Today we’d like to introduce you to Derrick L. Miles.
Derrick, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Graduated from Bethune Cookman University with a degree in Medical Technology with a minor in Chemistry. Learned about the profession of hospital administration while working in a lab in Florida. Decided that same day that I would become a hospital executive instead of a medical technologist. Through a relationship with the CEO of Tampa General Hospital, I got introduced to the CEO of UAB Hospital in Birmingham, AL. Completed an internship in the summer of 1997 and was hired into my first hospital leadership position at the age of 26. UAB has the highest rated Master of Healthcare Administration program in the country. I applied and got accepted. Became an expert in hospital turnarounds by being tapped on the shoulder by a sponsor (Liz Means) while working for Shands UF in Jacksonville, FL.
At the age of 31, I was named CEO of a Specialty Hospital. Spent another seven years as an operations leader for Academic Health Centers. Due to a reduction in force, I made the decision to become an entrepreneur. Failed miserably at first a couple of startups not in the healthcare space. Then decided to innovate the healthcare space (my area of expertise) with crowdsourced delivery.
Has it been a smooth road?
Not at all. 1) Healthcare is traditionally ten years behind cutting edge innovation. Therefore it took a while before healthcare organizations gave us an opportunity to prove our innovative concept.
2) Cash – since healthcare is slow to innovate, we needed to raise a larger round of friends and family to account for the longer sales cycles.
Please tell us about CourMed®.
CourMed is an innovative healthcare solutions company today that exist to encourage our customers. We started out as a crowdsourced delivery (think Uber/Lyft/Grubhub for healthcare items) platform but quickly realized that new revenue, SaaS, telepharmacy customer analytics were needed to help healthcare providers like independent pharmacies compete for new customers.
I’m most proud of the fact that 99.9% of our customers rate their experience with CourMed 5-Star! We built the company with the end in mind… an encouraged customer. Our SaaS platform allows healthcare providers to license our software and the results for those customer experiences are rated the same. Those results validate that whether CourMed facilitates the delivery or your healthcare organization facilitates the delivery. The experience is the same; an encouraged customer!
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Second movers and laggard adoption. Every pundit in the courier business told me crowdsourced delivery for healthcare items (prescriptions, OTC, high-end vitamins, supplements, PPE, home medical supplies, immunonutrition drinks, etc.) wouldn’t work. We took our time figuring out profitability, the customer experience and marketing. Now that we are scaling to select prominent cities outside of DFW, I’m confident second movers will come into the space as competition.
Healthcare is ten years behind the innovation curve. Plus most people are still unaware that crowdsourced delivery of their healthcare items is even available to them through their current healthcare coverage. We have made the process easy through our Concierge Referral Program for people to utilize the independent pharmacy option of their coverage. It’s a win for the patient; they get their healthcare items delivered FREE and fast. It’s a win for the independent pharmacy; they get a new patient. It’s a win for employers; FREE perk to employees. And a win for CourMed since we provide the encouraging crowdsourced delivery experience.
Contact Info:
- Address: 3001 S. Hardin Blvd
Suite 110
#202 McKinney, TX 75070 - Website: https://CourMed.com
- Phone: 214.903.0004
- Email: admin@courmed.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/courmed
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/courmedhealth
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/courmed
- Other: https://linkedin.com/company/courme
Image Credit:
Kauwuane Burton
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