WELL Retrospective

When the 70-person WELL team reached the summit at dawn, we sat down on slabs of rock for hot breakfast burritos that we had lugged in ourselves.

It was more than a nature walk but less than a climb — the perfect context for discussing our path forward as a company.

In the cool morning fog, WELL CEO Guillaume de Zwirek talked about winning. The race to the top of the industry will be won by the company that relentlessly pursues growth, that keeps patients at the center of its mission, and that stops at nothing to see its clients succeed.

Looking back on the year, we are well on our way. We built successful partnerships with more than 50 new health systems and vendor partners. Our team grew by more than 50 percent. We earned prestigious industry certifications. And we saw triple-digit revenue and customer growth. Here are some of the highlights from the year.

New partnerships

Interoperability is more than a buzzword at WELL. We are committed to integrating seamlessly with the leading EHRs and healthcare IT vendors. In 2019, we completed more than 70 customer integrations across numerous EHRs. We also added many new vendor partners. These included Tonic, Binary Fountain, SwervePay, Calibrater, RepuGen, Empathiq, CareSense, NarrativeDx, Healthnote, and Noteworth.

New clients

WELL onboarded more than 40 new clients. These included some large health systems, such as Altura Centers for Health, Clinica Sierra Vista, Eisenhower Health, Houston Methodist, MemorialCare & Nautilus, and SCL Health.

Our clients saw marked success with WELL. And we published nine case studies illustrating new use cases and impressive success metrics. Leading industry publications also featured our clients and their success with WELL. Healthcare IT News featured Eisenhower Health in multiple articles and highlighted its ability to reduce no-shows and increase revenue with WELL, Becker’s Hospital Review described Houston Methodist’s “disrupt or be disrupted” approach and how it leverages WELL to improve patient communication. The Center for Care Innovations wrote about the success of two WELL clients, Altura Centers for Health and Santa Cruz Community Health Centers. Additionally, several WELL clients were named on the 2019-2020 U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals Honor Roll, including NYU Langone Hospitals, University of Wisconsin Hospitals, and Houston Methodist Hospital.

Product engineering

For our product engineering department, it was a year of transition and growth. We doubled the number of patients served to 13 million and the number of messages sent. WELL now processes more than 10 million inbound messages each week and sends 800,000 patient messages each day.

Our engineering team also improved our partner integration capabilities and made significant infrastructure improvements. We launched new features that will improve patient experience and staff efficiency. These include WELL Analytics, Multilingual Quick Responses, and Sentiment Analysis. The product engineering team also nearly doubled in size.

Security validation

WELL received HITRUST CSF Certification in September, confirming our commitment to data security and HIPAA compliance. HITRUST, Health Information Trust Alliance, is a standards organization whose programs and services help safeguard sensitive information and manage risk. WELL also earned the Veracode Verified seal, further illustrating that WELL is committed to guarding patient health information to the same degree as our esteemed  customers.

A thriving team

None of our success would have been possible without our devoted, talented team of employees. Our team grew by more than 50 percent this year, prompting WELL to move to a new office in Santa Barbara. We also awarded 40 new promotions, proving our commitment to promoting from within.

In addition to garnering many positive reviews on Glassdoor, WELL also earned the honor of being named in the 50 Best Companies to Work for In Los Angeles by Built in LA.

Mid-year, after the hike to the summit, the entire WELL team met to determine our core values as a company. They include Work to Win, Deliver with Passion, Play as a Team, Pursue Growth, and Make it Better. We look forward to continuing to demonstrate these values as we enter 2020. ♥