Statum Systems Founders on Improving Medical Communication

Summary

The medical community — and hospitals in particular — are often associated with cutting-edge technology. However, issues of reliability and data privacy have caused nearly 80% of hospitals to still have their doctors and nurses use pagers. Pagers severely limit the ability for medical professionals to engage in two-way communication — which can in turn lead to inefficient (and sometimes inaccurate) medical care.

Statum Systems wants to change the way that doctors and nurses communicate by providing a singular platform. We sat down with co-founders Dr. Ara Nazarian and Dr. Arman Serebrakian to learn more about their vision for medical communication and where Statum Systems is headed.

Interview

Can you give us a brief elevator pitch for your company?

Ara: Statum Systems was founded to solve the problem of fragmented medical communications. Today, caregivers need to juggle multiple systems and devices to consult and interact with other caregivers on behalf of patients. The result is delayed and error-prone communications, billions in excess costs, lack of visibility by administrators and sub-optimal patient outcomes. We created StatumHEALTH to be the single platform unifying communications for hospitals and medical practices.

What inspired you to take the leap and build this company?

Arman: As a surgical resident at a leading academic hospital, I was given multiple pagers — each supporting a unique service. Furthermore, there was no means for two-way communication among nurses, doctors, and other care team members. It was so frustrating. I became passionate about applying today’s technology and the power of smartphones and cloud applications to create a better medical communications solution.

What past experiences prepared you to start, build, and lead your company?

Ara: I am an entrepreneur at heart. With my background in biomedical engineering and having already co-founded another company providing medical solutions, I was well equipped to start Statum Systems along with Dr. Serebrakian and our other co-founders.

What is your vision for the future of the industry you are operating in?

Arman: I want to see medical professionals and caregivers to be able to focus all our time, energy, and attention on providing the best possible patient care as efficiently as possible. It is why we entered the medical profession. We need to stop having so much of our time taken away by obsolete and fragmented communication systems.

Who is on your team and how did you come together?

Ara: Initially, we brought in some key advisors to help us get the company started — including Robert Stearns, the former CTO of Compaq Computers and a member of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center General Medicine Advisory Council, and Dr. John Halamka, formerly the CTO of Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess and now President of the Mayo Clinic Platform. More recently, we started adding technology industry experience with Fred Lizza, our CEO, who has led six other software-based companies to success in the past. We have a strong mix of medical domain and tech industry knowledge at Statum Systems.

Do you have any competition, if so, how do you differentiate?

Ara: Our competition comes from captive applications like the communications modules of electronic medical record (EMR) systems, text-oriented smartphone applications and dedicated VOIP solutions. All these competitive options suffer from reliance on WiFi — which doesn’t reach areas such as radiology suites — or solve only some of the communication needs of caregivers, continuing to force users to juggle between different systems.

What does your business model look like?

Ara: We have a SaaS subscription business model, based on per user subscriptions. In the future, we will add in-depth data analytics modules that will be in addition to the base subscription price.

What brought you to equity crowdfunding and how do you intend to use the money you raise this round to scale the business?

Arman: One of our Board members had previous success with crowdfunding and introduced the concept to us. We will use the money to conduct beta testing of our software and help produce our initial commercial release.

What do you want potential investors to know about you and/or your company?

Ara: I would like our investors to know about Statum Systems first and foremost – what we do and why we are unique. The details are all there on our website — www.statumsystems.com. We have the potential to make a real difference in the daily lives of healthcare professionals and to improve patient care.

As you think about the business 5-10 years down the road, what do you see exit opportunities looking like? Have you set any future goals for the company?

Ara: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused medical centers to look at their internal systems and see where they are experiencing delays and bottlenecks. I think that will lead to a large replacement/upgrade cycle in hospitals and large medical practices — which will power our growth and that of the whole healthcare IT industry. The larger companies in the space — the EMR/HER vendors, the large systems integrators, the large communication companies that service the space — will then start acquiring the newer technology solutions that have scaled, giving us attractive exit opportunities. As far as future goals, we need to complete our beta testing, launch the commercial release of StatumHEALTH and scale our sales and marketing operations.

We at KingsCrowd are excited to see where Ara, Arman, and their team take the company. Statum Systems is currently raising on StartEngine.