Chiefy Secures $4.2 Million Funding for Surgical Team Communication Platform
Chiefy, an innovative cloud platform designed to enhance communication and implement quality practices among surgical teams, has successfully raised $4.2 million in seed funding. The round was led by LionBird and included participation from Nina Capital and Emerge Ventures. The funds will be used to accelerate product development and customer acquisition, addressing the ongoing financial and operational issues faced by hospitals and health systems, such as workforce shortages and high nurse turnover rates.
As the healthcare industry continues to grapple with these challenges, Chiefy aims to streamline and improve the communication process among surgical teams. The platform facilitates digital huddles that allow surgical teams to address communication errors before they impact patient care, saving both time and resources.
"Chiefy is built to challenge the idea that if hospitals want high quality, they need to be slower, or clinicians need to suffer. We believe that quality, efficiency, and clinician experience can be a win-win-win. This requires building a culture of trust, and our technology serves as an enabler for building this culture," said Chiefy Co-Founder and CEO Maya Ber Lerner.
Globally, more than 300 million surgeries are performed each year, with over $50 billion wasted due to errors stemming from miscommunication. By offering a secure, HIPAA-compliant platform for surgical teams to collaborate, Chiefy aims to address these issues and improve patient outcomes.
An academic study conducted with NYU Langone Health and published in the Journal of Neurosurgery demonstrated that the use of Chiefy's platform led to a 35% reduction in last-minute operating room requests, such as changes in equipment, patient preparation, and anesthesia plans. A subsequent study showed reductions in length of stay, readmission rates, time to incision, and cases running over 30 minutes beyond the scheduled time, in addition to improved case time prediction.
Dr. Peter Pronovost, Chief Clinical Transformation Officer and Chief Quality Officer at University Hospitals Health System, commented on the platform's potential, stating, "Teamwork and communication are the foundation of patient quality and safety. Using technology and systems thinking to implement proven teamwork interventions like pre-op huddles and checklists at scale is a critical evolution of decades of effort in patient quality and safety. I'm excited to see Chiefy's work on this global healthcare challenge."
As a cloud-based SaaS platform, Chiefy represents a low-cost, low-risk opportunity for hospitals and health systems to quickly implement and scale a secure, compliant collaboration platform that engages clinicians and improves care quality. Unlike local quality improvement projects that take years to implement and are hard to scale, Chiefy can be deployed in as little as two weeks, with no significant upfront investment, and deliver tangible benefits immediately.
With this new investment, Chiefy is poised to make a significant impact on the healthcare industry by improving communication and collaboration among surgical teams, ultimately enhancing patient outcomes and clinician experiences.