About our project
The problem we solve: Surgical trainees are overworked and have little time to learn how to do surgical procedures. From the time they wake up (5am), to the time they leave work (6pm) every hour of their day is filled with a different clinical responsibility. By the time they make it home, they are exhausted, have to cook and clean, and need to prepare the next day's surgeries. These trainees use many different resources to prepare because the content they need is not centralized. Additionally, our customer discovery indicates that the majority of trainees spend anywhere between 1-2 hours prepping for their case the next day.
About our solution:
HowTu provides surgical trainees with a quick and effective way to review the steps and anatomy of a surgical procedure. This content will be provided in the form of easy step-by-step instructions, dynamic illustrations, and high definition videos produced by leaders in the field.
Progress to
date:We have also participated in a summer cohort of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation I-Corps program. During this program, we tested the commercial potential of our product, received mentorship and coaching, and were awarded $2,500 to go towards customer discovery. Throughout our customer discovery, we conducted over 30 interviews with various trainees at multiple programs and over 5 interviews with administrators at a world-renowned teaching hospital.
We are currently gathering a team of physicians to create and edit our first videos. We plan to have our first prototype in the next few months.
About Our Team
Creator: Andrew Brownlee
Location: Illinois
Bio: Andrew Brownlee is a senior cardiothoracic surgery fellow at the University of Chicago. His research is focussed on the integration of technology into surgery and surgical education. He recently developed a mobile-based application that allows fellows and attending surgeons to communicate about the fellow’s performance in a case. The mobile app breaks down every surgery into fundamental case elements and allows each element to be scored by both the fellow and the attending. Andrew is currently completing a manuscript on a multi-year study that assesses the utility of measuring muscle density on CT scans (morphomics) in preoperative esophagectomy patients both pre and post-chemoradiotherapy to determine if low muscle mass (sarcopenia) affects postoperative outcomes. He has written multiple textbook chapters and journal articles on topics in thoracic and general surgery and is a reviewer for the New England Journal of Medicine and the Annals of Thoracic Surgery. He is a board-certified general surgeon and a member of the American College of Surgeons and the Society for Thoracic Surgeons.
Hospital Affiliation: University of Chicago Medical Center
Title: Founder
Advanced Degree(s): MD
About Team Members
Kendall Elue
Co-CEO, MD Candidate
Biography: Kendall is a second-year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He has a BA from the University of Chicago in Public Policy Studies with a specialization in Health Policy. During his undergrad, Kendall helped lead various health-based organizations that sought to address health care disparities. In medical school, Kendall has helped run a free clinic, planned and executed a University-wide healthcare innovation challenge, and developed programming for underrepresented minority high school students interested in healthcare professions.
Title: Co-CEO
Advanced Degree(s): MD Candidate
Nathan Decety
CFO, BA
Biography: Nathan earned a BA from the University of Chicago in History with a concentration in Finance. He has worked several years in the buy-side of the financial industry - at a hedge fund, mutual fund, and investment advisory firm. Nathan spent the last summer doing research for a finance professor at the Booth School of Business. He holds the Series 65 license and is a registered IAR. Nathan is also a U.S. Marine (Reserves) and published author.
Title: CFO
Advanced Degree(s): BA
Grant Kushner
COO, MBA Candidate
Biography: Grant is a first-year MBA student at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He has a BA from the University of Chicago in Public Policy Studies with a specialization in Health Policy. During his undergrad, Grant helped co-found a healthy food company of which he is still involved. Grant has also worked in the life science consulting field, specifically working with pharmaceutical companies.
Title: COO
Advanced Degree(s): MBA Candidate
About Our Company
HowTu
Location: 5841 S. Maryland Avenue
MC5047
Chicago, IL 60637
Founded: 2019
Product
Stage: Idea
Employees: 3-5
How We Help Patients
HowTu presents high definition videos of cutting edge surgeries to both trainees and experienced surgeons. When medical professionals want training material, the resources available are scattered, low quality, or difficult to access. We want to provide high-grade, step-by-step training materials, a “Khan Academy of surgery.” Surgical experts will showcase their specialties and thereby disseminate their knowledge in clear videos that are easy to comprehend. While these videos will be useful principally for surgeons in training, they can also add value for experienced surgeons seeking a ‘refresher’ before an operation they perform seldomly. In both cases, the outcome for the end patient is the same. We all want the best possible surgeons: ones who make few mistakes, who know exactly what they’re doing, and who have definitely ‘seen this case before.’ With high quality training and resources, it’s possible to develop such surgeons, and we believe videos are an excellent way to provide efficient, low-cost, and practical information. Better trained surgeons leads to better surgical outcomes, which may also result in less time in postoperative care, better long-term recuperation, less postsurgical pain, and a reduction in other miscellaneous possible negative side effects of a poorly performed operation.
How We Help Physicians
HowTu provides surgical trainees with a quick and effective way to review the steps and anatomy of a surgical procedure in preparation for the day's surgeries. Therefore, a surgical trainee will be more rested and prepared for the following day's schedule. A more prepared and well-rested surgical trainee will be more effective in the operating room, allowing the chief surgeon to spend less time focused on the trainess and more time focused on the surgery at hand.
How We Help Hospitals
HowTu provides surgical trainees with a quick and effective way to review the steps and anatomy of a surgical procedure in preparation for the day's surgeries. Therefore, a surgical trainee will be more rested and prepared for the following day's schedule. A more prepared and well-rested surgical trainee will be more effective in the operating room, allowing the chief surgeon to spend less time focused on the trainess and more time focused on the surgery at hand. Since the surgical team will have less time spent needing to direct the trainees, as they will be better prepared, the surgical team can devote that time to completing the surgery. This should result in less time spent on the surgical table which has a number of benefits to hosptials including better patient outcomes and potential to increase volume of surgeries performed in a given time.
Challenge Mission
COVID Problem We Address
Dr. Andrew Brownlee is currently a Fellow in Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Chicago. Kendall Elue is a second-year medical student at the University of Chicago.
Our COVID Solution
Our company recently completed the summer ICORPs program through the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship. Participating in this program connected us with knowledgable coaches and mentors that we have been able to maintain strong relationships with. Our idea was also accepted to the Medical Education Research Innovation and Teaching Scholarship (MERITS) program at the University of Chicago. This program will provide us with additional mentorship from professional educators and in turn, help us create high-quality videos.
Innovation Details
Intellectual Property Summary
N/A
Clinical Information
Once we are able to build the first version of our product we plan to conduct a pilot study on the product's efficacy at the University of Chicago.
Regulatory Status
No FDA approval needed.
How we will use the funds raised
Through extensive upfront work by the team at HowTu, we have built a network of surgeons who are dedicated to this project. These surgeons are leaders in their field and many are known in the surgical community for the specific procedure they are demonstrating. As such, the majority of the funding received from this program will go toward building the online and phone-based platform. This program is central to our innovation. It will have an easy to use interface and will allow users to quickly click through steps of procedures while allowing commentary and collaboration. The program itself will support a community of surgeons working to improve the quality of operations and standardize surgical approaches.
Thank You
Thanks so much for taking the time to review our project! We hope that you are as excited about it as we are. We have an amazing team who are dedicated to manifesting this extremely important and impactful technology. Also, we already have immense support from both the medical and business communities. We know that this project will be a great success and we are extremely grateful for your support.
