New York-based Simplifeye thinks it can improve the productivity of the people who work in your doctor’s or dentist’s office by making patient information more easily available. The twist? It’s doing so by putting that information on wearables like the Apple Watch.
The company was founded by cousins Zach and Ryan Hungate. Ryan spent some time working on Apple Retail’s personal shopping initiative before going back to school to become a dentist. After seeing how inefficient the workflow is in a given dentist’s office, he teamed up with Zach — who has a background in finance and venture — to build a system to improve communication and collaboration in medical and dental offices.
The main problem, as Zach described it to me, was the way in which records are accessed and relayed to staff for each patient. Doctors, medical assistants, dentists and hygienists bounce between patients and administrative staff to get updated on the status of each individual who comes in.
All of that results in a lot of downtime as they shuffle between patients getting up to speed, which leads to longer wait times for patients. Sessions typically start 15-20 minutes late, due in part to inefficiencies in just how information is relayed.
With Simplifeye, the cousins decided to take advantage of new wearable devices like the Apple Watch, which would give staff instant access to the information they’d need right on their wrists. And rather than being overly reliant on walkie talkies, buzzers or even just running around trying to find the right person to see a patient, staff can now be alerted when their next patient is ready and available to be seen.
By plugging into existing patient record systems, Simplifeye makes data more accessible without doctors or dentists needing to log into a desktop application.
While it started on the Apple Watch, the company has mobile applications for those who aren’t into the whole wearable thing, and also has created a web-based dashboard to foster better communication between teams. In all cases, the company hopes to surface critical information more easily — as Zach Hungate described to me, info that might have taken multiple right clicks to access is now a tap away on the Apple Watch or mobile application.
Simplifeye, which graduated from AngelPad in late 2015, has raised $3 million in funding from investors that include SoftTech VC, First Round Capital and Felicis Ventures, as well as Semil Shah’s Haystack Fund, Joe Montana’s Liquid 2 Ventures and angels Wiley Cerilli and Ariel Poler.
With that funding, the company is going to step up its sales and marketing. It recently struck a deal with Henry Schein, a major distributor of healthcare products and services. Simplifeye is one of the first products to be accepted as part of the company’s Global Innovation Center, and has struck a rev share agreement whereby Henry Schein will market Simplifeye to its network of customers.
With its funding and that strategic partnership, Simplifeye is poised to sell into the thousands of private practices that are looking for ways to better serve their patients.