Who's on your team?
Kelley Barclay: is the CareMobile CEO and is leading operations. She has 15 years’ experience as adult care and social worker in the DC area and saw the need first hand for quality transportation. She has excellent marketing/interpersonal skills, deep industry expertise, and a strong network with LTC facilities in DC. School: George Mason University - Masters in Health and Human Services.
Kalhan Koul: is responsible for technology and analytics. He was a product manager for Capital One and also has founded a tech startup in the past (Athledo.com). Kalhan runs the website, online ad campaigns (currently at 5x ROI), and is leading the design and development of the care-mobile platform. School: MIT Sloan - MBA, University of Pennsylvania - Undergraduate.
Thompson Warren: is leading the business strategy efforts. He comes from strong background in growth strategy and market analysis, having worked for McKinsey & Co. for 3 years. Thompson is currently leading business strategy and market research efforts. School: MIT Sloan – MBA, Brown University - Undergraduate
Vedaant Kukadia: is heavily involved in building out the first iteration of CareMobile patient portal and is currently studying computer science at MIT. He has significant experience in developing start-ups, having launched two previous companies (Khumbu Clothing and SEAL-IT). School: MIT - Undergraduate
What problem are you trying to solve?
The Non-Emergency Medical Transportation (NEMT) is a multi-billion-dollar industry that is socially important, long overlooked, and in need of disruption. NEMT providers offer specialized, wheel-chair capable transportation to and from medical appointments for the elderly and the disabled. For decades, existing companies have remained complacent, providing notoriously unreliable, poor quality services with little improvement. NEMT resembles taxis before Uber but worse. Drivers are paid minimum wage with zero training in adult-care and are only occasionally licensed. Companies still rely on fax machines for booking and routinely show-up several hours late.
Vulnerable customers are trapped by bad options and no alternatives. Family members and caregivers have no trusted partner to care for patients from pick-up to drop-off. In the words of one long time NEMT user, “Please do something! Anything will be better than what exists.”
What is your solution?
Fusing a technology platform with a new service model, CareMobile aims to radically improve NEMT. Leveraging passionate adult care professionals as both drivers and care coordinators, CareMobile provides empathy-driven, end-to-end assisted-care services. Complementing this, our care-management technology platform provides customers and care-givers streamlined access to scheduling, payment, service customization, and shared patient information.
Our integrated service and technology solution enables entirely new care options. Using CareMobile’s platform, care-givers and family members can remotely coordinate complex services and view critical patient information without needing to attend appointments. If a family member hundreds of miles away becomes wheel-chair bound and needs to visit a doctor, CareMobile is the company you will trust to care for your loved-one from pick-up, through appointment, to drop-off.
What inspired you to start your company?
One of our founders, Kelley Barclay experienced first-hand the widespread problems within the NEMT industry while working as a healthcare professional for 15 years. She felt that a holistic, empathy-driven, and care-oriented approach to NEMT services would greatly benefit patients, patient’s family, and case workers. Frustrated by existing services, she set out to do better. Along the way, she gathered a passionate founding team that wanted to combine her new service approach with technology that would open entirely new care options.
What's been the most surprising aspect of this process?
How open customers and care-givers were in sharing deeply personal experiences with our team during market research interviewees.
What’s been the most valuable piece of advice you’ve received?
Always have a relentless focus on the customer to make sure you are solving the right problems.
What are you most looking forward to for the Launch finals?
Sharing the stage with all the fantastic companies that are coming out of MIT.
