LiveEquipd

Mobility, recovery and independence is what people seek when faced with a healthcare crisis. Unfortunately, the pathway is not equitable for the 15% of 61M people in the U.S. with a disability facing mobility challenges. I was inspired to solve the systematic pitfalls in the rehabilitation care journey after a traumatic life experience. I suffered a disability as the result of being shot in a violent carjacking in Chicago. The event took the life of my best friend and left me with a spinal cord injury. I’ve navigated this injury for nearly two decades, keeping account of the difficulties I and others have faced.

This starts with disjointed processes, 33% of physical therapists report excessive documentation as the largest burden created by system and supplier deficiencies. Contributing to high rehospitalization rates post injury for this underrepresented community. 30% of individuals with Spinal Cord injuries are re-hospitalized one or more times during any given year post injury. Lastly, when disability, chronic pain and circumstances intersect mental health struggles arise according to research from the University of Michigan. 59% of adults with Spinal Cord injuries, compared with 31% of the general public face mental health challenges. The lack of an holistic system fails to support the recovery journey for my community.

Research shows more Americans are living longer and surviving chronic conditions. This triumph is also leading to a drastic rise in neurological disorders requiring care.

Clifton Gooch, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Neurology at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine in Tampa, lead a study that details the enormous cost of neurological diseases to the nation.  The study is reported in the Annals of Neurology, the official journal of the American Neurological Association and the Child Neurology Society looked at the nine most prevalent and costly diagnosed neurological disorders and found the annual cost is staggering, totaling nearly $800 billion. By 2030, $600 billion will be spent treating stroke and dementia alone.  In addition, low back pain, traumatic brain injury, migraine headache, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s disease emerged as the most common disorders posing a serious financial burden.

He writes that the years of productivity lost in the 100 million Americans living with neurological and musculoskeletal disorders is more than any other category of disease. I’ve personally benefited from getting the right care, the right equipment, resources and support that allowed me to complete my education and obtain employment. It provided me a chance at a productive life and future, but hurdles to get there could be documented in a book. The hurdles include wasted time that staff spent coordinating equipment that’s needed, the financial loss organizations had due to delayed discharges and readmission and the workflow that was fractured leaving an extreme burden on me the patient as well my family.

LiveEquipd is providing a comprehensive and efficient solution for rehabilitation healthcare organizations, focusing on streamlining the equipment procurement process for patients with paralysis-related disabilities. Here's a breakdown of our solution.

Key features and benefits of LiveEquipd include:

1. Intelligent Platform: The platform uses AI to customize search results based on individual needs, providing healthcare professionals with relevant options for their patients.

2. Time Savings: By streamlining the equipment procurement process, LiveEquipd helps save time for healthcare professionals, allowing them to focus more on patient care rather than administrative tasks. Additionally, supporting the staff’s ability to have balanced work day lowering organization retention rates.

3. Efficiency Across the Recovery Journey: The platform aggregates processes from hospital entry to discharge and patient follow-up, providing a comprehensive solution for healthcare professionals involved in the entire recovery journey of patients with paralysis-related disabilities.

4. Centralized Supplier Management: LiveEquipd offers centralized supplier management, making it easier for healthcare providers to connect with pertinent suppliers and obtain the most relevant medical equipment and supplies.

5. Data Trends and Risk Mitigation: The platform captures data trends related to potential rising risks that may lead to rehospitalizations in post-acute care. This data-driven approach enables healthcare professionals to proactively address issues and improve patient outcomes.

6. Holistic Technology: We are covering the entire spectrum from hospital entry to patient follow-up. LiveEquipd aims to provide a holistic solution to equip patients for their entire recovery journey, ensuring that they have the necessary tools and resources for a successful rehabilitation process.

Overall, LiveEquipd addresses the challenges in the rehabilitation healthcare sector by leveraging AI and technology to enhance the procurement process, improve efficiency, and ultimately contribute to better outcomes for patients with paralysis-related disabilities.

LiveEquipd works with healthcare providers (hospitals, rehabilitation centers), patients and suppliers. We specifically target organizations that focus on physical medicine and rehabilitation care, supporting: low income, rural, elderly, and disabled populations, along with entities providing necessary equipment and supplies for care. LiveEquipd aims to bring value to all stakeholders involved:

Hospitals/Healthcare Organizations:

--Ease of coordination throughout the process

--Reduced documentation and systematic overload

--Increased retention and staff production

--Improving patient outcomes in post-acute care

Supplier Partners

--Increased revenue through more customers

--Simplified sales and marketing growth

Patients & Support System

--Access to the right equipment suppliers at the beginning.

--A quality care journey

--Holistic support by your health provider

By disrupting the fractured care system for people with paralysis related disabilities LiveEquipd will provide an cohesive tool procurement and rehabilitation management. This solution will save time and money for health care organizations and health systems, saving time and improving the health and wellbeing of their clients.

Andre Johnson is uniquely qualified to solve systematic pitfalls in the rehabilitation care journey based on his professional and life experience. He suffered a disability as the result of being shot in a violent carjacking in Chicago. The event took the life of his best friend and left him with a spinal cord injury. He has navigated this injury for nearly two decades, keeping account of the difficulties he and others have faced.

Andre has built a substantial network in the entrepreneurial and disability community, acting as an advisor to Uber’s Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle division during the beta stage. He is a Board Member at Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance (CAFHA), an organization committed to the value of fair housing, diversity, and integration. In addition to that, he holds the role of Senior Database Specialist at Kaizen Health, a fast-growing, venture-backed technology startup that strives to constantly improve access to healthcare through dependable non-emergency medical transportation. Lastly, he’s a member of Disability Lead, an organization focused on increasing civic engagement and diverse leadership in the Chicago region by developing and building a network of leaders with disabilities.

