By Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick
Twitter: @drnic1
Host of Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist – #TheIncrementalist
On this episode I spoke to Rachael Grimaldi, MD (@cardmedic), Founder and CEO of CardMedic and an Anesthetist working in the NHS who founded the company while stranded out of her home country at the height of the pandemic on maternity leave. Born from a desire to help and long term desire to improve health literacy and health inequities that were laid bare by the pandemic and made worse with the introduction of PPE in every clinical setting and beyond.
Episode NOW on Demand
We talk about the original idea – which took about 72 hours to pull together at the beginning and how it took off quickly as the media caught on and she started to get interview requests and interest from around the world with over 50,000 users in more than 50 countries. Poor communications affects as much as 50% of the population for a variety of reasons and the pandemic made matters far worse, requiring increased usage of personal protective equipment (PPE) that introduced additional barriers and problems.
The tipping point from great idea to business came as she received funding from Innovate UK that put more pressure on making this a persistent solution that lasted past the initial flurry of interest and continued to help solve the problem. Up till this point it had remained a side project but with the focus, money and attention now increasing Rachael found that her career and research had prepared her well to get to this point and continue leading a brand new company.
She was fortunate to have family members with business experience to help navigate the path to launch anew company and her built in character was the perfect match to allow others to be her Yoda and counsel through the challenges of learning while building. She was open minded to the other resources bringing her own set of transferable skills from medicine to the corporate table to bring to life an idea that while simple is unique and lacking till now and evidenced by the recent successes – first NHS trust contract,
Listen in to hear the key incremental tipping points from Rachael’s journey, the importance of listening and how Rachael found herself on the sidelines in another country unable to contribute clinically, despite having some highly valuable and relevant skills for the Pandemic. No reason to quit, rather double down and surround yourself with talent and even as a technophobe found a path to use technology as a driver for good.
About the Show
For years Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick, has served as a voice on the impact of new technologies on healthcare, earning a reputation as a leading authority on where the future of medicine is going. Combining powers of observation and real world experience, Dr. Nick has seen many predictions come true and makes the case that innovations in healthcare can be accomplished incrementally, not just by moonshot events. Tune in to hear Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist and his guests discuss what the future of healthcare looks like, how we will get there, and what it will take to improve healthcare for all.
This article was originally published on the Dr. Nick – The Incrementalist blog and is republished here with permission.