Samm Anderegg blends pharmacy, technology, and entrepreneurship to leave traditional pharmacy and start his own business
Name: Samm Anderegg
Position: CEO of DocStation
Interview Summary
Today we are hosting Samm Anderegg, the CEO of DocStation. He has created a patient-care platform for healthcare teams, enabling pharmacists and other clinicians to provide value-based care.
1. Describe your path through pharmacy, where you are today, and how you got there.
- Went to the University of Iowa for undergrad
- Initially undecided on which branch of science to study
- The field of pharmacy seemed interesting as there is a lot to gain and a lot of room for the profession to grow
- Ended up enrolling in Pharmacy School
- Asked a lot of questions while there such as, “how do I position myself to be a patient-care provider after graduation?”
- Had many great mentors along the way
- Recommended looking into residency programs as an option following graduation
- Make sure to expose yourself to a wide variety of experiences
- Research
- Leadership positions
- Student organizations
- Mentoring opportunities
- Decided to complete a residency upon graduation
- Focused on administration
- Did a 2-year program at the University of Kansas Hospital, with a Master’s Degree
- Learned many useful skills during the residency
- How to be a clinician
- How to practice
- How the healthcare system works on an operational level
- Different facets of leadership from the management team
- Clinical operations (inpatient and outpatient)
- Information technology (IT)
- Reimbursement
- Took an entry-level management position as a first job
- Worked in Georgia to manage an ambulatory care oncology facility
- Started some initiatives including a specialty pharmacy bedside delivery
- Involved in the Pharmacy HIT Collaborative
- Got involved during a rotation at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP)
- Volunteered to do some work, which turned into a contract job and was paid to learn a ton of great information
- Realized that this was where his true interests were at
- After about 2.5 years at the job in Georgia, made a transition to the information technology (IT) side of things
- Came up with an idea to build a software system that actually works like it should in healthcare
- Thus, DocStation was born
2. Would you say that your experience during residency allowed you to come up with the idea for DocStation?
- Yes, I would agree with that
- I had many ideas in my head of what I wanted to do, but didn’t have much experience with the real world and what it was like to practice as a provider
- Residency was great exposure to a lot of different opportunities and possibilities
- Instilled confidence to go after new ventures in the entrepreneurship realm
3. Would you recommend residency to everyone?
- It depends on each individual person, everyone has their own circumstances
- Some people want to get out and start working right away, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that
- If you are trying to figure things out and make yourself the best possible candidate for the job market, residency is definitely an option to consider.
4. DocStation. What is it? What is it all about?
- Think about it as an electronic health record, specifically for pharmacists
- Learned that all of the tools that currently existed didn’t exactly work as they should, especially in combination with the new technologies of today
- Experienced that we wanted to implement a program/change the way we practiced, but were limited by the current information systems
- Limited ability to improve patient outcomes/reduce cost
- Some didn’t collect the right data or didn’t have the appropriate resources to make the necessary changes
- Very frustrating to not be able to make these changes
- Wanted to use background as a pharmacist and skills in technology to create something great for providers
- This passion was the driving force behind DocStation
5. Tell us more about how DocStation started and your decision to go all in on this venture
- Worked a ton at the first job in Georgia and loved every little bit of it
- Made a lot of great impacts on the patients
- Started to feel unfulfilled after the 2.5 year mark
- Wanted to explore new opportunities
- An interview opportunity came up and explored the idea with the current boss
- She encourage Samm to go for it
- Similar job on a larger scale at a different institution
- Knew deep down that he didn’t want to do it, but was unsure why
- After sleeping on it, decided that he didn’t want to do anything like this at all
- Wanted to do something on his on, something entrepreneurial
- Started to brainstorm different ideas to see if they were viable or not
- “Can I support myself with the salary to make this legitimate?”
- “Is the idea worth pursuing?”
