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
Sandy Kemper at IXKC: Trust is the hack for building FinTech or any startup in KC (Photos)
Act like everyone is watching … because they are, Sandy Kemper said. “It’s something I think a lot of folks — maybe not from around here — fail to understand,” the C2FO chairman and CEO told a packed crowd Tuesday at Startland’s Innovation Exchange at nbkc bank. “You cannot get away with anything. And some…
Watch: Choir Bar debuts ‘One Day’ video from its first reverse karaoke singalong event
The excitement was palpable Saturday as Choir Bar launched into song for the first time in River Market, said Matt Baysinger. Now organizers are ready to share the singalong experience with the world. “People are so dang impressive,” said Baysinger, co-founder of Swell Spark, which debuted the Choir Bar concept in hopes of it becoming…
Another slice in stock: Walmart picking up KC startup’s Made-in-the-USA Pizza Saver
Mighty Good Solutions leaves no ideas to waste, said co-founder Ben Rendo. The Crossroads-based company’s Pizza Saver product — baked from a simple premise — is its latest offering to earn a deal with the world’s largest retailer. “We just try to focus on products that are going to make everyday life better,” Rendo said…
Imagine Argentine: How 10 students hope to transform a KCK neighborhood
It’s about making Argentine better, said Emma Jones and Sergio Garcia. Both middle schoolers are members of Imagine Argentine’s 10-student cohort. The social entrepreneurship program is dedicated to solving social challenges in Argentine, Kansas, said Kurt Reitema, director of justice initiatives for Youthfront, a KC-based youth ministry organization. The cohort meets each day during the…