I’ve spent my life as a data scientist, always seeking to understand how large-scale data can help us make sense of human behavior — and to answer questions that eluded us before technology and data played a central role in our everyday lives.
I started my career using data science to improve the user experience in social media. In that capacity data was being harnessed to create engaging products, explore challenges and help companies grow. However, the work lacked a direct connection to the impact it was having on people’s lives. I felt that disconnect at a palpable, visceral level. And I wanted to use data for the good of humankind and to improve lives.
What better place to do that, and have a universal impact, than in healthcare?
Every single person in the world can benefit from healthcare. It is universal, and has the opportunity to improve the quality of life for everyone. Healthcare has not evolved to meet technology and innovation like the rest of the world has. Technology has unfortunately evolved in healthcare to focus data more on billing than it has on improving care or outcomes.
The big companies that we know use data successfully — Google and Amazon, for example — leverage data from individual interactions in order to improve the experience for the next user, and each user after that. You may never have used Amazon to make a purchase before, but the first time you visit the site, they are already able to recommend relevant products to you based on where you live. That personalized experience is driven by data — and specifically, from users who came before you.
In healthcare, this is not standard practice. But why not? Why doesn't care get better with every case that passes through the operating room? Why can’t the entire system improve after every single user experience? It absolutely should — and data is the key to making that a reality. That is the reason I co-founded Apella.
Apella is a technology company bent on making surgery better and more efficient. Using artificial intelligence, computer vision, and cutting-edge communication innovations, Apella is improving the most critical aspect of healthcare. Our technology provides crucial systematic quality control and data collection tools to improve outcomes for all members of a surgical team, from schedulers to surgeons and the patients they treat.
Whereas so many companies take existing data and transform it into value, Apella is about generating new data. And through that new data, we are transforming healthcare by making medical professionals the best version of themselves and improving the quality of care for patients.
Apella is in a place where we can do that for one of the most expensive and critical points in a person’s healthcare pathway — the operating room. When you think about all the healthcare journeys you’ve had, surgery is one of the most critical you will encounter. There are (hopefully) not many times you undergo general anesthesia and put your life into someone else’s hands. The opportunity to create an environment where we can dramatically improve the outcomes of individuals by making their providers better is a huge opportunity. Apella creates an environment where providers have the space to do their best work. And as a result, patients reap the reward by having dramatically better outcomes.
We recently closed our Series A fundraising which enables us to work with a series of innovative hospitals to implement the technology in their operating rooms. This funding will also allow Apella to further develop new applications based on the foundation we have established with our computer vision and machine learning platform.
Every patient deserves the opportunity to have the best possible surgical experience. By using data to improve lives, Apella makes that possible.