Medumo (YC W18) prepares patients for surgeries

Hi HN! We are building enterprise software that prepares patients for surgeries (http://www.medumo.com). Millions of patients go through these things every year. The problem is that patient instructions are provided months in advance, in the form of paper handouts or verbal instructions that are easily forgotten. As physicians, we saw firsthand how poor patient experience can impact hospital operations and surgical outcome. For example, when patients forget to stop medications that can cause bleeding, the surgeries have to be cancelled last minute which is costly. Or worse, poorly prepared patients get the surgery and have avoidable complications.

Our team came together to solve this problem with patient navigation software that gives turn-by-turn instructions, reminders, and educational material through friendly, accessible medium (SMS/email) to deliver the best experience and surgical outcome.

Unfortunately, health systems are notorious for moving slowly, so introducing a new digital platform can be challenging and slow. We are overcoming this by starting with simple use cases like colonoscopy, proving our value quickly and expanding to other areas. Another challenge is that patients respond differently to instructions; so instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach, we are constantly varying instructions and A/B testing patient behavior to improve outcomes.

12 hospitals use our software to date. We have demonstrated improvement in show rate and procedure preparation quality. Here’s an example: https://bwhbulletin.org/2018/02/01/endoscopy-center-sees-suc...

We know HN has a lot of people who have experience building or selling software to hospitals and faced tough obstacles with the scars to prove it. We'd love to hear your thoughts around hospital enterprise sales, pilot design, patient engagement, and anything else that you've seen come up on your journey!