Stratasan Nashville Post Feature

Layer upon layer of growth

Analytics player Stratasan has big plans for ’16 and beyond

Originally Published November 15, 2015, by Geert De Lombaerde in the Nashville Post. 

Pity your average hospital executive for a little bit. Just for a few seconds, promise.

Think about how her hospitals aren’t getting paid at the rate they used to. Picture her having to deal with the doctors who have set up a surgery center nearby to lure away some of her most profitable customers. And her biggest corporate priority for the next two years is figuring out which service lines — orthopedics, freestanding emergency departments or urgent-care clinics? — are deserving of parts of her precious capital budget.

For more than 600 hospitals in 40 states, the potential headache of weighing those dynamics is alleviated by Stratasan, a five-year-old software and analytics venture based near downtown’s First Tennessee Park. The company — which takes its name from the Latin words for layers and health — has amassed mountains of demographic, market share and financial data that gives customers greater confidence in making planning, marketing, physician relations and acquisition decisions.

And in a world where sticky customers mean so much, here’s a thought: Stratasan’s services steadily get better over time as its technology and people interact with clients making front-line decisions.

“We’re learning at a rapid pace because all of the inputs we have,” says co-founder and COO Jason Moore. ”There are a lot of meaningful conversations with clients to fold into what we’re doing.”

Moore launched what is now Stratasan as Health Data Source. Initially, he expected his core customer base would be smaller hospitals without dedicated planning staffs. But it turned out larger organizations more eagerly wanted the chance to crunch — and validate — their numbers. Absorbing all that data over time has more recently proved useful for Moore and his team as they go back to smaller hospitals with more refined models and databases.

“It’s a race to adapt to change, and people are willing to look at all the tools available to them,” CEO Marshall Martin says. “It’s no longer just about filling beds. Bringing in the wrong patients may not be the answer in a fee-for-value world.”

Stratasan has steadily grown its staff, but 2016 is setting up to a be big. Martin, who came on board about 18 months ago, says he can see the company hiring between eight and 12 people in the coming year. Key drivers are the recent formal introduction of Spark, the company’s concierge analytics service, and the upcoming rollout of the first in a series of niche products under the Pathways brand.

Spark is a more formal, packaged evolution of three years of work with Stratasan’s service tools. The company’s team of specialists are in a position to translate clients’ goals and priorities and run them through a virtual implementation process. The question that results is usually a variation of, “Is this still the decision you want to make?”

The Pathways line’s premise is that Stratasan’s main planning tools can be too cumbersome and wide-reaching for certain purposes and audiences. Picking a smaller focus area can let Stratasan deliver a clearer value to smaller groups with more specific questions. The first product, to be rolled out in January, will focus on the key dynamic of physician recruitment and retention.

Stratasan has positioned itself to be at the table for a lot of the important questions being asked by health care executives these days. The market is in flux and reliable data is at a premium as various stakeholders figure out how to stake their claim to a world dominated by value-based reimbursement and population health management.

“We’re not sure how long the transition will take. There are specific questions to answer during that process, but the underlying question will still be the same,” Moore says. “What are the right services to provide in the right place? It’s all about understanding the communities you’re in.”