Imagine your loved one, lying in a hospital bed, unable to signal a nurse that she can’t breathe or is in pain. In healthcare facilities today, nurses are overworked and under informed through no fault of their own. They simply have no way to determine emergencies from non-emergencies without physically going into a person’s room.
For Nick Dougherty, poor patient-caregiver communication became his focus in the fall of 2011. He shadowed nurses on a stroke ward while working on his engineering senior design project at Boston University. He quickly discovered severe inefficiencies in communication and workflow.
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Dougherty is the CEO of a Boston-based digital health startup that wants to improve the way patients communicate with their care providers. Dougherty and his co-founders launched VerbalCare and built an iPad application for stroke patients suffering from aphasia.
“Existing call systems are often unprioritized, leaving nurses with little information about patient needs prior to arriving at the room,” Dougherty said. “The call bell that is used to hail a cup of water is the same bell used to signal a more serious issue. That’s a problem.”
Dougherty took his vision to Boston incubator, MassChallenge, where he got to know the Boston VC and angel community. VerbalCare raised $125,000 in seed funding in February. The company is also conducting a pilot study with Franciscan Hospital for Children in Boston.
VerbalCare has since expanded to include all types of patient/caregiver communication and allows patients to send messages to family members outside the facility. A patient uses a customized set of icons on a tablet at the bedside to explain what she needs. The icons range from, “I’m in pain” or “I can’t breathe” to “I need to use the bathroom.” Nurses receive their patients’ specific needs in real time on a mobile device or a central dashboard.
VerbalCare helps nurses as much as patients by saving them time and steps. They get a clearer understanding of what patients need and can delegate non-emergency tasks to nursing assistants. This leaves more time to address more serious problems like choking, pain, or abnormal vital signs.
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VerbalCare was formed in April 2013 and has a current team of eight people. The product is in private beta and seeking pilot collaborators. Listen to Dougherty talk about funding and his growth strategy in this interview.
