About our project

The problem we solve: Between patient no-shows and cancellations on the day of surgery, hospitals are losing $24B in revenue each year. Nationwide, 12% of canceled surgeries are due to patients not following required preparation prior to surgery. The cost of cancellation varies with specialty, for example, neurosurgery and urology incur the highest loss per case-$5,962 and $4,758, respectively. Researchers at Tulane University Medical Center found that in 2009, 327 of 4,876 (6.7%) scheduled elective outpatient surgeries were canceled, costing the hospital nearly $1 million that year alone. Because surgeries bring in approximately 60% of the hospital’s entire revenue, that loss has a major effect on the bottom line. Moreover, readmissions are costly to the hospitals and frustrating to the patients. Researchers found nearly one in four patients readmitted within 90 days at a cost of $300 million a year.

About our solution: MedAux standardizes preoperative and post-operative follow-ups through automated SMS. An EHR/EMR compatible solution, MedAux interacts with patients through SMS/Text Message, guiding them through various stages of care while striving to provide real-time, clinical data to surgical providers, with zero workflow interruption. We work with hospitals and ambulatory surgery clinics to design custom follow-up programs to match their current protocols. When the patient is registered for the surgery, s/he will receive series of precisely timed bite-size instructions through automated text message with a link to an additional web application. The contents of the text messages are short videos, surveys, or reminders that help patients prepare and be on track for their surgery. MedAux provides a practical solution to optimize patient health preoperatively, accelerate postoperative recovery, and monitor at-risk patients post discharge.

We launch our product less than a year ago, and now we have trials with 8 major hospitals in the U.S. with $1.3M inside letter of intent.

We entered the U.S mark with programs in prostatectomy, bladder cancer, kidney stone, penal implant, colonoscopy, and vascular surgery.

We are working with major healthcare organizations such as UCSD, Johns Hopkins, UCLA, and the University of Buffalo. Also, 12 hospitals and ambulatory surgery clinics are in our pipeline and have accepted to start a trial with MedAux platform.

About Our Company

How We Help Patients

MedAux helps patients to be on track for their surgeries from preparation till recovery post-procedure, that leads to optimizing health outcomes and reducing post-discharge complications.

How We Help Physicians

MedAux Platform:

• Significantly reduces surgery late cancellations:

  • Enhances revenue opportunities

  • Lowers liability risk

  • Documents delivery of protocols from scheduling through to post-operative/procedure care

• Significantly reduces readmission

  • Standardizing preoperative and post-operative communication

  • Better health outcomes

  • Increase in patient compliance

  • Increases in patient satisfaction levels, resulting in higher HCAHPS scores for MedAux clients

• Provides hospitals and surgical centers with a turnkey solution to:

  • Complex protocol communication

  • Monitoring patient compliance

  • Bridge clinical and research workflows by collecting valid data from patients

How We Help Hospitals

MedAux Platform:

• Significantly reduces surgery late cancellations:

  • Enhances revenue opportunities

  • Lowers liability risk

  • Documents delivery of protocols from scheduling through to post-operative/procedure care

• Significantly reduces readmission

  • Standardizing preoperative and post-operative communication

  • Better health outcomes

  • Increases patient compliance

  • Increase in patient satisfaction levels, resulting in higher HCAHPS scores for MedAux clients

  • Bridge clinical and research workflows by collecting valid data from patients

  • Monitoring patient compliance

  • Complex protocol communication

How We Help Partners

MedAux Platform:

• Significantly reduces surgery late cancellations:

  • Enhances revenue opportunities

  • Lowers liability risk

  • Documents delivery of protocols from scheduling through to post-operative/procedure care

• Significantly reduces readmission

  • Standardizing preoperative and post-operative communication

  • Better health outcomes

  • Increases patient compliance

  • Increase in patient satisfaction levels, resulting in higher HCAHPS scores for MedAux clients

  • Bridge clinical and research workflows by collecting valid data from patients

  • Monitoring patient compliance

  • Complex protocol communication

Challenge Mission

Innovation Details

Intellectual Property Summary

We have continuously learning algorithms that predict which patients are likely to fail and cancel the surgery. Also, by monitoring patients post-discharge, we can predict probably of readmission to the hospital and alert the surgical team to intervene in advance. We can also target patients' preferences in terms of how they receive information and anticipate the questions that patients might have all along the continuum of care.

Patent Link
N/A

Clinical Information

In general, the continuum of care around major surgeries takes part in three contiguous, yet distinct healthcare system entities: preoperative care, index hospitalization and follow up after discharge. All three of these areas are ripe for intervention to avoid readmissions.

Dr. McKendrick (2015), demonstrated that the rolling out of a preoperative preparation clinic in one of the district hospitals helped to decrease the number of cancellations on the day of surgery by about 50%, assuming no other interventions were involved. The authors of this study also discovered a dramatic 3-fold decrease in the number of no-shows with the introduction of the preoperative preparation clinic. These are noteworthy outcomes. Also, they found that CRs secondary to medical reasons dropped almost twice since the introduction of the preoperative preparation clinic.

Moreover, efforts to reduce readmission rates begin prior to admission. Education of the patient with regards to in-hospital and post-discharge expectations are important, as is early recognition and dialogue between the referring doctor (especially in rural areas) and high-volume surgeons. Preoperative care optimization should be considered for all surgeries. Readmission prevention should start before the surgery is ever performed. Consistent education and empathetic care may decrease patient anxiety, for example, in kidney transplant patients, consistent education delivered with empathetic care was associated with decreased anxiety levels 1 week after discharge and decreased readmissions at 30 days (Chandrasekaran A, Anand G, Sharma L, et al., 2016).  Ways to reduce anxiety are to standardize the information conveyed and to have trained providers communicating the information to caregivers.

