Hospitality Mentality
Oxeon, which has investments in about 70 companies, remains the majority shareholder in Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Docent, the first startup to emerge from its venture studio, said founder Trevor Price.
Created to capitalize on the ideas and data that are gleaned from the executive search business, the studio has five people who work full-time creating business plans for possible new companies, Price said.
“The shift from physician-centric to consumer-centric care delivery and building a longitudinal relationship with patients – that process is the single most-talked-about trend in healthcare,” Price said.
At the center of Docent’s concept is the idea of the “patient journey,” which starts before someone gets to the hospital and ends long after he or she leaves. A cloud-based software platform enables both caregivers and patients to stay informed, log their preferences and provide constant feedback.
The special staffers will come from the hospital, Docent or both, in a mix that will vary depending on the deal.
New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery has signed on as the company’s first customer, and Roscoe said he expected several other nationally known hospital groups to join soon.
Docent’s founders refer frequently to best practices from the upscale restaurant and hotel industries, where customer preferences are carefully tracked and anticipated with an eye toward future business.
Susan Reilly Salgado, head of the consulting arm of restaurateur Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group, said about 25 percent of her clients were from the healthcare industry, which she said was particularly retrograde when it comes to customer service.
“All customers want the same thing,” Salgado said. “They want to feel valued and respected.”
