Mercy Health Invests In Readyset Surgical

Portfolio company ReadySet Surgical, whose software helps hospitals avoid costly operating room delays, has landed investment and a unique partnership with Mercy Health, the largest nonprofit healthcare system in Ohio. Mercy Health will use the software in its own hospitals and work with ReadySet to co-develop surgical supply chain tools to further operating room efficiency.

Surgical delays that occur when vendor-supplied devices, instruments and implants are not sterilized and available on time cost US hospitals billions of dollars annually and impact patient care. “Delays in the operating room affect patients scheduled for surgery and their loved ones and also limit a hospital’s ability to care for unscheduled patients needing emergency surgery,” says John Starcher, Mercy Health President and CEO in a news release. “We want to ensure that our operating rooms are working as efficiently as possible to care for the patients we’re expecting as well as those we’re not.” CincyTech invested in ReadySet Surgical in 2016.  

We spoke to founder and CEO Keerthi Kanubaddi about this deal with Mercy Health.

You built a company to address a real-world problem, one you encountered often over the course of your long career as a surgical device rep. What does this partnership with Mercy Health mean for ReadySet Surgical?  

Mercy's belief and support in our mission is critical to our long-term success. If we intend to solve some of the biggest problems in the surgical supply chain, we need an IDN (Integrated Delivery Network) partner to help validate design, provide real-world testing and ultimately utilize the platform.

How did the connection to Mercy Health happen?

It would take a long time to name all of the individuals within Mercy that helped bring this partnership to fruition. The connection initially came from the President of CincyTech, Mike Venerable. Mike introduced me to the new Chief Innovation Officer of Mercy Health, Jeff Carr, and the rest is history. Jeff immediately understood our value proposition and proceeded to build consensus internally with the clinical teams.

Do you have any data on the impact of your software in hospitals that deploy it?  

We are able to provide hospitals with unprecedented data about the vendor-managed implants and instruments flowing through their surgical suites. We are also able to show significant ROI in relation to surgical start times, sterilization documentation and missing instrumentation. If you ask anyone on our team, most important is the fact that we make surgery safer and more specific for patients.

Who are your other customers to date and what are the next steps in the growth of the company?

We are currently deploying our technology in hospitals around the country. Our latest installations are Premier Health (5 hospitals) and University Hospital (UHS-SA). We expect to be deployed in over 400 facilities in the next few years. "Mercy Health's investment in and deployment of ReadySet is a key validation of the value that the platform can deliver to hospitals," says CincyTech Director Doug Groh.  "Taking a broader view, having a hospital system as large and influential as Mercy Health engage with innovating new technology is a great sign for the growing number of healthcare related technology startups in the region."