Robert Horvath and his colleague Russell Tanzer use the scheduling software DocRoster at North York General Hospital in Toronto.Sami Siva
Robert Horvath is a self-professed tech nerd. He also happens to be a doctor.
And what happens when a tech nerd becomes an emergency physician? He quickly realizes that paper scheduling, which is still widely used in many emergency rooms, is not the way to go.
"The amount of effort it would take to arrange changes was ridiculous," says Dr. Horvath, an emergency physician at Toronto's North York General Hospital and assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Toronto. "You could call 10 people just to ask a favour to change one shift, and half the time the paper schedule was out of date anyway."
Tired of the rigmarole he faced every time he wanted to trade, Dr. Hovarth enlisted a fellow doctor and a programmer to help him do something about it. "[We] built a system that showed a calendar with all the shifts of your colleagues," he says.
Staff members can see their own schedules and the schedules of those in their department. When they need to make a switch, they send an e-mail to members of their group. If a colleague accepts, the master schedule is automatically updated. Dr. Horvath calls it the eBay of physician scheduling: "It brings together the buyers and sellers."
Dr. Horvath and his partners forked over $30,000 to get their Internet-based staff scheduling software, which they called DocRoster, off the ground. At the time, he knew of only one potential competitor: EPSKED out of the United States, which didn't allow shift trading but instead was downloaded software designed to generate schedules.
North York General agreed to let Dr. Horvath test his new application in their emergency room as a pilot program in 2001, at no cost to the hospital.
The software cut the work of the administrative person responsible for the schedule in half, Dr. Horvath says. It also increased accountability because there was no confusion about who should be in for a certain shift.
"At the end of the year we went to the hospital and said, someone has to start paying for this," Dr. Horvath says. "They took a vote and it was a unanimous decision to continue using it." With their first paying client on board, Dr. Horvath and his partners incorporated Rosterware.
Nalin Ahluwalia, former chief of emergency medicine at York Central Hospital in Richmond Hill, Ont., and currently an emergency physician at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital, likes the software for its ease of access. "If you're outside of the country, you can still access your schedule and make changes without a lot of headache," he says.
He recalls that when York Central introduced DocRoster, physicians were at first reluctant. "We all know people are resistant to change," he says. But within a few weeks, the staff was convinced. "They would never go back," he says, calling DocRoster a leading innovation in the medical work space.
In the years after they launched DocRoster, Dr. Horvath and his partners invested an additional $80,000. By 2006, about 30 hospital groups were using the software. But the approximate $10 fee per doctor per month they were charging (plus a licensing fee) just wasn't cutting it. Rosterware needed a serious injection of capital.
"We knew we'd never be able to take it to the next level without investment and partnership," Dr. Horvath says.
He came close to inking partnership deals twice, but both times they fell through. In one case, Dr. Horvath spent more than a year in negotiations only to decide that the partnership wasn't a good fit. "I should have defined my needs first and then found people to fit those needs," he says.
In 2008, Dr. Horvath contemplated selling the business. That's when he learned about the Innovation Synergy Centre in Markham, an Ontario-based non-profit organization geared toward helping small and mid-sized businesses grow, including finding investments.
He credits ISCM with giving him the business know-how he lacked. "I learned so much from them, about business plans and financial projections and how to negotiate," he says.
After participating in the organization's mentorship program, Dr. Horvath secured $300,000 from a group of 11 doctors earlier this year. Since then, he's bought out one of his partners entirely and the majority of the other, assembled a board of advisers and formed a strategic partnership with UIM Internet Solutions, a Toronto-based Web development company that now supports and hosts DocRoster's systems.
Today, DocRoster is used by more than 2,000 physicians in some 60 hospital groups. Doctors can now see shifts from different hospitals in one view and filter their colleagues' shifts to see which are available for trades. DocRoster also functions as a schedule generator and administrators can look up audit records on every transaction. Early next year, Rosterware plans to introduce personalized dashboards, giving doctors greater control over their shift assignments, as well as more options for trading and tracking.
Dr. Horvath has recently cut back on his hospital shifts and is now in his second round of raising capital. "We're very optimistic about the future of the company," he says. "There's such a significant need. In North America you're talking about five million people who work in health-care institutions."
Rosterware intends to make them all a part of its future business model by customizing the product for other types of medical staff in the future. Recently Rosterware enlisted its first U.S. client, with a second close to signing.
"Yes, we're in the positive revenue now," Dr. Horvath says. "But honestly, it gives me the greatest joy when doctors come to me and say, 'You're Dr. DocRoster. We just love your product.'
"I'm very proud of that."
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TIPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS
Investing dos and don'ts
Don't assume friends make good partners. "Everyone has their own agenda and whether it's a friend or not, you have to do your due diligence," Dr. Horvath says.
Acknowledge what you don't know
Entrepreneurs tend to try to become the jack of all trades, he says. But no one is good at everything. Recognize when you need to get help and be creative about how you secure it, Dr. Horvath says. You don't necessarily need to put someone on your payroll. Instead consider hiring an expert on contract.
Target the right investor
"When you come across someone who supports your vision, you tend to grab on to them," Dr. Horvath says. But belief in what you're doing isn't enough. Start by going after an investor who has some experience in the field you're working in, he suggests.
Trust your gut
"This isn't so different than assessing a patient in one or two minutes in emergency," he says. "It often can't be defined, but you know when something is right or wrong." The difference between emergency work and business, he adds, is that in business you can - and should - take the time to carefully consider your options before committing to anything.