Quillmark Health / BB-Demo – Discovery
Callcompleted
Quillmark Health: documents · 2026-02-02 17:15
Discovery with Ben Kowalski, who wants one view of each hospital client instead of five places to look. Interest is real but gated by security and procurement. Jordan Pike holds an Enterprise placeholder and a planning close date, neither agreed by Ben.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Discovery with Ben Kowalski, who wants one view of each hospital client instead of five places to look. Interest is real but gated by security and procurement. Jordan Pike holds an Enterprise placeholder and a planning close date, neither agreed by Ben.
What happened: Jordan Pike hosted discovery with Hannah Lowe and Ben Kowalski, VP Data and Analytics. Ben described client services opening five places to understand one hospital client.
Customer view: Ben built the Snowflake estate himself and said anything that copies data out is dead on arrival. His team prepares each client view by hand, taking a day, sometimes two.
Commercial: Jordan floated Enterprise as a working placeholder, not a quote, with a planning close of 2026-06-30. Ben will not comment on price and cannot promise a date, because procurement and security decide.
Watch: No administrator is named yet, and security must approve even a de-identified sample for the demo.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Single client view discovery
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Ben to check with security whether a de-identified sample is allowed and report back.
- Hannah to send the architecture overview and security summary in writing.
- Jordan to send a recap and propose a demo time.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Security and procurement control the decision and Ben would not commit to a date.
- No administrator has been named on the customer side.
- Price has not been tested: Ben will not react to the placeholder and procurement has not seen it.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Enterprise tier fits a regulated buyer needing single sign-on, user provisioning and security review support.
- Finance data was named as the next source after a first phase of CRM, tickets, calls and email.
Transcript
Jordan Pike NoneHey Ben, hey Hannah. Can everyone hear me okay?
Ben Kowalski NoneLoud and clear. Hey Jordan. Hey Hannah. Thanks for doing this so late in the day.
Hannah Lowe NoneHello both. Yes, I can hear you. It's a bit past my dinner time, but I've got a cup of tea, so we're fine.- Ben Kowalski NoneLove it. We just got another round of snow here in Boston. The whole parking lot's buried and half my team is working from home. How's New York?
- Jordan Pike NoneSame, honestly. It's grey and miserable, I walked in from the subway with wet socks. Okay, one-line agenda: I want to understand what you're trying to fix, what you've got today, and what a good outcome looks like. We've got half an hour, so I'll watch the clock.
- Ben Kowalski NonePerfect. Half an hour works. I've got a hard stop after that for a client thing.
- Jordan Pike NoneGreat. So Ben, to be transparent, I've read the notes from your intro, but I'd rather hear it in your words. What's the problem?
- Ben Kowalski NoneOkay. So, we do revenue-cycle management for hospital groups. Each hospital client is a big relationship. And right now, if someone in client services wants to understand one of those clients, they have to open five different places. The CRM, the ticketing system, the call recordings, a bunch of spreadsheets, and then a report from my team. It's slow, and honestly it's different every time.
- Jordan Pike NoneSo what you want is one view of each hospital client.
- Ben Kowalski NoneExactly. One view of each hospital client. This is exactly the gap. I want a client services lead to be able to open one thing and see who we talked to, what's open, what's been escalated, and what the relationship feels like.
- Hannah Lowe NoneCan I ask a couple of things there, Ben? When you say what the relationship feels like, is that something people write down today, or is it something they carry in their head?
- Ben Kowalski NoneMostly in their heads, honestly. Some of it is in call notes. Some of it is in emails. A lot of it is just, ask Sandra, she knows that account. Which is a problem when Sandra goes on vacation.
- Hannah Lowe NoneRight. Then I'd guess the recorded calls and the email threads are where a lot of the value sits. And the short answer is that the brain can read those alongside the structured records, so you can ask a question across all of them. The longer answer is that how well it works depends on how clean the sources are, so I'd like to understand them.
- Ben Kowalski NoneSure. Okay. So, we built our data estate on Snowflake. That was me. We've got the CRM data landing there, the ticketing data, call transcripts from the recorder. A lot of the raw material is already there. It's the joining it up that's the mess.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThat's helpful, and it's a good starting position. To be precise, the brain runs inside your own Snowflake account. So your data doesn't move to us. We build the layer on top of what's already in your estate.
- Ben Kowalski NoneYes, that's the part that got me interested. Because I have to take any new vendor to security and procurement, and anything that wants to copy our data out is basically dead on arrival.
- Jordan Pike NoneAnd I want to be upfront about that, Ben. You're subject to HIPAA, your clients are hospitals, and your security team is going to have a lot of questions. I'd rather they get straight answers early than find gaps late. Hannah runs the security review for us and she doesn't shade anything.
- Hannah Lowe NoneI'll put that in writing, too. Anything I tell you today about controls, I'll confirm in a document, so your team has it in black and white rather than from my memory of a call.
- Ben Kowalski NoneLove it. That's what I need, honestly. Because if I go to our security lead and say, the vendor said on a call, that goes nowhere.
- Jordan Pike NoneTotally. So let's make sure we're solving the right thing before we get into that. Who are the users? Who would actually be asking the brain questions?
