Inspiring Conversations with Kane Harrison of Vision Care Connect

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kane Harrison. Them and their team share their story with us below:

Kane is an award-winning technology and healthcare entrepreneur, and founder of Harrison Media Holdings and Vision Care Connect. In addition, Kane is co-founder of Genems Systems USA, a technology company with expertise in mission-critical, high compliance market segments. My focus is on building high-performance companies with hallmark brands. Focusing exclusively on sectors of expertise and partnering with exceptional teams linked by a shared set of values and a common culture where people matter most.

A master communicator on many levels, Kane has often been acknowledged for creating new and alternative ideas. His unique ability to identify and troubleshoot critical issues stems from a background in Mechanical Engineering. However, Kane always maintained a balance by continuing to explore the creative – studying at Australia’s prestigious National Institute for Dramatic Arts (NIDA).

In 2013, Kane was awarded the AICMA music award, was the winner of the CIO of the Year Award and NEXTAward (Media and Advertising) in 2015, Nashville Emerging Leader Award winner in 2016, and nominated for NEXTAward (HealthCare) and Nashville Tech Council’s Innovator of the Year Award in 2019. In 2021, Kane was selected for the US Small Business Administration Emerging Leaders 2021 Cohort.

Kane enjoys serving as a mentor at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center and the Wond’ry – The Vanderbilt University Epicenter for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Continuing to serve the entrepreneurship community was co-host of the popular weekly radio show The Entrepreneurial Mind recorded live from downtown Nashville. Kane also serves on the board of the Tennessee Immigrant and Minority Group and is a member of the Marketing and Communications Advisory Committee at Nashville’s Adventure Science Center.

A musician, songwriter, and storyteller at heart. Kane is a SESAC member and a member of Nashville Songwriter Association International. Kane was a Finalist in Australian Idol and a Grand Finalist in Australia’s largest country music competition ‘Telstra Road to Tamworth’.

His first single The Moments debuted at # 25 on Australia’s CMC Charts and moved quickly to # 6, continuing to chart for 17 weeks. Kane penned the soundtrack and score for the Daniel Baldwin and Lou Diamond Phillips film – The Wisdom to know the difference. Kane has been fortunate in his career to have appeared on national television, in commercials, and performed at and hosted many live events in front of thousands of people.

Kane immigrated to the United States in 2010 from Australia and became a US citizen in 2019 and now calls Nashville home, where he lives with his wife and two children. In Kane’s spare time you can find him… Napping.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The challenge we faced was early recognition that we need to be patient-focused with our technology and not ophthalmologist-focused. This was tough for us because we get paid by the ophthalmologist, not the patient. When I had that light bulb moment of ‘turning around” and asking the patient what it was that they needed, the game completely changed.

It’s very easy to fall into the trap of providing everything for the person paying you and not thinking as much about the patient that is getting access to the platform for free. It’s been a real lesson for us in innovation. It’s not all about solving other people’s perceived problems. You have to trust your instincts to find the real problem. Most of the time when innovating, the world might not even see what you are solving as a problem until you bring a solution.

There was a key turning point for our story at Vision Care Connect. It was when I recognized that we needed to become completely patient-centric and build systems around supporting patients as they move towards physicians and it happened at 38,000 feet.

Vision Care Connect was initially very focused on ophthalmologists and the administrative operations that supported the ophthalmologists. We had to dig in to learn everything we could about the patient journey and the products and procedures that would be available. As a ‘fly on the wall’ in practices across the country, I would listen intently to the patient-physician interactions.

You may not know this, but in the elective out-of-pocket world of surgery, selling is critical. You have to sell the product or service, but the key to success for physicians is selling themselves. This is largely done with an often carefully choreographed bedside manner. For some, a series of anecdotes is designed to lower the barrier to entry while increasing the physician’s like-ability through genuine interaction.

One of the many anecdotes that I would hear ophthalmologists repeat often, was when they would draw a comparison between experience and safety. I would first hear, “What do they call the person who finishes last in their class at medical school?”

Nervously, you would hear the patient say, “um… a doctor.” “That’s right!” the ophthalmologists would cheer in an effort to remove the gravity of eye surgery out of the room. Then I would hear, “Now, let me explain this a different way, would you rather get on a plane with someone who had only just come out of flight school? Or would you rather be on a plane with someone who had flown 10,000 hours?”

The ophthalmologists used this type of conversational positioning to often justify top-tier pricing (in an increasingly commoditized market) and to highlight their experience. After all, would you rather have your eye surgery done by a kid who finished at the bottom of the class and is one year in practice out of school or a seasoned veteran that was magna cum laude, a surgeon that has done and seen it all? Most of us would opt for the latter, even if we had to dig into our pockets a little deeper.

Fast forward to early 2019, getting ready to fly out to California to meet with a large vision group about Vision Care Connect. And I suggested to my wife, who was pregnant at the time, that we should make this family trip and take Rowan, our daughter who was 3, to the San Diego Zoo. It had been a really hectic time for us, so the idea of getting away as a family was welcomed. We would fly into San Diego and I could do a quick day trip up to Los Angeles for business and get back to the Zoo.

I really like flying with Southwest, they just make it easy and when you have kids, that goes a long way. We were about 2 hours into our 4-hour flight, I had our daughter sitting on my lap looking out the window and my pregnant wife beside me. It was about that time into the flight when everyone has settled into a movie or dozed off and there is just the ambient noise of the jet engines sucking in the cold thin air. I have always had my deepest thoughts in those moments, the consistency of noise somehow helps my brain to organize information in a unique way.

