Kyruus’s search engine enables consumers to find the best providers for their health care needs.

Since he was eight years old, Graham Gardner, MD (MBA 2007) knew he wanted to be a doctor. Once he completed his training as a cardiologist, the self-described “learning-curve addict” broadened his ambition and applied to HBS. “I was almost 30 when I realized that there were people called ‘entrepreneurs’ who get paid to start new things,” says Gardner of what inspired him to earn an MBA. “It sounded like the coolest thing in the world.”

Today, Gardner has combined his two passions in leading Kyruus, a Boston-based firm he cofounded that helps health care systems to manage their provider data and make it easier to connect patients with the right care—steps that ultimately benefit both patients and practitioners. Gardner launched Kyruus in 2010 with support from his then-employer, Highland Capital Partners, a firm he joined after what he calls his “two magical years” at HBS during which he transitioned from medical provider to physician leader. “My first year at HBS gave me the framework to think about different parts of a business, and I plunged into entrepreneurial deep dives during my second year,” he says. Gardner has built Kyruus into an industry leader in providing search, scheduling, and data management services for health systems.

Simplifying the Process

“I saw that major health systems were struggling to match supply and demand at scale,” says Gardner. “Everyone was getting referred to ‘Dr. Famous,’ who was booked for 17 weeks out, while brand-new doctors only had 30 percent of their schedules filled.” Inspired by the efficiency that companies like Travelocity brought to the airline industry, Gardner created Kyruus to optimize patient-provider matching. The company enables health care systems to simplify the process of finding doctors and booking appointments for patients. It also provides a sophisticated enterprise management tool that helps health systems track, maintain, and manage provider data. The Kyruus platform includes some 21,000 medical terms that enable patients to identify a provider who cares for their exact condition.

“You can specify that you want to see a female oncologist who specializes in breast cancer, accepts your insurance, and speaks Spanish, for example,” Gardner says. Then users can sort by availability and location, book an appointment, and submit their insurance information. “We don’t define what is right for the patients. Our job is to get the data to help you find the best match for you,” he says, using the example that when patients are looking for a cardiologist, they are likely to have different criteria than when they need a flu shot.

Kyruus now serves more than 270,000 providers across 600 hospitals. “We significantly reduce leakage out of the network,” Gardner says, noting that medical groups in the Kyruus network see their appointment bookings increase by 2 to 11 percent. “That might not sound like a lot, but when you are an $8 billion health system and you have 2 percent more appointments scheduled, that’s $160 million of downstream revenue.” While the financial savings are significant, equally important—to both doctors and patients—is the ability to get to the right provider more quickly.

Continuing to Serve Patients

The power of the enterprise platform has been particularly apparent throughout the pandemic. Because of the rich data upon which the platform runs, Kyruus clients were able to transition more quickly from in-person services to virtual. Call center workers, for example, had access to the Kyruus scheduling function online so that, Gardner says, “Overnight, they switched from working with 400 others in a large building to working from home on our platform. That was critical to being able to continue to serve patients.”

Similarly, health systems were able to meet the needs of patients as guidelines changed and COVID-19 spread. So, from the start of the pandemic, organizations could channel users to the services they needed—be it a call to a nursing line, a visit to a testing site, or a telemedicine appointment with a physician. “We were essential to their ability to direct traffic and get patients to the right services,” says Gardner.

By mining the search data on the platform, Gardner and his team could see a detailed picture of patient needs and relay that information to their clients. Interestingly, he says, “COVID-related searches never exceeded 10 percent of our traffic, which helped us anticipate the pent-up demand for other health issues that were being put on hold because of the pandemic.”

Kyruus has been included on several lists of Boston’s best companies to work for (including the 2020 Boston Business Journal list), and Gardner is proud of the culture he has created at the company. “Our product is based on the idea that each provider has relative strengths and weaknesses—attributes that can be leveraged by matching them to patients who require their unique training.” That same philosophy, Gardner offers, informs how he runs the company. “We work hard to create an inclusive culture that embraces everyone’s individual contribution. We then try to help them develop their skills. Medicine is an apprenticeship industry. The minute you can do the job, you turn around and help the next person.”

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