Balaji Ramadoss and his wife, Heather Holland, are spending their days working on their healthtech startup and their nights learning how to sew masks for medical professionals treating coronavirus patients.
They know it's a lot for anyone, let alone entrepreneurs, with many barely treading water during an anticipated economic downturn.
But they're also impacted a little differently. The couple, who are both previous employees of Tampa General Hospital and are planning the birth of their child in a hospital in the next two weeks, knew they had to do the most they could to help.
"This is personal, very personal for us," Ramadoss said. "That all came into focus and we decided it's not about selling (our services), it's not about being a tech company, it's focusing on what's important for us, which is, 'Let's help the people that take care of people, which is health systems.'"
Ramadoss and Holland are the co-founders of Edgility, which they founded in 2016 after leaving their jobs at TGH and moving to San Francisco. Edgility created a health care system which improves gaps and delays in information flow. In response to coronavirus, the company also released three toolkits specifically to act as a command center and help address coronavirus related challenges.
"Everything is an iteration on top of each other," Ramadoss said. "Different hospitals have different maturities with technology. Some can go to the latest version but I think of some hospitals in underserved populations will find the first one is the most relevant tool kit."
The toolkits will not only be available for their current customers, but released for other health care systems to use for free.
"As a tech startup in health care this is not the time to be selling," he said. "We are not worried how this will impact us. The driver is, we have to come to the conclusion that this is bigger than us. This is bigger than Edgility and the one way we're able to get energy is knowing it's not about what we have, it's about what we can give."
And at night, the Edgility team is working to give even further. While working on the toolkits, Ramadoss and Holland received a photo from their Chief Outcome Office Lisa Meyer, a nurse in Minnesota.
"She sends me a picture of her at 2 a.m. cutting a cloth to make face masks," Ramadoss said. "That changed the energy when we're not building tool kits. We started buying elastic and figured how hard is it? My mother-in-law had a sewing kit, so I'm just learning this."
They are now using a simple outline to learn how to make the masks and have made 100 so far, "which will get faster." They plan to donate across the to health care systems in the Tampa Bay region.
"We get restless when we get 15 minutes off work: we think we’re not doing something," Ramadoss said. "Between the core team, we have 70+ years of experience in the health care field, so we see this in a different light than a tech company. It's not about money, it's getting the right tool to the person."
