The Importance of Founding LiteraSeed
Over the course of five years, two of my family members nearly lost their lives, and another two did. Those deaths and near-death experiences were preventable had they been treated sooner.
After the death of a 10-year-old cousin to a life-threatening condition who died while waiting to see a doctor in the Emergency Department, I set out to understand what went wrong in the hopes of preventing what happened to her from happening to others.
🤔 Here’s what I learned:
👉 Poor health communication causes 78% of misdiagnoses that result in 80,000 avoidable hospital deaths each year.
👉 Language barriers make this situation significantly more challenging, increasing the risk of more frequent and severe adverse outcomes by 49%.
👉 On average, every incident of preventable harm costs health systems $58,776 per injury in medical costs and $386,849 mean payout per claim.
👉 Inefficiencies brought on by miscommunication between patients and healthcare professionals lead to misdiagnosis and delayed treatment that cost the US economy up to $750 billion in avoidable costs per year.
💡 By capturing symptoms data accurately from patients early in the progression of an illness, we can support doctors in making a timely, accurate diagnosis with the potential to save lives.
So, I decided to start LiteraSeed and be part of the solution.
👣 On my journey:
👩⚕️ 3 years ago, I met doctors at the Valleywise Health Refugee Women’s Health Clinic who graciously opened their doors to help me pursue this mission.
👩🏫 In Summer 2020, LiteraSeed initialized a collaboration with Virginia Tech associate professor in computer science, Hoda Eldardiry.
👩💻 During the Fall of 2020, we welcomed Judy Wu onto the team. Judy has a strong interest in healthcare technology software development. Her passion is building a product from the perspectives of design, user experience, data workflow, application architecture, and server security. She has worked on web-based and native applications as early intervention and preventive care in behavioral health.
😷 In November 2020, (in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic) we were approved for our very first clinical pilot with patients at the Refugee Women’s Health Clinic at Valleywise Health. Our goal is to enable better care for people with communication barriers.
Throughout a series of blog posts, I hope to share this journey with you. Stay tuned for more!
Aziza Ismail
Founder @ LiteraSeed
🌟 Our Mission
Everything we do at LiteraSeed centers around our belief that nobody should suffer harm nor be denied high-quality healthcare because of a communication barrier. We are committed to a world where anyone regardless of communication ability or preferred language can get the critical care that they need. We’re starting with patients who have the greatest challenges with communication. Our pilot with Valleywise Health will go a long way to make sure we have a real impact with results that improve a patient’s clinical care.
