Being a founder isn’t for the faint of heart, and selling into hospitals tests that as much as anything. A single yes can require convincing nurses, administrators, and clinical leaders alike — and even then, the budget may not be there until the next fiscal year. Other setbacks pile up, too. Investors who don’t see the vision. Customers who aren’t ready to move.
But every so often, the right comment lands at the right moment.
For PatientCompanion co-founder Christy Lee, that moment came from a new user. The Kitchener, ON–based startup is onboarding a hospital rehabilitation unit onto its patient care platform, and one of the unit’s nurses told Lee how badly the solution was needed — and wondered why no one had built it sooner.
“They get it immediately,” Lee said.
Comments like that are validation for Lee and the team at PatientCompanion. Founded in 2023, the company rethinks how patients request help in a hospital or long-term care facility. Instead of a single call bell that tells a nurse only that someone needs something, patients say what they actually need — tapping a large, simple icon for “water,” “pain,” or “washroom,” speaking the request out loud, or typing it, in their own language if English isn’t it. The request lands on the care team’s dashboard already sorted by type and urgency, so the right person — nurse, PSW, or volunteer — arrives knowing what they’re walking into.
Gaining traction in unexpected ways
Lee’s original go-to-market strategy was setting up pilot projects at hospitals to see which units the platform would work best in. That plan led to something unexpected for Lee and co-founder Ethan Alvizo.
“Our plan was ‘Let’s see which one is the best use case, then go from there.’ We just went with the flow of the hospital, and it turns out that’s the approach we should be taking,” Lee said.
Instead of finding the right unit for the platform, each successful implementation turned into a sales beachhead that opened up more opportunities for demos and sales and has become their sales playbook.
Partnerships are another avenue Lee is exploring to bring PatientCompanion to more potential customers.
“There’s another company called HealthHub that does patient bedside terminals, and they already have the tablets. One of our pilot hospitals is looking at running a joint project between us and HealthHub to see if we can integrate our solution onto their existing hardware,” she said.
Refining the vision and playbook
Three years into the company, Lee said there were a lot of things she didn’t expect. One of the most surprising things was designing and refining their sales process.
“I knew the sales process would be long, but it’s more complex than I thought when selling into hospitals. You’re not selling to one person — there are a lot of people you need to get on board: administrators, nursing, all across the board. I thought once we convinced the nurses we’d be ready to go, but it’s much more than that,” she said.
In Canada, purchases like PatientCompanion come out of an individual hospital’s budget rather than a separate provincial reimbursement.
“I’ve talked to hospitals that can’t spend an additional dollar on any project. They’re in deficit or they don’t have the budget this year and we have to wait for the next fiscal year. It’s not just ‘prove the value and the hospital is ready to buy.’ They have to weigh other priorities, make sure the budget is allocated properly, and ensure they get additional funding the following year,” Lee said.
The PatientCompanion solution has also undergone changes. Lee said the team has been focused on accessibility and making sure older adults can more easily navigate it. The team also added voice prompting to the platform. In addition to tapping, a patient can simply say their request and the system will route it to the nursing station.
The company is also developing a new hardware product in place of a tablet. Lee said the drive for this came from speaking with older adults who are more familiar with gadgets like Alexa and Google Home than they are with phones and tablets.
“We made this change because in retirement homes and long-term care, the residents we spoke to said the concept of an app often doesn’t mean anything to them. We’re finalizing a product where you can just say what you need — no software interface at all, just voice,” Lee said.
Asking the AC for help
Lee and Alvizo launched PatientCompanion from the University of Waterloo Velocity incubator before joining the AC:Incubate+ program for women and gender-diverse founders. Today, Lee is in the last phase of the AC:Studio program, and she said the programs have helped change both how the company looks at sales and the product itself.
“AC:Studio has been great for mentorship. There is a mentor for everything — sales, marketing, SEO, even legal and finance. We can go to them anytime. The cohort is small and close-knit, so I’ve really appreciated that one-on-one support,” she said.
One lesson that stood out was building out their CRM in HubSpot and learning how to track their sales pipeline.
“It seems basic, but as a first-time founder you might not know about it. Being able to learn that was really helpful,” Lee said.
AC:Studio companies run from B2B SaaS to aerospace to medtech. Lee said that even though their industries and solutions may be different, they all face similar challenges.
“Some of us are further along than others, and we share with each other to keep moving our businesses forward. It doesn’t matter what industry we’re in, it’s the same experience,” she said.