MedAux platform standardizes preoperative and post-operative communications by sending surveys, instructions, and reminders to track and monitor patients throughout the continuum of care. By capturing valid data post-discharge, MedAux identifies early readmission symptoms and allows for assessment and planning to address complications that arise early, decrease their severity, and should decrease resource utilization when a readmission is not preventable.                                                                                                               

References: 

doi: 10.1002/cncr.28586.

doi: 10.1186/s12913-017-2134-2 

doi: 10.1001/jama.2014.18614

Regulatory Status

No FDA clearance required. The platform is compliant with HIPPA regulations.

How we will use the funds raised

1) Sales and marketing

2) 10 new paying customers

3) Expanding to 15 new specialties

4) 10k new patients/month

Thank You

We have reached this milestone by bootstrapping and winning healthcare competitions. We have around 12 hospitals and ambulatory surgery clinics in our pipeline and this funding will help us close sale cycles with the healthcare systems.

Investor Info

Market Size

Every year, 161 million surgeries and procedures are performed in the US and it is estimated that above 11 million lost slots are due to poor preparation and late-cancelations. So it is $24B problem that is addressable by better patient preparation and follow-ups.

And based on literature, by optimizing patients’ preparation and enhancing adherence, we can address at least a third of that problem. And assuming we capture a third of the value we provide for the hospitals, it is about $1.6B potential ARR for MedAux.

Projected 3 Year Growth

There are above 11 million lost slots in surgical procedures due to poor preparation and late-cancelations, leading to $24B cost every year. According to literature, by optimizing preparation before surgery, we can address at least a third of that problem.

Assuming we capture a quarter of that value we create for the hospitals, our projected potential growth is $41M ARR in 2021.

Revenue Model

We provide the platform for three to six months free trial to the hospitals to calculate the return on investment. We charge our customers a quarter of the saved costs from reducing cancelations and readmissions, which is around $100K annual subscription fee per surgery department (please review the investor deck for more details).

Competitors

We intentionally differentiate MedAux by providing a low-tech solution that does not require any app download and has no barrier in patient engagement. As a result, we have been able to reach over 86% of the patients which is far away greater than our competitors.

MedAux is fully customizable to match the clinic's current protocols. Surgeons can upload instructional materials (videos, images, short tips), surveys, and follow-up questions and define the follow-up time intervals specific to each procedure protocols. Each message can be customized to redirect patients to view a specific webpage, download a pamphlet, or fill out a form. The time and resource investment from MedAux and surgeons to design custom follow-up packages, make it hard to replicate the designed programs.

In terms of workload, our system runs automatically in the background, it does not require new communication channels to manage and we notify nurses when a patient is having a problem. Finally, we have a very quick deployment model that allows us to launch with or without EMR/EHR integration in less than 4-6 weeks that shortens the sale cycle.

Traction

We work closely with our customers to design their own follow-up programs, conduct a three months free quality improvement trial to make the required adjustments, and then start the payment. Below is an overview of our current programs and customers:

Johns Hopkins: Bariatric Surgery, Prostate Cancer

UCSD: Bladder Cancer, Kidney Stone, Prostate cancer

University of Buffalo: Vascular Surgery

Napa Vascular & Vein Center: Vascular Surgery

Southern California Vascular Institute (five clinics): Vascular Surgery (paying customer)

Hackensack Medical Center: Colonoscopy

Kern Vascular Center: Vascular Surgery (Paying customer)

Due Diligence Docs

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Supporters

• 
  Alex Fair, MS
  01/29/2018 - Liked the project.
• 
  Ben Berlin
  11/19/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Donna Cusano, BA
  11/13/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Colin Hung
  10/26/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Matt Cardwell, PhD
  10/22/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Sharon Applebaum
  10/22/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Jennifer Platt
  10/22/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Sharad Mishra
  10/19/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  JG Staal, BS, Executive Master
  10/16/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Alex Fair, MS
  10/14/2017 - Backed the project for $2
• 
  Alex Fair
  10/14/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Faramarz Kazemainy
  10/14/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Faramarz Kazemainy
  10/14/2017 - Followed the project.
• 
  Alireza Borghei
  10/14/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Dr. Elnaz Sarabchian, Ph.D
  10/13/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Dan Ingvarson
  10/13/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Ali Mohammadi
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Mana Ehsani
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Babak Bahaddin
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Fateme Mohamadiun
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Mona Nili
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Justian Kelly
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Arezou Larijani
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Bita Adabi
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Zohre Hosseinzade
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Po Fa
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Nima Tayebi
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Minki Jung
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  AmirSaber Sharifi
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Newman Hoffman
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Shahrouz Varshabi
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Farzane Afsari
  10/12/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  elnaz sarabchian
  10/11/2017 - Followed the project.
• 
  elnaz sarabchian
  10/11/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Elnaz Sarabchian
  10/11/2017 - Followed the project.
• 
  Elnaz Sarabchian
  10/11/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  hamid lamani
  10/11/2017 - Followed the project.
• 
  hamid lamani
  10/11/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Ryan Kennedy
  10/11/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Ramtin Elahi
  10/11/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Tooraj Helmi
  10/11/2017 - Liked the project.
• 
  Behzad Jazayeri, MD
  10/09/2017 - Liked the project.

Comments

• 
  Arezou Larijani posted on 12th October, 2017

  Great project.Good Luck!!!

  Report as Spam
• 
  Elnaz Sarabchian posted on 12th October, 2017

  Thank you very much Arezou:)

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