Grand Rounds, Inc.

Grand Rounds is a healthcare company that connects patients with local and remote specialty care. Based in San Francisco, California, the company also has operations in Reno, Nevada.^[1] It covers more than one million users across the United States and elsewhere, with service available in 120 countries.^[2] It has gained notability as a fast-growing and well-funded (over $100 million^[3]) private healthcare IT companies, its partnerships with hospitals include Boston Children's Hospital,^[4] Massachusetts General Hospital,^[5] the Hospital for Special Surgery,^[6] and New York Presbyterian Hospital, and for its Glassdoor "best places to work" awards.

Overview

The company offers two major services, "Grand Rounds Expert Opinions"^[7] and "Grand Rounds Office Visits." The first service connects users' local physicians with remote specialists for a collaborative team approach to tough cases.^[8] The second identifies the top local experts (for both surgical and non-surgical specialties) based on quantiative analysis.^[9] Services are generally purchased by large US-based and multinational employers (including Comcast, Target, Costco, and others).^[10] The company claims^[11] that its implementations generally pay for themselves by reducing infections, complications, readmissions, and other negative outcomes.^[12] Services can be accessed by phone, web, mobile application, and text chat.

Unlike ER-avoidance companies like Teladoc, the company does not remotely prescribe medications or perform treatments. Instaed, the company focuses on specialty expertise in the high-acuity cases that drive the largest change, and on connecting patients to the right local experts.

The company also powers global second/remote opinion services for US academic medical centers with worldwide reach. Hospital partners offering worldwide services powered by Grand Rounds include Boston Children's Hospital, the Hospital for Special Surgery, New York Presbyterian, Weill Cornell Medical Center, Columbia Medical Center, and others. Through its partnership with Grand Rounds, each partner has made available expert medical opinions on a worldwide basis, bringing expertise to markets around the world. Grand Rounds performs fulfillment and each hospital provides its physicians and performs marketing of the platform.

Venture backers include Venrock, Greylock,^[13][14] Harrison Metal Capital,^[13] and an unnamed mutual fund.^[15]

Grand Rounds' executives and notable board members include:

• Owen Tripp, Chief Executive Officer and co-Founder
• Lawrence "Rusty" Hofmann, Co-Founder
• Kathleen Sebelius (Former Secretary of U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services), Member of Board of Directors
• Bryan Roberts (Venrock), Member of Board of Directors

History

Hofmann's original idea for the company came when his son, Grady, was hospitalized with aplastic anemia.^[16] Although Hofmann is a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, he did not have the experience to know whether his son was getting the best possible care. He called upon his own network of doctors and ultimately connected teams at two different hospitals to apply a new bone marrow transplant technique.^[13] After this experience, he realized that most patients do not have the ability to call on their friends and family for expertise, and sought to start a company that puts top medical expertise in reach of everyday people.^[17]

The firm's name pays homage to medical educational grand rounds.

Awards

• Glassdoor "Best Places to Work", #2 in the United States (2016)^[18]
• Forbes "Next Billion Dollar Startups" (2015)^[19]
• Goldman Sachs "100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs" (CEO Owen Tripp) (2016)^[20]

References

See also