- Ben Kowalski NonePrimarily client services. The account leads and the people who run client reviews. Then some leadership who want to see across all clients. And my own team, who'd probably build things and look after it.
- Hannah Lowe NoneAnd is there someone on your side who'd be the administrator? The person who'd manage users and keep an eye on the connectors?
- Ben Kowalski NoneThat would be someone on my team. I haven't picked who. Probably one of my senior analysts.
- Hannah Lowe NoneFine, that's worth settling early. In my experience the accounts that go well have a named admin from the first week, not from the first month.
- Jordan Pike NoneBen, what are you using today for that, even informally? Like when a client services lead is prepping for a review, what do they do?
- Ben Kowalski NoneThey ping me. Or my team. We run queries, we paste things into a slide, and it takes a day, sometimes two. And by the time it's done, it's already a bit stale. And that's for one client. When leadership wants a view across all of them, it's a project.
- Jordan Pike NoneSo your team is basically the human integration layer.
- Ben Kowalski NoneHa, yes. That's exactly it. And I'd like them to be doing something better than that.
- Hannah Lowe NoneLet me ask about the sources more concretely, because it decides how we'd design it. You mentioned the CRM, the ticketing system and the call recorder. Is that the full list for the first phase, or are there others you'd want, say, a finance system or the document store?
- Ben Kowalski NoneFor phase one, I'd say CRM, tickets, calls and email. Finance data is the next thing, but it's touchy, so I'd leave it. Maybe we start where the risk is lowest, prove it, and then add.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThat's sensible, and it keeps the security review smaller as well. A narrower first scope is easier to explain to your security team than everything at once.
- Ben Kowalski NoneRight. And honestly, that's the pitch I'd make internally. Start small, keep it in our Snowflake, show the client services leads one hospital client end to end.
- Jordan Pike NoneWhich brings me to something I want to flag. Because you're a regulated buyer with that kind of data, what we're talking about is our Enterprise tier. That's where the single sign-on and the user provisioning come in, and where the security review support sits. I'll be straight with you on numbers.
- Ben Kowalski NoneOkay, but just so you know, I don't get into price. That's our procurement lead. I'm the guy who has to make the case it's worth looking at.
- Jordan Pike NoneTotally fair, and I'm not asking you to. I'll just tell you where my own head is so there are no surprises later. I've pencilled Enterprise in at one hundred and fifty-five thousand, implementation included, as a working placeholder. It isn't a quote. It's a way for me to keep the forecast honest until we know the scope.
- Ben Kowalski NoneGot it. I'm not going to react to it, and I'm not going to comment on it. That's one for procurement. Let me socialise it internally, once we've got scope and the security answers. I don't want to bring a number to them before they've seen what it is.
- Jordan Pike NoneThat's the right order. Scope first, then security, then the commercial conversation. And the working date I've got on my side is 30 Jun 2026 for a close, but that's my planning date, not a promise from you.
- Ben Kowalski NoneYeah, I can't promise a decision date. Security and procurement have their own process. But I hear you, and that doesn't sound crazy as a target.
- Jordan Pike NoneUnderstood. What would make this a yes for you, personally? Not for security, for you.
- Ben Kowalski NoneHonestly? Seeing it on our own data. If I can sit down with a client services lead, ask a question about a real hospital client, and get an answer they trust in seconds, that sells itself. Then I can go to security with momentum.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThat's what we'd do next, then. A demo on a slice of your own data, not a generic one. To be precise about what I'd need: a read-only way into a small, agreed subset, ideally already de-identified where you can, so we don't have to touch anything sensitive just to prove the idea.
- Ben Kowalski NoneRight. That I can probably do. I can get one of my guys to carve out a sample set. De-identified, a couple of client accounts. I'd have to check with security that it's okay even for a demo.
- Hannah Lowe NonePlease do check, and if they'd like to speak with me directly, I'm happy to do that. I'd rather answer their questions than have you relay them.
- Ben Kowalski NoneLove it. I'll give them a heads-up. They're pretty reasonable if you give them notice. It's surprises they hate.
- Jordan Pike NoneSame here, no surprises. Okay, I'm watching the time. Anything you want to ask us before we wrap, Ben? Anything you're worried about?
- Ben Kowalski NoneOne thing. How long does it usually take to get from signing to people actually using it? Because if it's a long road, I need to set expectations.
- Hannah Lowe NoneThe short answer is that Enterprise is the longest of our implementations, because of the security review and the connector design. The longer answer is that it depends on how ready your sources are, and yours sound to be in decent shape. I'll give you a proper plan in writing after the demo, rather than a guess now.
- Ben Kowalski NoneThat works. Okay. I think that's everything for me.
- Jordan Pike NoneGreat. So, next steps. Ben, you check with security about a de-identified sample and let us know. Hannah, you send the architecture overview and the security summary in writing. I'll send a short recap and propose a time for the demo. Does that sound right?
- Ben Kowalski NoneThat's right. I'll aim to come back to you this week on the sample.
- Hannah Lowe NoneAnd I'll have the overview with you in the next day or so. Thanks, Ben.
- Ben Kowalski NoneThanks, both. Stay warm. Talk soon.
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