{"id":6880,"date":"2021-08-23T03:33:50","date_gmt":"2021-08-23T03:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entrepreneurs.utoronto.ca\/ip-education\/?post_type=spotlight&p=6880"},"modified":"2021-09-03T19:07:26","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T19:07:26","slug":"this-is-the-place-to-power-health-care-collaboration","status":"publish","type":"spotlight","link":"https:\/\/entrepreneurs.utoronto.ca\/ip-education\/spotlight\/this-is-the-place-to-power-health-care-collaboration\/","title":{"rendered":"This is the place to power health-care collaboration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This is the place to power health-care collaboration<\/h1>\n\n
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It takes a team to care for a patient\u2014and that often involves rapid communication. Hypercare\u2019s health-care communications app is just what the doctor ordered.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hypercare\u2019s sales pitch is simple: \u201cNo more pagers. No more phone tag.\u201d To those who don\u2019t work in the health-care sector, it is also surprising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People are often stunned to find out that the old-fashioned pager remains the standard in many hospitals, explains the company\u2019s co-founder and CEO, U of T alumnus Albert Tai. Front-line workers have to call the hospital switchboard, ask who\u2019s on call, arrange a page and play telephone tag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the opening for Hypercare, which streamlines care communications to the benefit of both patients and clinicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hypercare built an app with support from U of T Entrepreneurship<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Hypercare had its beginnings in a computer science course Tai took at U of T in 2016, which asked students to apply their problem-solving skills to the health-care sector. When he graduated in 2017, he formed Hypercare with fellow U of T alumnus Dr. Joseph Choi, an emergency physician and an assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine, and Umar Azhar, a talented software engineer relocating from Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team hit on the idea of integrating hospitals\u2019 on-call schedules into their software. Now the Hypercare app lets users instantly contact on-call doctors without having to first track down who they are. Users can also securely share clinical images and prioritize important messages. A feature that lets family doctors collaborate with hospital specialists with just one click is especially popular for its ability to enhance patient experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After securing funding from prominent angel and venture capital investors in Canada and the United States, Hypercare landed their first customer in 2019. The company is now expanding rapidly and has 12 staff. Their clients include more than 50 health-care organizations, and more than 120 family physicians in East Toronto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along the way, they received support and guidance from U of T Entrepreneurship, with several of its hubs providing pieces of the startup puzzle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UTEST provided workspace and invaluable business guidance. \u201cThey\u2019ve been really helpful connecting us to investors, helping us build our business model and educating us on how to generate revenue,\u201d says Tai. \u201cThey\u2019re fantastic.\u201d Meanwhile, he got help honing his pitch from \u201cvery, very passionate\u201d mentors Mario Grech and Helen Kontozopoulos at the Department of Computer Science Innovation Lab (DCSIL).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Hypercare\u2019s early stages, U of T\u2019s Impact Centre found Tai, Choi and Azhar several business-oriented student interns. \u201cThey helped us scale up,\u201d says Tai. \u201cWe really enjoyed their energy, but also we couldn\u2019t have ramped up marketing without them.\u201d The team turned to ONRamp, U of T\u2019s entrepreneurial networking space, for something less tangible: a credibility boost. \u201cWe ran a lot of external-facing meetings there, which makes you look a lot bigger than you are,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U of T\u2019s H2i provided key connections to the health-care industry, from potential investors to potential clients. \u201cWithout H2i,\u201d says Tai, \u201cwe wouldn\u2019t be getting inroads with some of the larger health-care organizations. One of our best mentors is from H2i. They were super helpful and as a health-care company, it is just very useful to be part of the U of T health innovation ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revolutionizing health-care communications in a pandemic<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When the COVID-19 crisis hit, Hypercare offered its service for free for the first three months of Canada\u2019s lockdown. Existing clients such as Toronto\u2019s Michael Garron Hospital, which had set up the app in late 2019, also found it indispensable during the pandemic as they co-ordinated patient care both between hospital departments and with external providers as patients transitioned back to the community to recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hypercare is winning additional hospital-wide contracts as its reputation grows. While his parents wanted him to be a doctor or pharmacist, Tai\u2019s passion was always technology. He says he has no interest in orchestrating a profitable \u201cexit\u201d by selling the company he co-founded. Instead, he aspires to be the \u201cMicrosoft of health care\u201d by continuing to create software products and systems that support clinicians in the incredible work that they do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tai is thrilled to be helping smart, passionate physicians with a truly useful technology boost. \u201cThat\u2019s why this work is very motivating,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\n Date<\/span>\n
August 23, 2021<\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n\n\n\n
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