Creating the Solution Health Care Teams Need
New app helps physicians find information at their fingertips
By Elaine Zeinner
Photography by Jeffrey Salter and Elan Mizrahi
Andrew Rosendahl
Frank Gencorelli
F
rank Gencorelli, M.D. ’08, and Andrew Rosendahl, Ph.D. ’05, M.D. ’07, are reimagining how medical teams access the information they need each day. Instead of the cumbersome task of tracking down the resident on call, confirming the operating room schedule, or finding an open workstation to review a protocol for a procedure, Drs. Gencorelli and Rosendahl want teams to have all the information they need at their fingertips. And with Hubspring, they say they do.
Hubspring, better known as The Hub, is an innovative and HIPAA-compliant app that helps teams access critical resources in real-time with any device — smartphone, tablet, or web-browser. Its fully integrated secure messaging system improves communication and care coordination for teams of any size. Within The Hub, users can message each other, access key files, and review on-call schedules, protocols, imaging, assignments, and much more.
An idea ‘born from frustration’
Dr. Gencorelli, an anesthesiologist at UHealth – the University of Miami Health System, says the app was born out of frustration during his residency at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I knew there had to be a better way to get in touch with faculty and do many other tasks,” Dr. Gencorelli recalled. “I wanted to figure out how to use mobile technology to solve those frustrations.”
That led him to create the rough, first iteration of what would eventually become The Hub. He shared the idea with his good friend, Dr. Rosendahl, whom he met during his time at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. The two had brainstormed several other business ventures, and Dr. Rosendahl immediately recognized the impact the app could have on care teams.
“Frank and I had done many things together before Hubspring,” said Dr. Rosendahl, a psychiatrist with a private practice in New York City. “With Hubspring, the whole idea was to help shave minutes, and even seconds, off the time it takes to find the information or people you need, ultimately helping providers be more efficient and deliver high-quality care.”
Andrew Rosendahl, Ph.D. ’05, M.D. ’07
Success driven from the inside
Since Drs. Gencorelli and Rosendahl first developed the app, they’ve continued to enhance its functionality and build momentum. They’ve won several awards, and the anesthesiology department at UHealth was the first to adopt the app.
A few years ago, they hired their first employee (and fellow Miller School alum), Sylvia Xistris, M.P.H. ’18. The Hub is now used at several hospitals across the country, including departments at UHealth, and has recently expanded internationally. In partnership with a Latin American organization focused on pediatric GI disease, The Hub is helping providers gain easy access to current standards of care, improving outcomes for children with critical illness.
“There are not a lot of health care startups in Miami,” Ms. Xistris said. “I found The Hub, and it was the perfect fit after my graduate studies at UM. Most of my research centered on mobile health technology and how to disseminate large amounts of information to widely varying groups of people — something The Hub does very well within hospitals and potentially outside of them, too.”
Both Drs. Gencorelli and Rosendahl cite their backgrounds in health care as part of The Hub’s success. As physicians, they understand the challenges and frustrations team members face and can develop solutions that will work. The Hub recently surpassed a major milestone of being used more than 4 million times — evidence that the team has not only created an effective solution but has changed the culture among their clients.
Frank Gencorelli, M.D. ’08, and Sylvia Xistris, M.P.H. ‘18
“Health care has high walls for tech to scale and make a difference,” Dr. Rosendahl said. “Big companies have failed because they’re not coming from a doctor-centric place like we are.”
Dr. Gencorelli agreed.
“We know this problem firsthand, so we knew The Hub would work and would have an impact,” he said. “We can adapt the app rapidly to users’ needs because we built it that way — understanding that different teams may have different needs.”
The Hubspring team believes this flexibility and creativity will propel them to continued success in the future. Currently, the two doctors are working with the Miller School to help enhance communications with incoming first-year and rising second-year medical students and regularly evaluate new opportunities — whether it’s other hospitals, schools, or organizations that experience similar challenges.
Learn more about The Hub at HubspringHealth.com.
