CardMedic CEO, Dr Rachael Grimaldi talks Pitchfest win on Digital Health Unplugged
It was a pleasure to feature on Digital Health’s popular Unplugged podcast to discuss how and why I founded CardMedic with my husband Tim in the height of the pandemic, and our journey with the company so far - Including our recent Pitchfest win! Here’s a quick overview of what we discussed:
Jordan Sollof, Digital Health Junior reporter:
Can you tell me a bit about what you do, what is CardMedic and why did you decide to create it?
A little bit about me – I am an anaesthetist in the NHS, currently working at Great Ormond Street hospital in my final year of training, I have three children so my training has taken a little longer than otherwise would've done (I qualified nearly thirteen years ago now!), I’m also an associate director for Brighton Marathon, and of course I’m co-founder and CEO of CardMedic.
CardMedic is a digital app designed to reduce health inequalities due to communication barriers in healthcare. These could be due to; foreign language, deafness, blindness, cognitive problems (like learning disabilities, dementia, stroke for example) or literacy issues.
It’s a website and mobile app that has an A-to-Z library of pre-written scripts of common conversations people would have, like the history of symptoms, or checking if someone is in pain for example. It supports that conversation that happens between staff and patients through a series of pre-written transcripts.
You can then choose a script from the screen, show it to the patient and you can change it to be presented in a different language, or they can listen to it with read-aloud. We also have sign language videos and ‘easy-read’ content. It offers an alternative to translation services in healthcare when these might not be available.
Taking it back to when we started CardMedic, it began during the pandemic while I was on maternity leave. As for many people, the pandemic hit our family hard. But at the forefront of my mind, I thought as a clinician I need to be on the front line helping my friends. So, from afar, I did what I could from an admin perspective, I then ended up reading about a patient who had been to intensive care with COVID and was terrified because he couldn’t understand what staff were saying through the PPE. Although I didn’t notice any immediate communication problems with the patient, I thought, if he’s struggling there must be loads more that are struggling.
After this, we conceptualised and launched CardMedic within 72 hours.
What have been some of your biggest achievements and successes so far?
It's been a bit of a wild ride. We’ve won some incredible awards, such as the US accelerator Mass Challenge which was really exciting. We are also doing the Mass Challenge this year and have been selected by some US hospitals, which has been really exciting. I also won the global finals for She Loves Tech which was wonderful. Winning all of these awards has been amazing for us. The 22 thousand app downloads and 55 thousand users are really starting to scale in hospitals in the UK and US, it's all incredible and we're all really proud. I’m most proud of the team at CardMedic, as well as the people across the NHS and nationally that have made this all possible.
I can imagine starting up in the pandemic, you must have faced some challenges and obstacles along the way?
There have been a number of challenges, in the beginning doing this remotely was hard. And as a clinician, I had no knowledge of many things such as how the NHS was structured, procurement or even from a funding perspective. We initially applied for an Innovate UK grant (which I later found out was their most competitive!), but since then we have always found fundraising a challenge as an early-stage start-up.
One of the biggest challenges I did face was how to navigate the digital health innovation space, building that network and knowledge takes time and was completely new to me.
This year Pitchfest 2022 was really competitive so being this year's champion, can you tell me what motivated you to enter?
The prize is amazing, and nothing beats real-world use. For us, the patient and public involvement and feedback from staff on the front line is essential to making CardMedic as useful and relevant as possible. To make sure we’re building a solution that is continuing to meet real problems and that we are increasing our offer to hospitals. The prize of working with such a phenomenal trust such as Chelsea and Westminster, that is really engaged in innovation is an amazing opportunity for growth. The platform that Rewired provides in terms of the competition and the prize is just incredible.
How did you find the process, such as the online heats and pitches?
I’ve done quite a lot of pitching and similar processes but I always get nervous whenever I have to do them! Everyone was lovely during the online heats and it’s a lot to cram into 5 minutes of a pitch and 5 minutes of Q&A. Then transitioning to an in-person pitch, in front of a load of people, it’s really daunting to look out and see a sea of faces, but everyone was really engaged and listening which was really nice. Although I was first apprehensive, once I was on the stage, I just flowed with it and thought I may as well enjoy the experience.
What was your initial thoughts when they announced the winner?
It was a total surprise! CardMedic was up against some amazing competitors with some incredible projects, and it’s easy to get impostor syndrome, as many people do. I was totally unprepared for that announcement.
I think what feels amazing about it, is you’re amongst peers and colleagues. A lot of people I speak to, whether they are in the investor world, the business world or as clinicians, when you get that approval of those people directly in healthcare and really understand that space – It feels amazing to have that stamp of approval.
How will winning Pitchfest help elevate CardMedic?
We’ve had a number of investors come directly from Pitchfest, the exposure and publicity you get from winning a competition like Pitchfest really provides a whole new level of credibility.
One of your main objectives is to reduce health inequalities through better patient communication, what do you think more needs to be done across the industry and how important is the role of digital technology in particular in tackling health inequalities?
I think the health inequalities agenda is now huge and I think the pandemic has shone an enormous light on health inequalities faced by patients, particularly communication barriers with PPE. If people have poor health literacy, their health outcomes are worse. So, I think we need to do everything we can to empower patients to make sure that they have the information in a format that they understand. Only one-third of trusts meet the accessible information standard, whether that be down to interoperability issues, funding, or accessibility, there’s a lot more we can do to make improvements in the most cost-efficient way possible to tackle health inequalities.
What's your short and long-term ambitions and of course what’s your ultimate goal for CardMedic?
My ultimate goal is to make healthcare information accessible to everyone on the whole planet. For us, being ‘tech for good’ and making a positive economic impact is our goal. The short-term goals are finishing our funding round, and completing the tech development sprints. The long-term goal is to integrate with electronic health records plus so much more.
What expert advice would you give to start-ups that are thinking of applying for next year’s Pitchfest?
I think just go for it. All pitching is good for experience so if that’s something you’re worried about, I’d say don’t overthink it, just do it.
|
|
|
|
I really enjoyed speaking with Jordan at Digital Health, so I’d like to say a big thank you for having me on the podcast!
Listen to the podcast in full here, follow Digital Health for the latest news on Twitter and keep up with our latest developments over on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on linkedin