Bridging the Digital Divide (ft. Mark Evans)

Thanks for tuning to Digital Voices podcast, where we chat digital transformation challenges and opportunities across healthcare and life sciences. And now, your host, Ed Marx. Hey everyone, welcome. It's Ed to another edition of Digital Voices with Mark Evans. Mark is the founder of Upfeel. Mark, welcome to Digital Voices.

Thank you very much, Ed. Great to be here.

I really appreciate the audience listening. You know, there's a lot of different things they can listen to, Mark, and you probably listen to podcasts as well, and I'm glad they've joined us and we're definitely gonna make it worth their while. I'm super, super interested in, in what you're doing, but also the survey that you've recently released on the state of AI and tech in healthcare. So we're gonna jump into that, and that's kind of how we first met is really online and I saw that you all were doing this research and I thought it'd be super interesting. But the most interesting question, Mark, that people like to hear on Digital Voices is songs on your playlist. So what kind of music do you like to listen to?

Great question. Quite a varied sort of genre of music, but most people are quite surprised if they travel with me in the car and they hear my music, but I'm into really sort of deep house dance, electronic music, quite Quite heavy. Um, Artbat's my favorite, a couple of Ukrainian guys, really, really cool. And then, you know, I can, I can also listen to UK grime or, or rap music. And then if I'm, if I'm feeling in a more mellow mood, it's your, your Coldplay or Oasis or, or even Pet Shop Boys, who I saw recently in Germany, which was absolutely phenomenal. 69 years old and still on stage performing. It was, it was a great experience. So yeah, a bit of a mixed variety there.

Yeah, no, it's good to have that diversity and you hit us with some new artists and tunes. So we're going to add those to the Digital Voices playlist, which is available on Spotify. So that's kind of the fun part for me is I get to hear all these different musical genres that I might not have listened to previously. So thank you for that. What about your life message and mantra? Are there words that you live by?

Yeah, certainly. I've got a few. I'm kind of, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm kind of a guy that loves his quotes. Um, you know, but I, I'll never forget sort of Winston Churchill, never ever give up. That's one, you know, one of my favorites, but the one that I sort of live by is the best way to predict your future is to create it. I really, you know, live by that, uh, take no prisoners attitude. Don't die wondering. I just see so many people just held back by fear. You know, they never take that first step. You know, they never start, they never commence. And I just think that's, that's no way to live.

Yeah, no, I agree with you. Those are some good, good life messages there. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Obviously you have an accent, so I'm sure we'll find out where that accent emanates from.

Yeah. Um, look, I'm, I'm born in England and spent most of my sort of life in Australia. So you can probably hear more Australian than English, but it is a little bit mixed, that's for sure. But, you know, who am I? I'm a serial entrepreneur. I'm a very sort of focused, resilient individual. I'm married. I'm a family man. I'm the father of 3. As I said, Born in England and emigrated to Australia as a teenager, sort of high school, you know, age. And my background is, is quite surprising to most because I'm, you know, I'm definitely not from the healthcare industry. I'm not a doctor. And I started in the construction industry. I'm working as a carpenter many, many moons ago. And I've had quite an exciting sort of career of jobs, which one of them I was undercover for like 14 years. I was actually a private investigator. Used to work for a couple of big companies in Australia, but then started my own company. And I had a license to spy, Ed. I literally had the license to spy. I used to follow people for a living. I was a specialist in surveillance. Um, so following people, filming people, you know, their whereabouts, um, whatever they might be up to. It was, it was a mixed variety of sort of subjects. It could be anything from workers' compensation to industrial espionage to, you know, partners, you know, cheating on each other, you know, those, those sort of things. But It was exciting. It was an adrenaline rush when you, uh, when you're on the follow. It was, it was really cool. Absolutely loved it. Really, really enjoyed it. Did that for 14 years in total. I then moved into the technical side of things. That's where I first sort of went, got technical was I opened the first spy shop in, in Western Australia. And we were selling hidden cameras and listening devices and you couldn't condone the use of listening devices, but you could actually sell them. Um, it was down to the 1950 Listening Devices Act, but it was, you know, I used to travel to the US back then and buy spy gear. I used to go to South Korea, buy spy equipment, and then obviously opened up this spy shop in Western Australia. And, you know, this is sort of late, you know, late '90s, early 2000s, and people just didn't believe that sort of stuff went on.

Yeah.

And, and it did, and it was, it kept me busy for a lot of years. So then I moved into the technical side and was into sort of counter surveillance. Um, and we used to do a lot of security for, for mining companies in Western Australia, which are absolutely massive. Some of the biggest in the world.

