Introducing Founder Files: Lessons from 9 Years of Building in HealthTech

Healthie has spent nearly a decade building and scaling a best-in-class EHR and infrastructure platform for health tech organizations. Since launching, we’ve grown to serve over 32,000 providers and touch over 12 million patient lives, operating profitably for most of that time. Our co-founders, Erica Jain (CEO) and Cavan Klinsky (CTO) started Healthie while in school and have since grown the company to 100+ team members and raised $42M to date.

Along the way, they’ve had a front-row seat to the rapid evolution of virtual care, speaking with hundreds of health tech organizations and leaders each year. Through these conversations, they’ve identified key patterns—not just in technology decisions, but in how companies are built, scaled, and positioned for long-term success.

This series, Founder Files, is designed to democratize their insights for the broader health tech community. “We want to share the lessons we’ve seen across thousands of health tech organizations—their successes, their challenges, and what truly makes a difference,” says Erica.

For our first installment, we’re tackling one of the most critical decisions in healthcare: choosing the right Electronic Health Record (EHR). From early-stage startups to enterprise-grade virtual care companies, EHR selection is not just about workflows. It impacts clinical operations, scalability, compliance, and the ability to integrate within an evolving healthcare landscape. For many startups, the discovery process is fraught with complexity—too many features to evaluate, internal misalignment, and a lack of structured decision-making.

“We’ve seen companies delay growth for months because they couldn’t align on an EHR,” Cavan shares. “But the best teams? They make a decision, commit, and build their business with confidence.”

So how do the most successful companies navigate this process? What sets apart those who choose the right EHR and scale seamlessly from those who struggle? 

Through conversations with customers, industry leaders, and partners, we’ve identified key patterns that separate the companies that make strategic, future-proof EHR choices from those that struggle with implementation and long-term growth. Let’s dive in.

What Sets High-Growth Companies Apart in the EHR Buying Process

High-growth health tech companies approach the EHR selection process with operational excellence and rigor. They enter with a clear scope, well-defined ownership, and set structured decision-making frameworks. The most successful companies prioritize scalability, API extensibility, and regulatory compliance—evaluating how a platform will evolve alongside their business from the start.

Rather than getting stuck on a feature-by-feature comparison, high-performing organizations define their must-have capabilities upfront. They document their clinical, operational, and financial requirements—often in a structured framework by outlining dozens of specific needs—and use that to drive vendor evaluations. They also assess vendor roadmap alignment, ensuring that their EHR partner is innovating in the same direction as their business.

That’s one of many reasons why Healthie publishes our public-facing roadmap—to ensure existing and prospective customers alike have the visibility to make informed decisions for their business partners and future product plans.

By contrast, companies that frequently change priorities mid-process or lack internal alignment often delay decision-making. Without clarity on their business model and must-have technology needs, the selection process becomes drawn out, ineffective, and ultimately, risks selecting a platform that won’t scale with them. The strongest organizations approach EHR evaluation with the same strategic rigor they would apply to any other critical business decision—by defining objectives, gathering stakeholder input, and running an organized evaluation process—because ultimately, their EHR becomes a foundational part of their business infrastructure.

Why Choosing an EHR Is Uniquely Challenging for Health Tech Startups

EHR selection is often one of the most difficult technology decisions for health tech organizations. Unlike other software purchases, EHRs are business-critical, healthcare-critical tools. As such, switching EHRs is highly disruptive, requiring deep integration across clinical operations, billing, and care delivery. This can create friction in the decision-making process. As teams struggle to extract their needs and align on a future-state vision, it can lead to two common pitfalls: over-relying on intuition instead of defining concrete requirements or getting stuck in analysis paralysis.

For early-stage health tech startups, the challenge is even greater. At the outset, everything feels important, often making it difficult to prioritize the most critical business drivers. However, the most successful organizations recognize that not every feature is a dealbreaker or dealmaker. Rather than optimizing for everything, successful startups focus on finding an EHR that aligns with their long-term strategy, supports their key workflows, and integrates seamlessly with their broader tech stack.

The Role of Strong Project Management in EHR Selection

A common misconception in health tech is that the best EHR buying decisions are made by someone with expertise across the intersection of clinical, product, and business teams. While cross-functional knowledge is valuable, what truly drives success is structured project management.

Winning health tech startups appoint a dedicated project lead who ensures that clinical, engineering, and operational stakeholders provide input—without derailing the process. This person synthesizes information, runs a structured evaluation, and ultimately ensures that the EHR choice aligns with larger business goals. Strong project management directly correlates with faster provider adoption and long-term business scalability. The ability to pull the right stakeholders in at the right time, and execute efficiently, is what separates high-performing teams from those that struggle with implementation. 

Making a Confident, Future-Proof EHR Decision

The most successful health tech companies don’t aim for a perfect EHR—they focus on finding a strong partner that can scale with them. They recognize that aligning with a vendor that understands their business model and growth trajectory is more significant than checking every feature box. And just as importantly, once they’ve made a decision, they commit to it fully to ensure smooth implementation and long-term success. 

Winning health tech startups prioritize vendors with:

• Enterprise-Grade Infrastructure: SOC 2 compliance, ONC certification, HIPAA adherence, and scalable cloud architecture.
• API-First Flexibility: Seamless integrations with existing systems, including billing, scheduling, and third-party analytics.
• Customization & White-Label Capabilities: The ability to configure personalized workflows and maintain brand consistency.
• A Shared Vision for Innovation: A vendor roadmap that aligns with their long-term business goals and strategy.

At Healthie, we’ve seen firsthand how the right EHR choice enables operational excellence, improves care delivery, and accelerates business growth for health tech organizations. Whether you’re selecting an EHR for the first time or considering a switch, a structured, strategic, and decisive approach will set your organization up for long-term success.

If you're navigating this decision and want to chat, reach out to us at info@gethealthie.com.