When the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. this spring, 2020 On-site, a mobile optometry care startup that services corporate clients, took a hit.
Employers switched over to remote work. People lost confidence in the ability to visit clinics safely. 2020 On-site, caught in the middle, furloughed 18 people at the beginning of March.
It was time for a pivot.
The startup began by bolstering its telehealth offerings, president and CEO Alexis McLaughlin told BostInno, as well as a handful of other remote services. But McLaughlin and her team quickly realized that 2020 On-site's greatest potential growth area amid the pandemic would be elsewhere: clinical trials.
"Given the mobility of our eye care, we have had some opportunities with clinical trials to help support some biotech companies that have had struggles," McLaughlin said. "They've seen a 74 percent decline in enrollment in clinical trials due to the pandemic."
In May, 2020 On-site began working with Applied Genetic Technologies Corporation (AGTC) on a mobile vision testing program. With its mobile clinic, an RV that is fully outfitted as an optometry clinic on the inside, 2020 On-site has conducted follow-up assessments with patients enrolled in two of AGTC's ongoing clinical trials for eye diseases.
The RV clinic had to be specially outfitted for this purpose. Over the course of about three weeks, 2020 On-site's mobile team set up contactless thermometers to screen patients before they get on board, secured masks and gloves, installed plexiglass and new HEPA filters and increased sanitization measures.
With that all taken care of, the 2020 On-site team set off on an 11,000-mile road trip—"a U.S. tour," McLaughlin joked—that took them through 12 states. Two clinic managers departed from Boston, drove through Montana, wound their way down south through Arizona and Texas, then returned to New England. They stopped along the way to have the RV serviced and slept in Airbnbs. (They also managed to find some personal time; McLaughlin said the two clinic managers brought gear to go fishing in Montana.)
It's a radical reimagining of 2020 On-site's overall vision: to bring eye care directly to the patient.
"Patients love it," McLaughlin said. "The first visit was to a young kid, who said it was normally his whole day, traveling hours to a hospital setting and waiting for hours. We were able to do that checkup in his driveway in an hour."
As McLaughlin sees it, this idea of "radical patient centricity" has the potential to expand people's access to clinical trials, which normally relies on factors like time and geography. If 2020 On-site can deploy its RVs across the country, that could increase patient pools and streamline the clinical process.
AGTC is 2020 On-site's first client in this endeavor. Last month, the startup announced it wanted to expand its clinical trial offerings "anywhere in the continental United States."
As for 2020 On-site's normal operations, the startup is beginning to resume visits to corporate offices as employees return to work in person. The clinical trials operation has also allowed the startup to bring back the majority of the employees it furloughed.
But the pivot might just be a new, long-term aspect of 2020 On-site's business model.
"Is this an opportunity just during Covid or is this a broader opportunity?" McLaughlin said. "There's potential to think about the modern house call and how we can better serve some of these patients."
Curious about 2020 On-site's road trip? Check out some photos from the journey below.
