San Francisco-based Apella is a startup aimed at improving surgery. It uses computer vision, artificial intelligence and modern communications to improve the critical aspects of healthcare.
Series A investment
In a recent development, Apella, which is dedicated to improving surgery, has picked up $21 million in Series A funding. The investment round was led by Casdin Capital, along with Vensana Capital, PFM Health Sciences, Twine Ventures, Upside Partnership, and Operator Partners and notable individual investors.
The financing will help Apella use its technology in more hospitals. Also, it will allow Apella to double or triple its team in the next six months and develop new applications based on its core platform, and computer vision and machine learning capabilities.
Apella believes that every patient deserves the best possible outcome from surgery,” commented David Schummers, co-founder and CEO of Apella. “Our technology is aimed at helping each member of the surgical team to do their best job.”
“Apella is creating the operating system for the operating room,” commented Justin Klein, Managing Partner of Vensana Capital. “The company’s technology can create a true system of record by capturing data that is unbiased, reliable, and increases in value over time. The Apella team is very experienced in technology and well grounded in the voice of the customer, and we are thrilled to work with them as they bring this technology to market.”
Ambitious plans for 2022
Founded in 2019 by Cameron Marlow and David Schummers, Apella has deployed its systems across a handful of hospitals in the United States to help gather information and refine its technology. Also, it is in talks with luminary hospitals to implement its technology and put it to work. It is expected to be deployed in five to 10 hospitals in the first half of 2022.
The aim of Apella is to liberate surgeons and staff from distractions, delays, data entry and the complexities of the OR environment. Also, it helps them do what they set out to do every day, which is to provide excellent patient care.
Digitises operating rooms
Commonly, hospitals run on legacy technologies that use landline phones to communicate. This is the reason that critical metrics are not improved. Also, cases do not start on time and there is no reduction in the turnover time between cases. Even the utilisation of the operating room remains below capacity.
While nurses, techs and administrators are relied upon to run the operating room efficiently, they are not equipped with the tools they need. This is where Apella comes to play.
Apella’s initial products include sensors that are installed in the operating room. These sensors harness artificial intelligence approaches that will collect and analyse new data about surgery. This data contributes to applications that are targeted towards improving hospital operations, surgical quality, staff training, and real-time decision making with the goal of improving the quality of surgical care.
Apella focuses on all the processes that happen between surgeries, including in the setup and takedown processes. This makes its technology stand out in the medical field. It improves processes for every kind of surgery than specialising in a specific type of care. Undoubtedly, artificial intelligence, computer vision and machine learning dramatically improve surgical outcomes and costs.