Yeah.

And they might be negotiating multi-billion dollar deals and they would have information leak out and they were wondering how and why. And we used to basically do surveillance on their boardrooms. We would put, you know, white noise generators on their boardroom windows so no one could listen in. We would take their phones from the, from the people attending the meetings as they entered. We were scanning them on the way in. This was, this was huge. And this was, yeah, this was early sort of 2000s. You know, it, people didn't think that that stuff went on, but when you're, when you're dealing with Billion-dollar deals. Yes, this stuff certainly went on. I would, I would be brought into, to the office blocks on a Sunday to do sweeps, do electronic sweeps, make sure there was no listening devices in the building. So pretty cool, pretty cool job. Um, then moved into, moved into sales and then became a sales and marketing manager for a, you know, residential builder. Which was a billion-dollar company in Australia, which was the biggest sort of residential builder in Australia called the ABN Group and had a wonderful career there, worked with some really talented people, learned a lot about building a business, building a company. And, um, it was late 2011, sort of went into a tech venture with, with my best friend, domains, hosting, online solutions, pretty much a, uh, carbon copy of GoDaddy in the US, but a few less zeros, but it, it, we dominated the Australian landscape. We're the number one provider for domains, hosting, online solutions. Our CEO was major shareholder. We went from small private company to large private company to public company. We were listed on the stock exchange for, uh, for 3 years and then ended up delisting and selling to private equity out of New York. So that was, uh, It was a great journey. I was also the founder of another tech company called SitePlus, which is like a white label website builder product, like a Wix, but a white label product. But both of those were sold to private equity in New York. And, um, I did actually retire for, uh, and I lasted 3 weeks. That was it. 3 weeks. I, I was sat there thinking, yep. this is it. And then thought, no, there's no way I can do this. This is, this is not me. So I started researching, you know, something exciting in the tech space. I had a relationship with sort of HIPAA compliant scheduling, you know, in the, in the sort of medical space. And, and that's where Upvio was, was born, was conceived and born was, was from there. So we incorporated Upvio and then moved into the health tech space, which is I've been immersed in for the last sort of, you know, 3+ years.

Yeah, no, that's super, super interesting journey for sure. And I, I always think it makes, it makes for, um, a more rich sort of point of view when you have come from different industries and you pick up different things that you learn along the way and you bring it into healthcare. So that's great.

Yeah.

Tell us really quick about what Upfeel does, and then I want to talk about your survey and the results.

Absolutely. So Upvio, we like to position ourselves as an EHR and telehealth platform that is aimed at modern, modern digital behavioral healthcare providers with large teams, multiple states, multiple time zones that need flexibility and customization to streamline operations. So we're specifically placed, we can work as a standalone. Platform for these modern digital healthcare providers. And we can also be a supplement to existing, you know, legacy EHRs and legacy softwares or even government portals. And, you know, providing those modern health tech tools at the front end and then collecting that important protected health information and then passing that back to what might be their legacy or existing software. So yeah, that's it in a nutshell.

Very cool. Yeah. So let's shift now to that survey. So tell us about how, why the survey was crafted and how it was crafted, and then we'll talk a little bit about the results.

Yeah. So it's, uh, it was the state of AI and tech adoption in healthcare. And there was 2 reasons why we really wanted to do this. And one was to really get that invaluable information for our own team and help us create and build you know, the platform or the software that we wanted and a software that would make a difference. So we needed those insights. Secondly, we really needed insights from both practitioners and patients. And 1,400 of these were included in the survey, practitioners and patients that could, could aid us in our, in our goals and, you know, really provide this extra level of detail. And it'll give us, you know, more focus and more knowledge with our sort of go-to-market strategy when we're We're out there looking for customers. That was, they were the two main reasons why we, we did the survey. Obviously, um, you know, it's great content. Um, people are interested in it. We've, we've had a great response, you know, from this research paper. And, you know, in a, I mean, in a nutshell, it's the report illustrates that, you know, while healthcare providers and patients acknowledge the benefits of know, digital tools like telehealth and AI, the industry's overall adoption is very, very slow.

Yeah.

And, you know, that's, you know, that's quite surprising really in the speed that AI is moving. It's still, it's still relatively slow. And I mean, some of the key insights were, you know, 94% of patients now have used telehealth services, but 40% of practices still don't offer.

Telehealth.

Another one quickly, 53% of patients trust AI-powered tools, but 32% of providers are still hesitant to adopt them. So these are some of the stats. I mean, there's a lot of stats in this report, but there's a couple there.

