Several months into the pandemic, Jon Lensing (20MD) chose a path with boundless potential.

As hospitals nationwide suspended elective surgeries and laid off health care professionals to focus on specialties most affected by the coronavirus, Lensing redirected his business' efforts to leverage an expanding pool of clinicians looking for work. OpenLoop, a web-based platform co-founded by Lensing under the name Apollo in January 2020, originated as a means for streamlining the process for clinicians (health care professionals who work as caregivers to patients) to work for different hospital systems. Though as his business grew exponentially in the early months of the pandemic and telehealth's prominence increased, Lensing shifted OpenLoop's focus to match telehealth's growing demand.

A former medical student at the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, Lensing believed he could help more patients through starting a business to increase health care access to rural communities. Shifting OpenLoop's focus to telehealth greatly accelerated his vision to provide health care to all 42,000 zip codes in the United States. "With the growth we experienced during the pandemic, we saw a clear need for what we were doing," says Lensing. "We are a telehealth company that helps power other telehealth companies."

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