Company Profile:
i-Human Patients, Inc.
i-Human Patients (IHP) provides interactive, scalable e-learning solutions for healthcare professional students and clinicians to promote the delivery of high quality, cost-effective care, and to ensure an adequate supply of qualified providers around the world. Like a flight simulator for physicians and nurses, IHP’s cloud-based simulated patient encounters help develop their most critical cognitive competencies – patient assessment and diagnostic reasoning – so they can pursue appropriate interventions and treatment plans. With cutting edge technology and evidence-based content developed by leading medical educators, plus a projected $1.5 billion (over 10 million user) market for its subscription services, the company has received $13 million in funding and commitments from the National Science Foundation, the American Medical Association, a large international non-profit organization, and private investors. Shortly after launch in November 2012, IHP’s flagship platform received the 2013 Best-in-Show Award at IMSH, the world’s largest medical simulation conference. IHP’s core interactive simulation technology is applicable to the entire healthcare services ecosystem – from undergraduate and graduate medical and nursing education, to continuing education, and to the support of clinical best practices in large hospitals and health systems. IHP is headquartered in California and operates a subsidiary in India.
Q: Please tell us how your business idea was conceived. Was there an "aha" moment or did it evolve gradually?
A: Our founders were executives associated with the world’s first multimedia browser at Walkabout Software. As mountain climbers, they had also taken a number of emergency medicine courses to prepare for unexpected issues. Some of the simulation exercises they saw were primitive, and with their Walkabout experience, they knew they could do better.
After one of them developed cancer, they decided they would work only on things that really mattered. They created a number of advanced software medical simulators to better train healthcare professionals. Feedback from medical schools led them to integrate these standalone products into a comprehensive, interactive patient-encounter simulator that could rapidly and fully develop a professional's patient-assessment and diagnostic skills. Their “flight simulator” for medical students and practicing clinicians was designed to increase the quality and lower the cost of healthcare via exceptional competency development, and to accelerate the training of professionals to better meet our world’s healthcare demand.
After one of them developed cancer, they decided they would work only on things that really mattered. They created a number of advanced software medical simulators to better train healthcare professionals. Feedback from medical schools led them to integrate these standalone products into a comprehensive, interactive patient-encounter simulator that could rapidly and fully develop a professional's patient-assessment and diagnostic skills. Their “flight simulator” for medical students and practicing clinicians was designed to increase the quality and lower the cost of healthcare via exceptional competency development, and to accelerate the training of professionals to better meet our world’s healthcare demand.
Q: What's the most inventive, innovative, or disruptive aspect of your initiative?
A: Our global healthcare training needs are staggering. The U.S. will be short 130,000 physicians by 2025. India must train 1.6 million doctors by 2030. The shortage in nursing is even greater. Without sufficient bricks and mortar infrastructure and educator human capital, one must find a way to leverage low cost, rapidly scalable technology.
Moreover, we must significantly improve the diagnostic quality of practicing clinicians. One of every 20 outpatient adults in the U.S. is misdiagnosed. Half the errors are potentially harmful. Between 40,000 and 80,000 deaths each year in the U.S., as well as a significant portion of the $700 billion per year in avoidable and unnecessary healthcare costs, are attributable to diagnostic error.
Our cloud-based interactive patient encounter simulator provides low cost, rapidly scalable, and consistently high-quality diagnostic competency development. Users can work on simulated patients anywhere, anytime, and on almost any device to supplement costly, time- and capacity-limited apprenticeship training.
Moreover, we must significantly improve the diagnostic quality of practicing clinicians. One of every 20 outpatient adults in the U.S. is misdiagnosed. Half the errors are potentially harmful. Between 40,000 and 80,000 deaths each year in the U.S., as well as a significant portion of the $700 billion per year in avoidable and unnecessary healthcare costs, are attributable to diagnostic error.
Our cloud-based interactive patient encounter simulator provides low cost, rapidly scalable, and consistently high-quality diagnostic competency development. Users can work on simulated patients anywhere, anytime, and on almost any device to supplement costly, time- and capacity-limited apprenticeship training.
Q: How will it help people live to their greatest potential or contribute to making the world healthier?
A: By rapidly and more effectively training student and practicing physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals, there will be more clinicians to meet the world’s healthcare needs, and a much more affordable and consistent quality of care.
Q: Five years from now, what would you like to be able to say has been your most important contribution to health?
A: We would like to say we helped make quality healthcare more accessible to those in need, wherever they may be in the world, by both increasing the supply of well-trained clinicians and by reducing diagnostic error rates amongst those already practicing.
Q: What single word or phrase best describes the culture of your startup and why?
A: Mission-driven. Quality healthcare should be a basic human right. However, much of the world’s population struggles with an inadequate supply of well-trained clinicians. We believe we have created a low cost, rapidly scalable educational technology that can both raise the quality bar in developed nations and help developing nations significantly increase the speed at which they can develop their supply of well-trained clinicians. To even think we could have this kind of impact is exhilarating.