The first hospital system that local tech startup Kismet Technologies worked with was Orlando Health — and that partnership has been a game-changer, according to Orlando Health’s Vice President of Strategic Innovation Michael Schmidt.
The Covid-19 pandemic spawned heightened awareness of infection prevention to ensure a safe health care environment for patients and staff — and for Schmidt, that meant surveying the local scene for partners who could help elevate the hospital system’s cleanliness standards.
“Traditional tried-and-true cleaning methods came into question during the pandemic, so we started looking at anything and everything that would let us get that extra inch of cleaning efficacy,” he said.
Enter Kismet Technologies, an Orlando-based, women-owned R&D company founded in 2019, which has developed a nanotechnology called NanoRAD (which stands for Nanobased Residual Active Disinfectant) that once applied to a surface, continually deactivates viruses and bacteria while not contributing to anti-microbial resistance.
"I'm kind of a closet geek on the technical side of things, and I thought [Kismet’s product] was incredible,” said Schmidt.
Both Schmidt and Kismet CEO and Founder Christina Drake contributed to a UCF Business Incubation Program panel discussion on April 30 about tech startups and their first customers, revealing the impact of the developing partnership between the two organizations.
"Christina and I have had numerous discussions over the past months, exploring how Kismet's technology can seamlessly integrate into our health care environment,” said Schmidt. “Our collaboration has been instrumental in refining and implementing innovative solutions to elevate cleanliness standards at Orlando Health."
Drake recalled the pivotal role played by Orlando Health in validating her company's technology in a real clinical environment. She emphasized the importance of understanding the specific challenges faced by health care institutions, and tailoring solutions to address them effectively.
"It is notoriously difficult to sell in health care — there's usually multiple decision makers and committees,” said Drake. “The most helpful thing for us was actually getting the value proposition right, being able to talk to Orlando Health and understand what the issues are in a real clinical environment.”
Now, she said, Kismet has more hospitals reaching out to her business than it currently has the bandwidth to work with.
“We have hospital systems across the U.S. reaching out to us wanting to do a research study around this new product, so now we’re trying to figure out how we will actually help hospitals [while selling] a product that makes a big difference for them.”
Meanwhile, as a result of conversations with Orlando Health Director for Infection Prevention Melissa Morgan, Drake's firm now is developing an additional product to meet the hospital’s needs. Further, Kismet, having done pilot studies with Orlando Health, is now an approved vendor there.
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