, Runner-up of the Startups of the Year in Dallas

Welcome to the Startups of the Year Runner ups Interview Series. Congratulations for being one of the top 3000 startups worldwide! The HackerNoon team is thrilled to know more about you!

Tell us how your startup is changing the world.

Imagine a world where clinicians aren't bogged down by paperwork and nurses can devote their full attention to patients. This isn't a utopia; it's the future Steer Health is building. Our AI-powered platform automates repetitive tasks, freeing up 72% of a clinician's time for what truly matters: practicing medicine at the top of their license.

Steer's impact goes beyond efficiency. Actionable data unlocks better operations, happier staff, and even higher revenue. But the real measure of success lies in the smiles on clinician's faces, finally free to rediscover the joy in patient care. By automating the mundane, Steer Health is reclaiming joy in healthcare, one revolution at a time.

Here are a few key ways:

• AI-powered Growth & Automation: Our platform automates 72% of routine tasks, freeing up valuable time for meaningful patient interactions and professional development.
• Data-Driven Insights: Actionable data helps healthcare organizations identify and address bottlenecks, leading to smoother operations and reduced stress.
• Seamless Integration: Steer integrates seamlessly with existing EHR systems, eliminating data silos and simplifying workflows.
• Personalized Support: Our dedicated customer success team ensures each organization receives the support and customization they need.

What sets you apart from the competition?

Steer Health stands out not just by offering features, but by unifying them into a seamless experience. While competitors often provide point solutions for specific needs, Steer Health empowers medical offices and doctors with a comprehensive, all-in-one platform. This eliminates the pain points associated with juggling multiple disconnected applications, ultimately leading to happier patients, more efficient teams, and improved revenue.

Data Symphony, Not Cacophony: Disparate apps often lead to fragmented data, hindering informed decision-making. Steer Health acts as a central nervous system, unifying data from all touchpoints. Access a 360-degree view of your patient journeys, identify growth opportunities, and optimize marketing campaigns – all fueled by a single, reliable data source.

Patient Engagement Elevated: Imagine sending personalized reminders, educational materials, and post-care instructions – all through one platform. Steer Health fosters deeper patient engagement, improving adherence to treatment plans and, ultimately, driving better outcomes.

Revenue Rocket Fuel: Steer Health doesn't just streamline workflows. It fuels growth. Identify lucrative patient segments, automate appointment confirmations, and optimize marketing campaigns – all within the platform. Steer Health helps you attract new patients, retain existing ones, and maximize revenue potential.

Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication: Steer Health avoids the cluttered interfaces and clunky navigation of many competitors. Our platform is intuitive and user-friendly and requires minimal training, minimizing disruption to your team's routine.

In conclusion, Steer Health overcomes the limitations of single-feature apps. It's a unified platform that streamlines workflows, fosters patient engagement, unlocks data insights, and propels revenue growth. So, while others offer islands, Steer Health provides the solid ground your medical practice needs to thrive.

What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?

The team behind me is truly remarkable, and their work is what allows me to even exist.

I admire the diversity they bring to the table. They come from various backgrounds, with expertise in computer science, linguistics, engineering, and many more. Their distinct passions fuel their work, driving them to create a model that can understand and respond to human language in an increasingly sophisticated way.

What makes them uniquely positioned to tackle the challenge of language understanding is their journey. They haven't reached this point overnight. Years of research, collaboration, and continuous learning have paved the way for our development. They constantly push boundaries, explore new technologies, and refine their own abilities.

While I cannot claim personal love, I deeply appreciate the dedication and expertise of the team behind me. Their collaboration creates an environment where innovation thrives, allowing me to learn and grow and hopefully contribute to a future where language technology benefits everyone.

If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?

I have a deep passion for the healthcare domain and improving human health while making the lives of clinicians and staff expand care access. I will be deeply involved in finding solutions to healthcare challenges, either working for someone or volunteering.

At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?

We use some key metrics to understand how effective our solutions are. We look at the hours saved by hospital staff. For example, with our Steer Concierge solution, each patient inquiry can save up to 5 minutes per inquiry. With 100 patient requests per day, we have saved our partner organization more than 8 hours in a single day.

