CLARA

Clara is a mobile platform for surgeons — made by surgeons.

Every year, forty-six billion dollars is wasted in surgical services. And most of this waste is due to a lack of communication.

Caring for vulnerable patients involves searching for equipment, staring at schedule screens, and making data decisions on the fly. But surgeons constantly wonder:

• “Is my patient ready for care in the operating room?”

• “I can’t find the ultrasound — we need it now!”

• “Did the resident go to fix the consent-form issue?”

At the same time, similar questions go unanswered. For example:

• “Do we need another microscope?”

• “Is the pilot project generating real ROI?”

• “What is the true cost of care for our patients?”

This is where Clara can help. It’s designed to introduce convenience into the workday and answer hard questions that waste time and money.

Clara is a mobile application and administration interface. It offers live maps for users to find people and equipment, real-time data on critical department metrics, and personalized agents to streamline the flow of care.

Using Clara, a surgeon can quickly locate the nearest medical cart, or receive notice that one of their patients is ready for consult in a specific hospital room.

Meanwhile, administrators can use Clara to identify bottlenecks, monitor productivity, and orchestrate care in real-time.

Clara was developed by surgeons, nurses, and hospital executives with more than thirty years of experience in surgical services. CEO Melinda Yormick cared for more than 10,000 patients in operating rooms. And Chief Operating Officer Sireesha Panchagnula engineered the first-ever voice-over network in the U.S. for cellular company T-Mobile.

Clara has been deployed in a pilot program at the University of Washington. The company is now seeking two additional clinical pilots and Letters of Interest for future contracts. In Year 1 of its launch, Clara projects to bring in $6.2 million in revenue. And in Year 2, it projects to bring in nineteen million dollars in revenue.

Team Background

Melinda Yormick - Co-Founder & CEO

Melinda has cared for more than 10,000 patients in operating rooms and served more than 1,000 clinicians at a surgical-services leader.

Prior to starting Clara, she was a nurse manager with Swedish, a Seattle-based healthcare company. Before that, she was an assistant nurse manager at Virginia Mason Medical Center.

Earlier in her career, Melinda was a registered nurse with AMN Healthcare, working as a travel nurse at Harborview Medical Center, Bellevue Surgery Center, and the University of Washington Medical Center. She began as a nurse in the operating room at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing from D’Youville University and an MBA.

Sireesha Panchagnula - Chief Operating Officer

Sireesha joined Clara in July 2024 after spending seventeen years with T-Mobile, the cellular wireless company.

While there, she was a manager of the company’s core network performance division and engineered the first-ever voice-over LTE cell network in the U.S. She also managed a team of twenty people to launch the latest 5G network at T-Mobile.

She began her career as an engineer with Nortel Networks, a telecommunications company. And she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Instrumentation Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas, and an MBA from the University of Washington.

Aaron Cooke - Co-Founder & CTO

Aaron has a background in software developer and previously built an e-commerce platform as well as software to automate and manage complex subscription operations.

Most recently, he was a senior-software engineer with Viome, a health & wellness company. Before that, he held the same position with Julep Beauty, another health & wellness company.

He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Oregon State University.

Co-Investors