While many medial procedures have become much less invasive, even the most routine surgeries still have risks. Apella wants to help make them even safer with data and artificial intelligence.
The Oakland startup places sensors in operating rooms and other places around hospitals to collect environmental signals about what's happening so hospital administrators and surgeons can make better decisions about patient care.
Co-founder and CEO David Schummers told me the process is similar to how air traffic control works at airports. Instead of manually phoning in updates from the operating room, collecting even some data automatically could cut down on the time that's taken away from critical work and improve patient outcomes.
"We install sensors into operating rooms and other procedure rooms in a hospital to collect a new data set about what occurs during surgery,” Schummers said. “Today, the data collected in surgery is primarily limited to the electronic health record which is designed for billing and patient record keeping, not for in-depth data collection during procedures."
The data gleaned from its sensors are used to help surgeons and operating staff make better decisions in real time, and it can also be used for education and improving safety outcomes.
Data and AI will fuel the next revolution in surgery, Schummers said. The first was shifting from open surgery to minimally invasive procedures in the 1980s, and the second revolution came in the 2000s with the advent of robotics.
Schummers co-founded Apella in 2019 with CTO Cameron Marlow and Jordan Tuttle. Marlow previously founded Facebook's data science team and was also a research scientist at Yahoo, according to LinkedIn.
They had all previously worked at health care-related companies but felt like they could be doing more good by branching out from niche solutions and developing a product that served a broader market — in this case, all types of surgeries.
The company doesn't collect any data from patient health records at the moment but marrying the two types of data one day could generate even more powerful analytics.
The company on Monday announced closing a $21 million Series A that was led by Casdin Capital and also included Vensana Capital, PFM Health, Twine Ventures, Upside Partnership, and Operator Partner. This brings its total funding to nearly $24 million.
Apella currently has about 15 full-time employees as well as additional part-timers and says it hopes to double or triple its staff in 2022. The company hasn't disclosed where its product is currently being used but Schummers said that he hopes to have between 10 and 50 partners, primarily hospitals and surgical centers, in its early access program next year.
