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In 2010, Tutela company founders observed that a great need existed in intensive care areas for clinicians to communicate with patient’s circle of care; family members, advocates and aids to streamline discharge processes, prevent readmissions and provide a better experience. After 1000+ technical, economic and user interviews, a minimally viable prototype was developed for use in high risk areas, such as the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Three of the more novel components of the system include a secure access distribution mechanism; role-based mechanism to authenticate all users (both inside and outside the hospital) and their relationship to a third-party(patient), a method in which the capture of all the information including users, 3rd party (patients), clinical notes, electronic health record information, and any voice, video or audio transmission is secured at rest and in transit fulfilling compliance regulations, and a method to capture, store, forward and assign all relevant data from each engagement session to a  3rd party (patient) eliminating licenses and user accounts. The TutelaConnect Platform provides the first multi-platformed, cloud-based interactive patient engagement system that securely connects remote care givers to the bedside of critically ill patients using a platform agnostic video conferencing technology.

Strong evidentiary support that patient and family engagement plays a vital role in experience and outcomes exist including a direct correlation with patient satisfaction, discharge planning and reduced readmissions; Fairview, Cope and CMS studies. The ongoing clinical trial and the voice of customer data (1000+ technical, economic and user interviews) have shown a technical deployment in less than 15 hours at an academic medical center, an improvement in clinical efficiency in the record of unstructured communications, an increase in patient satisfaction that impacts reimbursement and a slight reduction in length of stay that saved the hospital, $13,000. Hard numbers will be available at the completion of the trial in Q1 2015. The system is considered a Class One Exempt device. The FDA requires only that the NICULink, mobile device and the TutelaConnect Platform be registered 30 days prior to commercialization.

$800,000. Amount can be staged to support product development completion, headcount and pilot costs.

6-9 months away from commercialization.

TEDCO($100k), Founders Capital ($300k) and Gulf Ventures(GVC)committed ($200k)

Freedom to Operate Analysis and Provisional Patent was filed in December 2014.

To date, 90% of the first product platform has been developed. Technical and clinical workflow usability and feasability testing is complete. In December 2014, beta testing of a portable mobile device connected to the platform began in the NICU at Georgetown University Hospital. Over 500 clinician-to-family interactive video sessions have been completed with 97% "game changer" endorsement. A small reduction in length of stay, 3.9 days, equated to savings of $13,000 during a 3 week period. Additional pilots are lined up at Johns Hopkins and UPENN in the adult and pediatric service lines, which will lead to first sales A committment for $200k was received in December. A pipeline and contact with other interested hospitals including Loma Linda, Stanford, University of Tennessee has been initiated. Soft product launch is targeted for October 2015 at a national neonatal conference.  

We have an experienced and well rounded team with 80+ years expereince in network security, medical device and software product development and clinical data support sales and marketing. Brad Pollard, CTO, has 15+ years in startup expereince. His last position prior to Cisco was with Source Fire, sold to Cisco for $2.3B. Karen Alder, CEO, has 20+ years in sales and accounting with health IT startups. Her last position was with TheraDoc, which was sold to Premier for $117M. Richard Smith, COO, 25+years experience in medical device product development. Led successful product launches at GE and Brainz. Brainz was successfuly exited in 2008. Clinical advisors are well recognized leaders in neonatology and the adult critical care space.