Our advisory team have vast backgrounds and years of e xperience that directly benefit the company.

Mindi Knebel my boss and founder of Kaizen Health provides strategic insights into how a healthcare platform is built and utilized in entire health systems across the country.

Piper Hansen, is a professor of therapy at Rush Medical Center. She provides clinical and educational experience as diverse healthcare professional. She was my former therapist at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, where she still oversees projects.

Lastly, our technology advisor is JC Garrett the CEO of FarShore Partners, a technology firm with a wealth of experience in building healthcare platforms.

We take aim at the Durable Medical Equipment process which can be slow and inefficient for those care managers and therapists that are involved in this tedious task. We provide an unbiased resource that increases their advocacy power to serve their patients more effectively. From the hospital entry to discharge managing the workflow that will result in the required products needed for recovery. The care for these individuals and the booming aging population make are product scalable and beneficial to everyone.

Our unique product offering, the Patient Loop allows healthcare organizations to save time and provide structured information sharing to the patient and family. Our Outcome tracker captures data and metrics to support the patient in post-acute care focusing on mental health engagement and chronic pain.

The mission of UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 for Good Health and Well-Being aligns with that of LiveEquipd. We want to solve the challenges in healthcare that drastically affects a portion of the population that deserves more attention. We want to continue learn how AI and Digital health solutions will provide the right support a growing demographic. The continued adoption of innovative solutions in care gives us confidence we can help healthcare systems and the community. The collaboration with UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 for Good Health and Well-Being can help us take another significant step.

We learned through our participation in the MassChallenge IBM AI & Security cohort that our application of AI will create a reservoir data, that if analyzed properly can impact patients significantly. In addition, it will improve client processes, providing some automation that will save administrative time. Also, AI usage will make the experience between clients and patients a more positive. These learnings and system improvements can be summed up as automation, insight and engagement.

Our industry impact will help healthcare systems that will need to be a part of the digital transformation. Additionally, providing interoperability for healthcare organizations to be more in sync for their patients. The pandemic has exasperated inequities and disparities, and thus payers are increasingly focused on areas where digital disparities could be addressed in the near term, according to industry experts. We believe LiveEquipd can support these initiatives driving cost savings while keeping patients healthy and out of hospitals.

Given the nature of the platform and requiring HIPAA compliance, HIPAA is FIPS 140-2 compliant therefore we will be compliant with the FIPS 140-2 security standards.

Our technology stack will be a MERN stack, MongoDB for document database, Express(.js) for web framework, React(.js) for a client-side JavaScript framework and Node(.js) for the premier JavaScript web server. We will leverage a Rest API. In addition, we will utilize Aptible to leverage compliance and security. This application deployment platform is built to automate HIPAA compliance for web and mobile technology.

In year 1 post pre-seed funding we will pilot with the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, the top rehabilitation hospital in the country and part of their Alliance network as we we’ve secured a Letter of intent from them. They are part of the vast organization pipeline we have coordinating, including 4 of the top healthcare systems our state. In year 5 we will have quantified the societal benefits we’ve had on the disability community’s road back to participating in economically and cultural. Preparing our strategic outreach to payors to make a larger impact in the world.

I am currently a solo founder, seeking a co-founder. Our pre-seed raise will allow use to build a team with the same mission and core values.

I found this company in February 2017 after placing in a pitch competition. I took a difficult situation and began to explore ways to use technology to improve it. Since then I have been gradually building a sustainable company structure and product that would have a long-lasting impact. In addition I feel it will be desirable to larger technology companies in the healthcare space for eventual acquisition. 

As an African American founder , I understand the need to be inclusive when building a team . My network of mentors and advisors provide a diverse team of supporters. This group of individuals includes men and women of different races in addition to those like myself who have a disability. I will continue to maintain this company structure throughout this journey . 

By collaborating with healthcare systems, it offers the opportunity to pilot with many organizations in the Midwest and in underserved communities. LiveEquipd will make the clinical teams’ job more efficient and have a significant impact on their patients’ recovery journey.

The combination of capital and partnership with healthcare systems will show stakeholders, future stakeholders, healthcare organizations, suppliers and communities that LiveEquipd can be a viable solution to the flawed existing systems. We would love for Cure to be a partner throughout the LiveEquipd journey of creating technology that is impactful and scalable within organizations. We will focus in the physical medicine and rehabilitation portion of any partner we have. Cure can provide a diverse group of professionals and patient groups to allow us to build a flexible product.

Our B2B SaaS subscription model costs $350 per year/per staff user for healthcare organizations. Supplier partners will provide our additional revenue stream.

We will leverage the need for continual product procurement and the need for streamlined process to provide a trusted piece technology with a curated product landscape. LiveEquipd will provide an efficient and useful tool for many. 

We are currently Pre-Product and Pre-Revenue. We will have better projections once we have raised this round of capital. Thank you. 

We are requesting the maximum amount of $100,000. I selected this number after discussing it with my advisors and technical consultants. This amount will allow me to complete the minimum viable product, engage hospitals for pilots and test theories we've gathered from engagement with several medical organizations. Following a lean startup model, this amount will allow us to make significant progress over the next six months. 

As I review the support, the cure team I feel the mentorship and network opportunities will help us solidify our potential client base. Additionally the seed funding will allow us to capitalize on any network opportunities we get. I am confident these two elements of support will take us to the next level. Thank you.