KCK health startup scores $270K to give patients a voice
July 30, 2015 | Bobby Burch
An area startup is using a recent injection of funds to better provide hospitals with valuable feedback from patients.
PatientsVoices, based in Kansas City, Kan., nabbed $270,000 from several organizations to boost its technology that analyzes and distributes information about patients’ experiences. Organizations such as the National Science Foundation, Google and Digital Sandbox KC each provided funding to the company.
“[The funding] gives us the ability to build and evaluate different versions of our software to see what works best,” PatientsVoices founder Mary Kay O’Connor said in a release. “The development team can test different software configurations without having to worry about processing costs and storage capacity.”
The National Science Foundation issued a $150,000 grant to the company, while Google offered $100,000 in credit on Google Cloud, where the platform is currently operating in a HIPPA-secure environment. Digital Sandbox, a Kansas City-based business incubator, provided a $20,000 grant to design and implement a dashboard allowing clients to access patients’ feedback.
PatientsVoices recruited area experts in computing and linguistics to help build the platform, which is now being tested in hospitals after the company. O’Connor said the platform automatically sorts feedback into improvement priorities from a patient’s perspective. It also demonstrates to hospital administrators how to improve patient satisfaction.
PatientsVoices is currently located in the Bioscience & Technology Business Center, a University of Kansas-based business incubator that has offices in Kansas City, Kan., and Lawrence. The BTBC applied to become a Google registered incubator and then nominated PatientsVoices for the $100,000 Google Cloud credit.
“Mary Kay’s unique business model improves patient satisfaction through a process that actually lowers costs and improves information capture and flow,” BTBC Vice President Frank Kruse said in a release. “The company’s technology dramatically and measurably improves a hospital’s ability to improve operations and patient outcomes on the fly. This is unheard of in the current environment.”
Featured Business
2015 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
‘Don’t shut yourself off’: Seniorpreneurs reveal power in age, experience, savings
Figure out what you love to do and monetize it, Ann O’Meara told a room of entrepreneurs looking for advice on starting their second act after retirement. Seniorpreneurs — entrepreneurs over the age of 50 — are working to turn their lifelong hobbies into cash flow, O’Meara, CEO of Fantastic 55, revealed during a Global…
Bardavon bid to revolutionize workers’ compensation just got a $15 million boost
Timing is everything, said Matt Condon, announcing this week $15 million in new financing to help scale his Overland Park-based company’s reach into markets from coast to coast. “Our national expansion is coming at a time when employers across the country are recognizing that they must play a lead role in the transformation of health…
KCultivator Q&A: Mother inspires Davin Gordon to remove ‘can’t’ from the conversation
Editor’s note: KCultivators is a lighthearted profile series to highlight people who are meaningfully enriching Kansas City’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. The KCultivator Series is sponsored by WeWork Corrigan Station, a modern twist on Kansas City office space. Kansas City’s future depends on whether the business community invests in homegrown talent, Davin Gordon said. “It doesn’t have…
AltCap winner launching its first Rightfully Sewn-label little black dress at TEDxKC Women
Winning $10,000 in this week’s AltCap Your Biz Competition will help Rightfully Sewn expand, Jennifer Lapka said — a move coming on the heels of the social endeavor releasing the first dress under its own label to support the Crossroads-based seamstress training program. “It’s a stylish, well-made LBD (little black dress) that women can wear…