Nurse Entrepreneur Spotlight: Jean Ross
As part of my ongoing mission to highlight extraordinary nurse entrepreneurs, I recently interviewed a fascinating business founder that I met at the Vive Digital Health Conference. Jean Ross (RN) is the CEO and Co-Founder of Primary Record, an app designed for families to have one secure place to organize, collaborate, and share health data when needed most. Let’s take an inside look into how one nurse’s journey in healthcare has led to improving outcomes for countless families.
Can you tell our readers about your journey as an entrepreneur in the healthcare industry?
Looking back, I always felt out of place because of the career path I took in heathcare. I started in human resources hiring nurses for a newly opened hospital, and then I moved into patient financial services, where I helped families secure prior authorization for homecare. I decided to become a “second degree” nurse because I wanted to directly impact the care and experience of my patients and their family members. However, working in critical care led me to leave the hospital system. I wanted to learn how I to take my nursing skills and knowledge to help my community.
My 9-year entrepreneurial journey has led me to become part of a grassroots movement to reduce the stigma around dementia, as well as to found a nurse-led care coordination model. Those experiences allowed me to see that my career path in healthcare was uniquely designed to solve a bigger problem around simplifying health information for our families for better care.
What inspired you to start your own venture in this field?
I was inspired by the thousands of conversations I have had with nursing colleagues and families who are so overwhelmed and frustrated by our healthcare system. There are so many good people in healthcare, so how can we make a better information infrascture around all of us to ensure that the best care gets delivered?
What specific problem or challenge in healthcare are you addressing with your business?
My team at Primary Record has created a platform to ensure a patient’s health story is in the hands of their family and their advocates so that they can get the best care. All the innovation I am seeing in healthcare that could improve our country’s health outcomes has a big blocker due to the siloed information systems in healthcare. As a nurse, I find myself stepping into the role of education and advocacy to ensure that patient access and information blocking laws (such as the 21st Century Cures Act) are effectively utilized so that nurses and advocates can take better care of their patients.
How does Primary Record innovate or improve upon existing solutions in the healthcare sector?
Our team believes that patient portals are not enough for families today. We have designed a platform where families have one secure place to organize, collaborate, and share their health data – bringing together invaluable information scattered across patient portals, three ring binders, and post-it notes. With one app, patients and family caregivers can invite advocates and other supportive professionals to quickly search and summarize a patient’s health story for better care. This platform can begin to help families take advantage of all the new technologies of today to help them do the jobs they are already doing from a binder or notebook!
What have been the biggest obstacles you’ve faced in launching and growing your healthcare business, and how have you overcome them?
I have learned that the biggest obstacle is myself. I have so many doubts daily about my ability to take on something so big and so impactful as a health information network in our community. I have overcome my doubt by first admitting that no one makes a massive change all by themselves. I have learned to delegate and to ask for help when I face questions that I have no idea how to begin to solve. I have also learned to face failure with excitement! I am very lucky with the team I have built around me. Just like I tell family caregivers to build their care team — every entrepreneur needs to build one, too!
Can you share any success stories or milestones that your company has achieved in improving healthcare outcomes or patient experiences?
Putting an actual solution in a complete stranger’s hand has been an incredible experience. At first, those who signed up for Primary Record were friends and people who knew me from my nursing and senior network days. Now, as I see people signing up that I have never met, I grow so proud of the work our team is doing! The best part of my day is receiving calls where families share with me how they are using Primary Record. From pulling it up in the ER or helping someone get a second opinion, those stories are fuel for me and my team. We joke that it’s a pretty regular thing that someone is going to cry on our virtual meetings with our customers (it’s usually me!).
What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to enter the healthcare industry with their own startups?
Stop thinking and go do it! You will never know how your idea could play out to make a change until you talk to the actual “customers” you want to impact. A trick I wish I knew even before having a product is to simply pull up a “competitor’s” product and ask your potential customer what they like and don’t like about it. You will get instant validation if your idea is worth pursuing. Also, realize your idea only gets better from what your customers say. Be careful of trying to convince people your idea is the best, and actually listen to what they have to say! Always ask lots and lots and lots of questions!
How do you stay informed about the latest trends, developments, and challenges in the healthcare sector — and how does this inform your business strategy?
I think the first thing I did well was make it clear to my nursing network what I am passionate about and who I am helping. Nurses naturally point to other nurses solving problems, so they can help you stay abreast of who is who and what is what. I cannot thank enough the nurses who tag me any time there is something about medical records, family caregiving, health information, and dementia. In healthcare, there are always changes happening around policy. Find those podcasts and newsletters put out by the experts in your niche that can keep feeding you summaries of what is happening and changing! For me personally, I want to give a shout out to Brendan Keeler, the Health API Guy who helps me constantly understand health data, and Tracee Coleman, who is passionate about using AI responsibly for patients and families.
What are your long-term goals and visions for your healthcare business, and how do you plan to achieve them?
My dream is we prove the value of patient access. One day, I hope families are choosing services and places of care because the business itself uses Primary Record. I believe we have a real differentiator to offer because of how we go about simplifying health information for families. We are now building the professional platform side of Primary Record to help build the needed health information infrastructure in our community. If you are a health professional who spends time asking families for their health history and medications, or have to call upon a doctor’s office for health information, then please come talk to my team!