Rowan was glued to the window like most 3-year-olds, watching the landscape change below. As I looked down at her, it suddenly struck me that my entire world, the people that I love the most, were right here, and… guess what? I didn’t know who was flying the plane. Had the pilots just arrived from a flight school or had they been seasoned in an overseas military encounter and returned as heroes to fly for Southwest? I was suddenly hoping for the latter.

This was a huge ‘aha’ moment and it changed Vision Care Connect’s positioning and trajectory. I realized that Southwest had built a very specific experience for its passengers and through that consistency of experience, Southwest had built brand trust. They had done this so well that I was willing to trust their brand with the people that were most important to me, and… I didn’t even know who the pilots were. Arguably, the most important individuals on our journey to San Diego.

Now, just think about that for a moment. Most of us wouldn’t even get into a car with someone we didn’t know, let alone trust your loved ones with them (obviously, Uber has changed that a little bit) but we have that experience every day with a 300-ton metal object, that is 38,000 feet in the air, moving at 550MPH… oh, and let’s add the fuel load to that equation.

It was at that moment, that I knew we had it wrong. I had been so focused on the ophthalmologist’s needs (when all they really need is a pair of eyes on a human that trusts them) and not the patient’s needs, which are wide and varying. That is when I realized that the opportunity for Vision Care Connect was to create a consumer-centric brand, a patient-centric brand, where a patient could entrust our brand as the gateway to their procedure.

We could create a brand that was so trusted, that the physician isn’t necessarily the immediate focus. We could build trust along the patient’s journey and set expectations so the patient didn’t think to question the ophthalmologist’s qualifications and level of experience.

Traditionally, ophthalmology marketing has been focused on a procedure or a physician. It’s why the physician’s bedside manner has been so important, and little anecdotes help to build rapport with their patients, all the while ‘proving’ value and experience, often to justify the cost, even if they shouldn’t have to. It can be a jarring experience for the patient if it’s not executed effectively.

The patients are learning about the procedure, meeting an eye surgeon, and being sold all at once. At Vision Care Connect, we recognized that there is a growing need to speak to the patient while they are in the decision process, this is often when they need the greatest support. There was a need to be transparent, and to be consistent. We realized it was time to nurture the patient experience from the first touchpoint, not just when they walk in for their appointment.

Since that moment, we have been deliberately building and nurturing our culture at Vision Care Connect. Our culture is our foundation. We are committed to setting the standard in the vision care experience, we are committed to vision health and that is what is reflected in our brand. We are creating a patient experience via our Care Connect platform that in some ways is no different from buying an airline ticket.

You see and feel consistency at every turn, you visually recognize and trust the colors, and you feel and trust the experience, all while having a great time. Just like traveling to a destination, the experience should start the moment you take the first step in your journey. We know the first steps in a ‘vision’ journey can be the hardest, which is why we are here to share that step with the patients.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
As the founder of Vision Care Connect, I realized I had to be revolutionary, innovative, and very deliberate at every turn for this company to have a meaningful impact in a very antiquated industry. Vision Care Connect is a patient-centric platform that connects world-class ophthalmologists to patients requiring vision correction and premium vision health services across the United States.

We currently have 16,000 Ophthalmologists in our system. I set out to create a true push/pull business at scale for patients and ophthalmologists. Essentially, an Airbnb or an UBER for Ophthalmology. Even though this is seemingly a niche industry, every American will, at some point in their lives, get cataracts. This attributes to 3.4 million procedures performed annually.

We focus on one patient at a time. We focus on patient experience and our select group of top-tier ophthalmologists works hard to determine what is best for each individual. We combine the most accurate data available with the highest quality of creative work to make great things happen. At Vision Care Connect, we work hard to help the most exclusive group of ophthalmology brands across the country dominate their markets by sourcing and motivating qualified patients to move towards their vision correction goals.

We build trust with patients from the first touch by showcasing the physician’s knowledge, experience, and judgment, this helps us set the patient’s expectations appropriately. It is also of critical importance that we maintain that trust through our caring, friendly, and knowledgeable Vision Care Connect team members. The first step in a patient’s vision journey can be the hardest, we are here to share that step with them. We are committed to setting the standard in the vision care experience, we are committed to vision health.

In 2022, Vision Care Connect is pushing to become the first and only platform in the vision health space to offer patients insured surgical outcomes. This will prove to be a key differentiator in acquiring patents in the vision health marketplace. This is only possible at scale due to the advancements of the Vision Care Connect ‘Care Console’.
Patients will be offered insurance of up to $1M (after qualification) on their vision surgery outcome by using the Vision Care Connect platform and accessing our ophthalmologists.

WHAT IS THE COOLEST PART OF THIS INNOVATION?

There is not currently a system like this in ophthalmology, we are the first. Being the first is always cool, but the best part about this is that we are adding tremendous value to both the patient and the ophthalmologist.

There was a real need for meaningful innovation and not just disruption for the sake of disruption, which happens a lot. There was a need for this platform and for this level of service. I’m excited that I designed this platform for ophthalmology knowing it would move across many other elective health services such as dental, orthopedics, the plastics, and cosmetic industries.

Selfishly, it’s fun to light the fires of an idea. It’s incredibly liberating to give in to the fact that sometimes you only need to be armed with your imagination.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.visioncareconnect.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/visioncareconnect_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VisionCareConnect
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Connect_Vision
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUicbNASP3hKKVEGTPGWRnw
• Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaneharrisonofficial/

Image Credits
Kane Harrison, Dr. Arun Gulani, Dr. Ming Wang, Dr. Steven Siepser, Maria, and Vision Care Connect – Proudly Nashville Campaign