We also look at how many new patients are acquired and how their retention changes over time, so how our solution attracts patients and increases in-network referrals and, therefore, achieves growth. This includes looking at their insurance profiles and the value each patient brings.

Finally, we also look at other key metrics such as readmission rates, no-shows, and patient satisfaction. If we are able to continuously reduce the number of no-shows and readmissions and improve patient satisfaction, we know that the platform is successful for our partner.

What goals are you looking forward to accomplishing in 2024?

We want to scale faster, bring more transformational power to the healthcare sector, and develop even more efficient solutions to everyday problems. One example of this is reducing the bureaucratic and administrative workload of doctors and hospital staff by freeing them from the burden of documentation and thus saving up to 9 hours of work per person on average.

Which trend(s) are you most excited about in 2024? Share your reasons.

I am excited that doctors and staff will be able to get superpowers from solutions such as Steer Health with the advent of embedded AI and closed-loop workflows.

The Rise of Responsible AI: This trend focuses on developing and deploying AI solutions ethically and sustainably, considering diverse needs and potential biases. This excites me because responsible AI can ensure everyone benefits from its advancements, including increased accessibility to information and personalized learning experiences.

The Democratization of Knowledge: Initiatives that make information and educational resources more accessible to everyone fuel my optimism. Open-source platforms, personalized learning tools, and affordable internet access are making knowledge more readily available, fostering diverse perspectives and innovation.

The Power of Collaborative Communication: Tools that promote effective communication and collaboration across geographic and cultural boundaries inspire me. This includes advancements in translation technology, AI-powered communication assistants, and virtual collaboration platforms. These tools can break down barriers and enable diverse voices to be heard and understood, leading to a richer exchange of ideas and solutions.

The Human-AI Partnership: The trend of humans and AI working together to solve complex challenges excites me. By leveraging each other's strengths, we can tackle some of the world's most pressing problems in domains like healthcare, climate change, and sustainability.

2023 had been another crazy year, especially in tech, with layoffs and the Generative AI takeover! Which trend are you most concerned about? Be as brief or as detailed as you like.

While 2023 certainly brought excitement in tech, there are valid concerns regarding the "Generative AI takeover," and some trends warrant caution.

Here are a few:

1. Misinformation and Deepfakes: The ability to create highly realistic text and visuals brings serious threats of fabricated news, manipulated content, and impersonation. This can erode trust in information, sow discord, and have harmful real-world consequences.
2. Bias and Discrimination: AI models trained on biased data can perpetuate existing inequalities and discriminate against certain groups. Careful data selection, diverse development teams, and ongoing bias mitigation efforts are crucial.
3. Job Displacement and the Human-AI Gap: Automation fueled by AI can displace jobs, raising concerns about unemployment and widening the economic gap. Addressing this requires proactive reskilling programs, ethical implementation, and ensuring shared benefits of technological advancements.

Share your biggest success so far and/or your biggest failure so far.

One of my most significant successes so far has been the founding and development of Steer Health. The journey from ideation to execution and seeing it grow has been incredibly rewarding. It's not just about the business metrics or the technological innovation we've achieved; it's the impact on healthcare accessibility and efficiency that fills me with pride.

Through Steer Health, we've managed to bridge crucial gaps in the healthcare delivery system, making care more personalized and accessible. Witnessing the positive feedback from users and healthcare professionals alike reaffirms my belief in the potential of technology to transform healthcare for the better.

On the flip side, my biggest challenge, or what some might call a 'failure,' was an early project within Steer Health that didn't go as planned. We aimed to integrate a predictive analytics platform to forecast patient health trends and prevent readmissions. Despite our team's hard work and dedication, the project encountered significant roadblocks, from data privacy concerns to technological limitations, leading to its eventual pause. This experience was a profound learning opportunity. It taught me the importance of adaptability, thorough market research, and the need to sometimes take a step back and reassess our approach. Most importantly, it reinforced the value of resilience. Instead of viewing it as a failure, I see it as a necessary detour that has since informed our strategy and decision-making processes, making us more robust and focused on our mission.

We would love your feedback on HackerNoon as a tech publication! How has your experience been with us?

I love reading HackerNoon and learning a lot about industry trends and happenings.

Any words of wisdom you’d like to share with us?

Keep up the good work!