In an industry grappling with outdated infrastructures and pressing privacy concerns, Kyle Culver saw a critical need for transformation within the U.S. healthcare system. With over a decade of experience in healthcare technology, Culver recognized the inefficiencies and vulnerabilities inherent in the current data exchange processes. The reliance on antiquated clearinghouses for communication between providers and insurers not only compromised efficiency but also exposed sensitive patient data to significant risks, as evidenced by a major hacking incident affecting millions of Americans.
Driven by a vision to overhaul these outdated systems and enhance security, privacy, and efficiency, Culver co-founded Rhiza Health. His mission: to pioneer a decentralized approach to data exchange that would revolutionize the industry and establish a more robust, patient-centric foundation for the future of healthcare.
In this interview, Kyle shares his entrepreneurship journey and vision for the future of healthcare privacy and data exchange.
How did you become interested in Healthcare/ healthcare technology?
KC: My journey into healthcare technology began over 13 years ago when I started working at Humana. During my time there, I gained deep insights into the complexities and opportunities within the healthcare industry. What struck me the most was the potential for transformative improvements through collaboration and technological innovation.
The healthcare sector is unique because, at some point, every individual is a patient. This universal relevance ignited my passion for creating meaningful change in this field. I am driven by the desire to contribute to something significant, and I believe there is no greater impact I can make than in healthcare.
However, I recognize that the challenges facing the healthcare system cannot be solved by technology alone. It requires advanced incentive models, greater transparency, decentralized governance, and a committed community of leaders who are willing to drive these efforts selflessly. These complex issues are precisely the kind of challenges that inspire me.
I am fortunate to be surrounded by a community of exceptionally smart and dedicated leaders who share my excitement for tackling these problems. Together, we are working towards a future where technology and collaborative effort can revolutionize healthcare for the better.
The solution must not be controlled by a few leaders who might seek to extract maximum value. Instead, it should function as a protocol that serves the entire industry, providing an equitable and sustainable foundation for improved competition and collaboration.
What challenges did you identify that drove you to co-found a company to address them?
KC: Several critical challenges in the U.S. healthcare system drove me to found a company to address them. One of the most pressing issues is the outdated technical infrastructure for data exchange. Specifically, the reliance on clearinghouses to facilitate communication between providers (doctors, dentists, pharmacists) and health insurance companies is far from a modern approach.
This problem was starkly highlighted when one of the leading clearinghouses was hacked, disrupting the flow of information necessary for payments and services. It is estimated that the private healthcare data of 1 in 3 Americans could have been compromised in this breach. In contrast, modern data exchange methods, such as direct email communication, do not rely on intermediaries and enable secure, direct connections between sender and receiver.
Our healthcare system urgently needs a decentralized approach to data exchange to enhance privacy, security, and efficiency. Direct connections allow for immediate responses, reducing administrative complexity and potentially eliminating over $250 billion in annual waste.
However, solving these challenges requires more than just new technology. It necessitates an incentive model that rewards efficiency and operates as a community-owned industry utility. The solution must not be controlled by a few leaders who might seek to extract maximum value. Instead, it should function as a protocol that serves the entire industry, providing an equitable and sustainable foundation for improved competition and collaboration.
We see similar utility functions in the financial industry, such as ACH. Healthcare needs a new technical foundation that operates as a utility, and Rhiza Health is dedicated to establishing this foundation.
Where do you see healthcare technology headed in the future?
KC: Predicting the future of healthcare technology is challenging, but there are some clear trends and opportunities on the horizon. While AI is poised to be a significant differentiator across industries, the healthcare sector has historically lagged in adopting cutting-edge technologies. However, the potential for AI in healthcare is immense, particularly for those who invest in enabling AI capabilities. These investments will be crucial for developing differentiated products and services that can revolutionize healthcare.
At Rhiza Health, we are particularly excited about the role decentralized technologies will play in the future of healthcare. Drawing parallels from the advancements in decentralized finance, we anticipate similar innovations will enhance healthcare's efficiency, security, and privacy. The growing percentage of GDP allocated to healthcare necessitates fundamental changes, and decentralized technologies could provide a new foundation for secure and privacy-protecting data access mechanisms essential for advanced AI solutions.
One promising development is Federated Learning, which can be facilitated by decentralized infrastructures. This approach allows AI models to be trained across multiple data sources without compromising patient privacy or company confidentiality. While these changes will take time to implement, and we might see them adopted in FinTech before healthcare, the long-term impact on healthcare technology will be profound.
Overall, the future of healthcare technology will be shaped by the integration of AI and decentralized technologies, creating a more efficient, secure, and patient-centric system.
What does success look like to Rhiza Health in the short term and long term?
KC: At Rhiza Health, success is defined by both short-term achievements and long-term impact. In the short term, our primary focus is on demonstrating the efficiency gains, enhanced privacy, and security of our decentralized solution through real transactions. We are initially targeting dental use cases because they are less complex than medical ones but rely on the same underlying standards. Our current priority is piloting how Rhiza’s protocol can streamline transactions between dental payers and providers. This short-term goal includes the target to facilitate millions of these transactions, proving the robustness and effectiveness of our solution.
Achieving success with dental transactions will pave the way for extending our protocol to medical transactions. In the long term, we envision Rhiza Health stewarding a protocol that functions as an industry utility, facilitating billions of transactions. This protocol will be governed by a decentralized group of industry leaders to ensure it remains free from rent-seeking behaviors and exploitation for the benefit of a particular group.
Much like established protocols such as HTTP and SMTP, the ultimate measure of our success will not be in the headlines but in the seamless, behind-the-scenes improvements we bring to the industry. Our goal is to create a protocol that enhances collaboration, efficiency, security, and competitiveness in healthcare. The true success of Rhiza Health will be reflected in the industry's ability to innovate and achieve better outcomes through improved collaboration and faster implementation of new solutions.
Just as email (SMTP) revolutionized communication and HTTP transformed public information sharing, I am optimistic that healthcare will have a similar transformative journey with protocols powered by decentralized technologies.
Find out more about Rhiza Health at rhiza.health. Are you a startup based in or looking to relocate to Kentucky? Keyhorse’s current quarterly investment cycle is open! Apply now.
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