Passion is very often the driver behind successful entrepreneurs and their startups. That is the case of the medical-records tech startup OneRecord. Co-founders Jennifer Blumenthal and Morgan Knochel are now on a mission to enable patients to control their medical records—something Morgan was unable to do while struggling to overcome a serious undiagnosed medical condition.
OneRecord is a digital platform enabling patients to access and aggregate their medical records from all of the different hospital systems and providers they visit. It is the unifying place for personal medical records that can be readily updated and then easily transferred digitally, replacing archaic fax machines that are still in use today.
Jennifer and Morgan’s journey together began when they first met as students at Dallas-based Southern Methodist University. But neither would have predicted that years later they would be entrepreneurs together in a startup—and one based on Morgan’s unusual medical challenge that began when she was an undergraduate student at SMU.
“When Morgan and I were in school, she got very sick, and no one knew what was wrong with her. Her mother became her caregiver again, while they went from doctor to doctor seeking a diagnosis,” Jennifer said. “The difficulty in obtaining a diagnosis was due to a number of factors. Her not having ready access to her medical records made it more difficult for each new doctor to learn about her conditions as Morgan was seeking a diagnosis.”
Eventually Morgan was diagnosed with a chronic genetic illness called Ankylosing Spondylitis that is common to people of pacific-islander descent. Both of Morgan’s parents are from Guam and the doctors assumed she was Caucasion based on her physical appearance. That put them on the wrong diagnosis course at the very start. Morgan and her family finally overcame these challenges to obtain a correct diagnosis, but only after conducting an intensive search involving many health experts.
While Morgan faced her new reality living with a chronic illness, Jennifer graduated from SMU and joined a startup giving her first hand exposure to the challenges of being an entrepreneur. She kept in touch with Morgan over a number of years, always inquiring about her health. They began a professional relationship when Morgan helped Jennifer on a coding project—which somewhat serendipitously sparked their mutual interest in entrepreneurship.
“We said to each other, ‘Why don’t we do something together?’ and we began working on OneRecord,” Jennifer said.
Much of their thinking about their startup was driven by Morgan’s rare condition and the difficult experience she had in managing her personal medical records. As Jennifer explains, this required her to log on to multiple patient portals to access her records digitally but still most records had to be collected manually in paper form. One doctor recommended that she print out all her records and carry them in a binder to bring to her appointments so she could have more control over her healthcare experience.
“Years later, we said this is ridiculous. This is a huge pain point for a lot of people,” said Jennifer. “Whether they are managing their own health or caring for someone else, or just trying to move from other parts of the country or internationally, your records are something you don’t think about. But, if you need them, it is really hard to access them.”
So, in the summer of 2016 they began development, and beta testing was done through most of 2017. This March they debuted OneRecord at HIMSS 2018, the country’s largest health IT conference. Now they are assessing user satisfaction via small-group testing, while also gaining insight about future functionality.
The one remaining key component of the platform before they release it publicly is its security. They are now going through HITRUST certification, building out cybersecurity protocols and procedures to pass an audit for final certification.
“For us cybersecurity is of great importance, so when individuals create their OneRecord account, they know it is on a secure platform,” Jennifer explained.
Now moving toward their 2019 public launch, the co-founders foresee an even bigger role for OneRecord in people’s lives. That is because OneRecord will always have a free version for users, according to Jennifer. They are developing a business model that always allows the person to be at the center of their care. To share their data with whom they want and when they want. They intend to offer additional features, as well as introduce a B2B model which will focus on hospital systems and service providers.
What began as a challenge to diagnose a serious illness has now led to the startup of a company that will make it easier for others who face health challenges. This is a bright spot for both Jennifer and Morgan who are anxious to deploy the many features and tools of OneRecord.
“The key to this [the platform] is that it is seamless,” Jennifer said. “That is essentially the beauty of OneRecord.”