Yeah. So, yeah, so yeah, you already said it was sort of surprising finding. And I'm also, you know, sort of, I'm Surprised and yet not surprised. So basically what you've found is that the public, the consumers are ahead of the clinical practice. They're because they're why they're using these technologies in other verticals, banking or what have you. And, or, or just a retail. And so they have the same expectation of their clinical teams in healthcare, but they're not getting that same experience. There's more reluctance. Any ideas, maybe. From the survey or maybe just from your own experience now in healthcare, why the sort of the business side of healthcare hasn't moved as quickly as the consumer side?

Yeah, that's, I mean, there's the barriers that we've, we've come up and it's in the report is, is cost, uh, you know, regulatory issues or challenges and, and the digital divide. We're dealing with healthcare providers on a daily basis. We're talking to hundreds of healthcare providers every week. And, you know, they're the, they're the main 3, but It's surprising that it's still so antiquated. I mean, you know, there's still faxes, fax machines in healthcare. They're still using all these separate tools and Word documents and then copying, you know, notes across into a platform. And, you know, it, the one provider I spoke to last week had 15 different tools running and it, it would take them 3 days to onboard a practitioner just to teach 'em how to use it. And it, I mean, that is, it's crazy in this day and age. It's absolutely crazy with, with the technology and, and the health tech tools that are available. It really is.

So one could make the logical inference that if you're a consumer and you're way ahead, and as, and I think we've seen it from other surveys or our own experiences, the consumers and your survey certainly back that up. Consumers are ahead and have high expectations. They're not being fully met by all the practices. So if you think about it from a competitive point of view, right, it's a different, could be a differentiator for a practice to adopt these sorts of tools because consumers may start demanding it. Like, I don't, you know, I have loyalty to my longtime clinicians, my longtime hospital, but they haven't moved with the times. So I'm going to shift. Uh, to someone or some organization that has.

I think that's happening right now. And I think some of these sort of incumbents or legacy providers, you know, need to, need to be careful that there's not, you know, they don't lose too many of these customers if they're not making the move into, you know, AI space or, you know, improving the way that the practitioners and clinicians can, you know, conduct their daily work. And, you know, provide that all-important, you know, patient-facing time instead of completing paperwork and notes and insurance forms. It's just so important. I mean, it's well documented that the burnout with, you know, medical professionals and the amount leaving the industry, which is worrying. The statistics are, you know, terrifying.

Yeah. I literally had a moment like that this week where I almost shifted and I didn't One reason I did, I didn't for a couple of reasons, shifted where I go to get my clinical care because of what happened, which I'll share. I didn't because one, I want to give them another chance and I want to sort of help them. And 2, it's just the bureaucracy, at least with my insurance, it would be, take a lot of effort. So they kind of got you there, right? No one wants to go through that, that change process. But mine was super simple. And the good news, they have a portal. They, it's not an app, so still only a web portal, but at least they got a portal. And this is a modern, again, I'm not, I'm not going to mention names because I, that's not the intent here is to shame anyone, but it is, I think it's indicative of sort of the state of healthcare that your survey has dug up. And, um, so they have this web portal. So I did a simple thing where I've been on the same medication for years and years and years. And, uh, I just need a refill. You know, it's a simple thing. It's like. And I had my physical there, uh, 5 months ago. And so, you know, I, I'm really good about, I get my checkups and all that kind of stuff. So it's just there 5 months ago, did a full physical and they know it. They know everything. So the response was, well, we haven't seen you in 5 months. Why don't you come in and for a visit? And I'm like, I was like, why, why would I take 4 hours? Yeah, it would probably take 3 hours with all the driving stuff. To go sit there for you to say, oh yeah, you want to refill? Yes. And so I said, hey, if if for some reason you have to do something, let's just do it virtually. And and the response was, oh, your re your meds have been refilled and they're at the pharmacy. And so I was like, thank you. But I mean, most consumers aren't educated enough to say that they had an alternative. It's like that's ridiculous. And so I think we're stuck. I the reason I'm sharing the story. We're stuck in these older patterns. And, um, and some of it does have to do with reimbursement as well. So it's super interesting. All right. So, so Mark, based on, you know, the fact you've been operating this business for a while, you founded this business, but operating for a while, you've got this survey. If you're a clinician listening, if you're an administrator listening to this, and you're sort of that, you're sort of that stuck in the middle, like the example I was giving of my clinician.

Yeah.

What are one or two steps they can take to sort of, uh, bridge that digital divide and become more consumer-focused, consumer-oriented? And, and again, it's a, for competitive reasons, if nothing else, if you wanna stay in the game, you're gonna have to make some, uh, decisions. So what are one or two things they might do?