- Did some research into the different ideas
- Searched things like “how to start technology companies”
- Discovered an iTunes University course from Stanford that outlined how to start with an idea, take it/validate it, raise money for it, and get a product up and running
- Realized that the people in those videos were not any different than you or I
- The people were passionate, talented, and willing to work really hard
- Felt like the idea for DocStation fit right into those parameters
- Found a new confidence to just go for it
- Looking back, he had no idea what it took to get a business off the ground
- All it took was to make the commitment and know in your heart it’s the right thing to do
- Once you make this decision, you’ll figure the rest out along the way
6. How long have you been operational now?
- It’s been about 18 months since Samm left his job
- The toughest part was finding the right partner to work with
- Didn’t have any friends that were computer science majors
- Decided to move to Austin, Texas and just started looking
- Networking was a huge component that eventually led him to find co-founder, Josh Matz
- Have been working together for almost a year now
- Started off with some prototyping and designing
- Eventually developed a working prototype to go and show the market
- They are now in a stage of focusing on the product
- Important to make sure that it’s great and different than anything anyone has ever see
- Need to cultivate the interest in developing the business so that they can maintain the funding to keep it going
7. How do you guys work together? What are your roles?
- Samm serves as CEO
- In charge of designing the product as the subject matter expert (pharmacist)
- Also has the tech experience in healthcare
- Important to know how the healthcare system functions
- How payment is transacted
- Who’s incentivized by what
- Works to develop the business model
- Josh comes in to complement all of the technical experience
- Makes decisions about “we can do that” or “we can’t do that” or “this is going to be tough because of X, Y, and Z”
- Work together to create a plan
- Doesn’t have any experience in the healthcare industry
- Very helpful because he doesn’t have any preconceived notions about how things should work
- All of the outside knowledge combined with the healthcare knowledge has created a very special kind of relationship
8. Where is DocStation today and where would you like it to go?
- Currently have a working prototype
- Has about 70 users on the platform
- Doing user testing with all test patients at this time
- Nothing is functional quite yet
- People can login, access test-patient profiles, and play around with the information being collected, the way things are organized, and the way it looks
- It is an iterative process
- Lean methodology, design, test, and then implement
- Having the service validation creates confidence that we will put out a great product
- Now in the stage of developing larger interest
- Looking at payers, major pharmacy chains, Pharma, anyone who’s interested in the data related to healthcare
- Specifically companies looking to drive up quality while driving down costs
- Pharmacists are very good with this and DocStation will provide the platform for pharmacists to do so
- Looking at payers, major pharmacy chains, Pharma, anyone who’s interested in the data related to healthcare
9. What advice would you give to someone who wants to plunge into the entrepreneurial realm?
- Look inside yourself and figure out what it is that you truly want to do
- What is the impact you want to leave on pharmacy?
- It doesn’t have to be anything specific, it can be very general to start
- Let the idea sit in your head and continue to think about it
- Figure out what your next step is and how to progress that
- It doesn’t necessarily mean quitting your job or tossing everything aside
- Just do one thing to move the needle a little bit forward
- Eventually, you start taking steps and making progress and will learn whether it’s something that you truly want to do
- Pharmacists in general can be pretty conservative at times
- It’s okay to be scared, but also realize that you can do anything
- Just take it 1 step at a time
- “Don’t be scared. Do something that makes you uncomfortable. It’s fun”
10. Where do you see the field of pharmacy going in the future? Where will it be in the next few years?
- Pharmacists are an incredibly underused resource
- They have an incredible amount of knowledge/skills/talents
- To have a majority of the profession in roles dispensing prescriptions is unacceptable and something we have to change
- Samm sees a lot of legislation right now, specifically on the federal level
- Aimed at increased access to patient care
- Who better to do this than pharmacists?
- Our locations are ubiquitous
- We can replace dispensing with technicians and automation
- Let’s put ourselves in front on the patient
- Pharmacists could been what people see as a mid-level provider today, particularly on the primary care level
- It’s going to be all about the data
- Data to show we provide a high level of care to patients and drive down the cost of care
- Payers will come to us
- We just have to cultivate the infrastructure and make sure that we’re doing a good job
- We will provide the tools so that pharmacists can make that happen
- We will become trusted providers and not dispensers
11. How can people connect with you?
- Create a profile on The Pharmacy Network and connect with Samm Anderegg
- Visit the DocStation website to find more information about the platform
- Follow the DocStation Twitter and DocStation Facebook accounts
- Also can find them on LinkedIn and their newsletter
Samm Anderegg and Josh Matz are doing some incredible things for the pharmacy profession. Stay up to date with DocStation and look for new opportunities to develop your career as a pharmacist through their platform. Make sure to create a profile on The Pharmacy Network and connect with Samm Anderegg. He is very willing to talk with anyone who is interested in learning more!