From Prize Money to Patient Impact: How Diversity Telehealth Fuels Health Access
An entrepreneur can do a lot with 25 grand.
Just ask Shelley Cooper, who took home the $25,000 grand prize last year in AltCap’s annual AltCap Your Biz Pitch Competition. She is the CEO of Diversity Telehealth, the Kansas City, Missouri-based telemedicine consulting firm she founded in 2012.
“It was a lifeline,” Cooper said of the grand prize money. “If I hadn't gotten that, we wouldn't be where we are (today).”
As someone who can pinch a penny until it screams, Cooper has used the money to make a number of upgrades to the company’s Come On Now software platform.
The technology expedites care to patients by alerting them when a no-show opens a telehealth appointment, and it benefits providers as they can bill for the service instead of losing money on an open slot.
Cooper used some of the grand prize money to hire a cybersecurity company to better protect patient information on the Come on Now website.
She also retained the services of developers and a chief technology officer to enhance communication with users by adding a website chatbot. The upgrade also added functionality for bulk texts and emails and added Spanish as a language option to the website.
Cooper also used the AltCap funding to hire a marketing director, who has increased the company’s social media presence, and to pay legal fees. The latter expenditure came as Diversity Telehealth spun off Come On Now as a separate company because of the increased demand spurred by the website upgrades, outreach efforts, and partnerships.
Diversity Telehealth has always focused on underserved populations, including low-income students and patients being seen at community health clinics. One major development since the AltCap Your Biz Pitch Competition is that Cooper has narrowed the focus of Come On Now to pre-kindergarten programs and early childhood centers.
The recalibration came after Cooper identified a “product-market fit” by tweaking Come On Now to serve families in Head Start, a federal program that assists low-income families with children up to the age of 5.
For those families, Cooper said, Come On Now is a “patient engagement and notification tool” for ensuring children get immunizations along with vision, hearing, and dental screenings. Families can still use the telehealth component if need be.
A pilot in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, includes the school district, Head Start, and Swope Health. She also has a pilot site in Kansas City.
The initial sites have proven popular with school nurses and families. Plus, Cooper said, “The clinics are seeing more patients than they've ever seen.”
Click here to learn more about the AltCap Your Biz Pitch Competition.
Dr. Cooper delivering her winning pitch in 2022.