Yeah, absolutely. Look, I would, I would encourage to, you know, listen, listen to the feedback from patients. Like you just mentioned, they, they are getting demanding. You know, end user patients are getting more demanding. Why should they, you know, spend 3 hours coming in when they shouldn't have to, right? They've got a history with the doctor, the clinician, you know, why should they do that? Start listening to the patients and what they want. Otherwise, it might not end well. And I think that that's what we're hearing on a regular basis. I think the other thing is sort of, you know, streamlining You know, onboarding and intake, making it really, really easy to start with, you know, even moving to a scheduling system. You'd be surprised at how many are still not using scheduling systems. And, you know, they've got, you know, 10 people making calls, booking appointments, reschedules, cancellations. And, you know, one particular in California we've been dealing with has, has 25 people.

Wow.

Full-time just doing bookings and reschedules and cancellations and, you know, multiple locations and still doing it all manually where that can be very easily automated. So I think they've got to be open-minded in the sense that, you know, they should, they should be up for change and, you know, take that time, invest some time to Research and find a product that would be suitable, but I think that would be the first sort of two steps to take, and then it will build trust once they see it working. It's streamlined, it's efficient, it's saving time for their for their own practitioners and clinicians, and creating more patient-facing time, getting better feedback from the patients. Then they can build you know that trust builds up, and they can move into. more sophisticated tools, telehealth, AI notes, transcriptions, all of these kinds of tools, MedScribes, whatever they think is relevant for their business or operations. But I think that would be great first steps.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And the other thing too, it does, it addresses the burnout that we talked about. It addresses the consumerism we would talk about, but also In many cases, like in the example of that California practice where they might have 25 people, you know, just doing scheduling and rebookings and things like that, it makes a lot of financial sense, uh, to do it as well. So when you streamline your optimiz— your, your, uh, it certainly does. So no, that's, that's super interesting and thanks for sharing. And we'll, we'll put the, a link in the show notes, uh, so people can see the, the survey and things like that. For those who want to get deeper. You already, Mark, explained sort of your, your career trajectory, super interesting, and how you became a CEO and basically started off in the trades, right? In construction. And then did some cool spy things. So what advice would you give to aspiring leaders who might be listening who want to become a CEO someday? What are one or two things you might tell them to focus on as they kind of work their way through Yeah, I think the first one is belief, right?

Who thinks, you know, a carpenter can end up, you know, a CEO of a large public company? It's, it can happen, but, you know, I love leadership. I can spend hours on leadership. It's something I love and enjoy and, you know, really thrive on and empowering others. But I'm very much of the philosophy of extreme ownership. And if you know Jocko Willink, you'll, this very disciplined military style of leadership and not military in a bad sense, but just very organized and it's about accountability. And I think that, you know, that's just so important in building any business, wanting to lead a business, wanting to be a CEO. You have to have thick skin. You've got to have self-belief. You've got to have perseverance. Perseverance, resilience, and, you know, you're going to get punched in the face a few times and hey, you got to get, you got to get back up and you got to soldier on. You know, it does happen and it's not for the faint-hearted. And, but it's, it's self-belief. It's self-worth. You can, you can do it. You want to be a CEO. You, you want to, you know, build something iconic that people remember. You, you're going to build something that people value. I just think it's totally possible. And again, it's going back to, you know, taking those steps and removing that fear. You know, there's imposter syndrome as well. You gotta navigate, but yeah, self-belief.

No, I love it. What is one thing that you learned the hard way as a leader?

Ooh, Ed, I think I've learned most things the hard way. Some of them on purpose. definitely some purposely, but I, it, it, you know, people don't like to talk about money. All right. Money, wealth. I, I did property development when I was young. I was in, I was in the construction industry. I did quite well. I was developing sites. I, I became, you know, reasonably wealthy as, as a young man. And, and then I lost it all. And then, and then I was like, what happened? It's, it's gone back to the, you know, Working 7 days a week, um, busting a gut, just completely focused, build up, build up that wealth again to enter the stock market and trading. GFC hit, boom, gone. Wealth gone second time. It was like, wow. And, you know, upon reflection, I was definitely impatient. I was, you know, too eager to succeed. Trying to get there faster than, you know, what was possible. It was, you know, taking too much on, trying to do too much and really not having that strength to say no and that focus and discipline, you know, just to have that laser focus on what I was doing. And I think the big lesson was true success is built over time and requires a healthy obsession where you have to compromise a lot. You can't be out there doing everything with your friends and socializing and doing all of these things if you want to be a success. And I think I learned that the hard way. No, I really did. And it was, you know, wow, what happened? Before you know it, it's the lessons. You've been slapped in the face and you're back to square one. And As long as you learn, all right, you're only a fool if you don't learn, but as long as you learn, you take those learnings and you apply those learnings. And I think that's, you know, that's what I'm doing.

