Today the PeopleTech Partners team sits down with Galileo’s founder and CEO Thomas Lee, MD to learn more about the company and what they have been working on since becoming a part of the PeopleTech Partners portfolio. Thomas is a general internist trained at some of the country’s top medical institutions. Before launching Galileo, he helped create and scale both Epocrates (the first and largest medical app used by physicians) and One Medical (the largest tech-enabled primary care group in the US).
Both One Medical and Galileo were started by Thomas Lee MD and they share a common goal of improving the quality and cost of health care.
Galileo is a newer model of care started with the intent of serving broader, more diverse patients on a digital-first model. Because of the model design, we’re able to reliably care for patients personally, effectively and affordably — no matter where they may be.
Could you tell us more about what you do at Galileo?
“We pay extraordinary amounts for a health care system that produces variable results with a confusing patient experience. At Galileo, we wanted to take our decades of experience to build a health care delivery solution for the modern era. By using the best of technology and human interaction, we’ve designed a model of care that is personal, proactive, tech-facilitated and able to serve all Americans, including the most complex and underserved. We have a broad range of partnerships with small and large employers, health plans, and many institutions to bring quality affordable health care that also lowers total costs.”
What gave you the idea to start Galileo?
“Since my time as a medical resident, the health care system didn’t really seem organized to deliver the care that patients and their physicians desired. The traditional care model in which you see a doctor one-on-one hasn’t changed in over 100 years. Unfortunately, the complexity and diversity of the populations that we care for has grown exponentially. At Epocrates, we started to dig into how to improve point-of-care decision making using technology. And at One Medical, we validated that a high-touch model of care could be scaled using technology, particularly for urban populations.
With Galileo, we wanted to take our expertise and apply a new standard of care for all populations, both rural and urban, commercial and complex. We do this by combining the best of collaborative human decision-making with data-driven technology. This approach allows us to deliver higher quality care consistently and affordably.”
Could you tell us who can benefit from this solution?
“We designed Galileo to benefit several core stakeholders.
Most importantly, patients are at the heart of our model. Our goal is to provide them with the highest quality, affordable care available anywhere, no matter how their care is covered or paid for.
Because employers are commonly the purchasers of health care, we built a model that not only improves the quality of care but helps reduce total costs across a broad range of employer types — small or large, lower wage or higher wage workers, with varied demographic and clinical needs.
Lastly, we wanted a care model where physicians and other clinical team members could perform at their best. To do so, you need to design systems that are as thoughtful to your care team as the patients.”
How is your solution different from conventional video visits and other modes of care in the digital space?
Most digital offerings simply recreate the one-on-one doctor visits in the virtual world. Galileo fully re-imagines the exam room in order to help our providers make better decisions.
To achieve this, we’ve built a clinical intelligence platform that allows our doctors to collaborate and offer a data-driven and personalized experience for a full range of health conditions. Medical record upload, structured Q&A, and text-based offerings give patients access to their health information and medical conversations in the palm of their hand.
It’s also worth noting that because we’re a multi-specialty practice with a broader definition of primary care, we’re able to handle more types of cases directly on the platform, thereby reducing total costs. In the likelihood a patient does need an in-person visit, we send them to a specialist from our personally curated network.
If someone wants to learn more about Galileo, who should they reach out to?
Our team can best be reached at [email protected]. We also have more information on our website about webinars and upcoming events at galileohealth.com.