Yeah, Mark, that's good stuff. And as a leader, obviously, you know, when you have family and leading people and all that kind of stuff, it's a lot of stress and things like that. What do you do to recharge your batteries and remain fresh? So what does a CEO do?

I'm a, I'm an absolute gym junkie, as you know, I was, you know, ex-bodybuilder like your wife. So morning gym session. If I'm not at the gym, I'm doing jiu-jitsu and also always followed by an ocean swim. So a little bit of cold water plunging, it just completely recharges the batteries. You feel fresh, you're ready, you're ready to attack the day. Absolutely love it.

Yeah. In, in the Australian waters, are you, you don't have to worry, are you worried about some great white shark coming up for, you know, when you're out there? Does that motivate you?

Um, that, yes, Australia definitely has sharks. They do. We swim sensibly at the right times. Don't go too far out, but generally it's safe. Generally, if you, you know, it does happen unfortunately, but yeah, you gotta have your wits about you. That's for sure.

Yeah, I know. No, I, I'm just teasing you. A good friend of mine, she's, uh, she was an Olympian. Uh, from Australia and, and, uh, she would always regale me with many stories.

Yeah.

So, um, as we sort of close up here, you were like Mr. Australia. So, uh, what, what did you learn from all that, um, all that experience that has helped you as a person?

I love, I love to use, um, the sort of analogy, you know, businesses like bodybuilding. It's just a very slow And steady race. It's not something you can rush, you know, going in the gym and doing repetitions, muscles built over, over an extended long period of time. You know, Ed, you're at the gym as well. I know you train. So you see these people come and go from the gym. They're there for a few months, they lose focus, and, and you don't see them again. Again, it's having that ability to visualize very long-term the success you can get from that. And, you know, you can train all year to gain half an inch on your arms or your legs or whatever you're focused on. And that takes a lot of dedication and discipline. And I think, you know, discipline being the key word is, you know, getting up early in the morning and getting to that gym when you don't really want to. And you, you're a little bit tired. You, you've, you've had a huge week, but you know, you're not gonna miss, never skip leg day as they say. But it's, yeah, it, it, I just think it's, there's a great correlation between, you know, bodybuilding and business. And I think I've, I've, I've used that in business.

Yeah. No, no, no. I, I, I agree. I'm smiling. Uh, I, I can definitely relate. And what I always tell myself too, and you can think about it in business terms too, is like, I hope my competitors are taking the day off. I hope they're skipping leg day, you know, 'cause I'm not. I need every advantage I can get. Absolutely. Look, Mark, we covered a lot of ground, everything from some cool, cool music, some Ukrainian beats as well. And, uh, and then just talked about your career and just how it all came together from, uh, different industries and to bring this focus to healthcare and trying to disrupt healthcare and make it better for everyone. And then, uh, we talked a lot about the survey of, uh, AI and tech in healthcare, which was super, super enlightening. As I said, we'll put a link to that in the show notes. And then we talked a lot about what it takes to be a CEO. Um, what, what are some steps people can take to become CEO, things that you learned the hard way? How do you remain fresh? Is there anything that we missed or anything that you want to double down on? I'll give you the last word.

I think, I mean, I'll touch on AI if you don't mind. I think I've got, you know, quite firm in our views in AI. Like you said, we're trying to disrupt. I think that there should be a lot of caution in these standalone AI products. And they do have, you know, they do have worth and they are certainly valuable in certain scenarios without a doubt. I'm not saying they're not, but I believe in, you know, applying practical and valuable AI within a platform or ecosystem that doesn't disrupt, you know, the normal daily workflow for a practitioner or clinician. You know, it's, it's got to be, it's got to be easy. It's got to be easy to use, easy to understand. And, you know, not, not too far, not straying far from what they normally do in a day. And I think, just think that's. So important as far as, you know, bringing AI into platforms and into technology and really wanting that adoption because we talked about the research paper and adoption. And I think, you know, it is a little bit slow, but I think if we do these things well, we'll see those adoption rates pick up.

Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Well said, Mark. Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing with us your perspectives and the different things that you're doing. Super, super enlightening.

Thank you so much for having me, Ed. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Hey, that wraps up another edition of Digital Voices. Thanks for listening.

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