CLARA: The Nurse-Made App That Locates Staff & Equipment in Emergencies

After a patient's tragic death, one nurse got to work to prevent it from happening again.

Melinda Yormick, RN, BSN, CNOR, MBA, co-founder of CLARA, was nurse manager of the operating room in a renowned health system. The frontline nursing team was serving on an elective case when the patient on the table lost his airway. This occurred following the breathing tube being removed after a successful procedure, post-intubation. As the patient crashed, the circulating nurse realized that the emergency airway cart was not where it was supposed to be, to make matters worse, the code response team was unable to locate the patient as the bedside team was trying to regain his airway.

Tragically, without access to the right people and equipment, the patient lost his life. Yormick recognized that similar situations with staff and equipment not readily locatable and accessible had occurred in multiple hospital systems and resulted in a number of patient deaths. She realized something needed to change. 

That change would become CLARA, the tech start-up Yormick co-founded in 2022. CLARA is a digital infrastructure that helps map clinicians and critical equipment so they can get to patients when and where they are needed. The system operates like a conductor – not just providing clinicians with a snapshot, rather, orchestrating workflows so you know exactly where you are needed and what equipment to bring.

Yormick believes that CLARA will significantly reduce delays in treatment because the right people and the right equipment will be available to patients when they need it most.

Leveraging Technology to Map Care Delivery

Yormick explains to Nurse.org that CLARA is a Software as a Service (SaaS) that uses GPS-like technology (because GPS can't work indoors) to provide administrators and front-line teams access to workflow intelligence, essential equipment, and robust analysis for constant improvement. 

How Does CLARA Work?

The software uses real-time location services (RTLS) hardware that employs advanced radio frequency technology and allows for hyper-accurate indoor navigation for patients and staff, as well as real-time positioning of care teams and resources. Think: a real-time, turn-by-turn navigational map of the who and where of life-saving hospital infrastructure. If you've ever wished for a ‘Google Maps’ to find a anything in a hospital, CLARA just might be the solution. 

"CLARA’s mission is to make hospitals safer for patients and smarter operationally by getting the right people and the right tools to the right place at the right time," Yormick says. Stating, “Access to care when needed, should be viewed the same as nursing rights of medication delivery. CLARA enables care with the right patient, right equipment, right team, right time, and the right documentation.”

CLARA Improves Care Delivery Beyond Emergencies

While delivering emergent care is a critical role of CLARA, Yormick also stresses that the software is a systemic tool that can improve hospital care delivery from the inside out.

"Our tool can be applied to any workflow, not just emergencies, leading to unimaginable efficiency gains," she points out. "By harnessing precision mapping and concurrent data, CLARA streamlines hospital operations, enhances patient care, and reduces friction in rapid delivery of care."

CLARA’s Dual Functionality

Oh, and if you're wondering where the name CLARA comes from, you're probably thinking along the right lines—CLARA is, in fact, named after the famous nurse Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross. Just like the real-life Clara Barton played dual roles in delivering and organizing healthcare, CLARA represents what Yormick sees as the dual functionality of the software in both the clinician, care-facing side, and the administrator side that provides analytics of hospital workflow for planning the future of healthcare. 

Why CLARA Matters

Software to help people and equipment get where they need to go in a hospital setting may not seem all that crucial. However, Yormick points out that modern medical centers have evolved organically to serve more patients, creating maze-like campuses. Meanwhile, they’re treating increasingly complex diseases, requiring teams to have immediate access to an ever-expanding pool of equipment and resources.

Anytime a clinician calls for help, they are at the mercy of the rapid response or code team without knowing who is coming or when they will show up. "To date, in-hospital emergency calls are messaged via overhead page and select pagers, meaning we are collectively failing to provide effective communication during the most critical and vulnerable moments of care, in every hospital," Yormick says. 

She adds that challenges are exacerbated by high turnover rates, which have soared to an average of 100.5% over five years, and departments are often short-staffed needing to rely on travel nurses. With a travel nurse background herself, Yormick has first-hand knowledge of the challenges in navigating different healthcare facilities and systems. While facilities and equipment differ, Yormick has found one thing is consistent: the pressing need for a more navigable system is present nearly everywhere – from navigating hospital halls, rapid equipment access, to real-time workflow knowledge.

"It is even more difficult for new and traveling staff to orient and keep track of high-value medical equipment," Yormick says. "Healthcare professionals all have areas they are unfamiliar with in their hospital, and every single healthcare worker spends time each day looking for something."

In emergencies, Yormick notes that healthcare teams—both traveling and staff—currently rely on three main tools to find their way around lesser-known areas of a facility to reach patients:

• Signage
• Guessing
• Asking for help 

Without clear-cut navigation and tracking, delays in reaching a patient for care delivery can be the difference between life and death. "Based on conversations with medical staff and tracking done by our team, over 30 patient deaths in 2023 have been attributed to wayfinding-related issues in the Seattle area alone," Yormick says. Stating, “Alternatively, delay of care may also lead to permanent harm where patients’ ability to work, walk, or even communicate can be impacted.

"It is essential to recognize the daily challenge in simply coordinating movement of the right people, with the right skill set, and the right equipment in navigating to 'find' and serve critically ill in-patients requiring rapid care," she adds.

Leading the Charge in Nurse-Led Technology

As a 13-year-plus veteran nurse who has experience in everything from bed side travel nursing at 7 major hospitals - including multiple level 1 trauma centers, leading teams in the cardiac, thoracic, and vascular operating room at Virginia Mason to managing the neuro OR and Interventional Spine Center at Swedish, Yormick is passionate not just about CLARA but also about introducing more nurse-led tech into healthcare.

"I know we don't want more tech for tech's sake," she says. "Let's bring in tech for the patient's sake. I like to say #NursesNeedNewTechToo. Let's make this a clinician-led, nurse-founded part of healthcare that we can assure makes sense, build for the right reasons, and empower our community to influence necessary change." 

Melinda Yormick and the Team Behind CLARA

Yormick is married to her husband, Doug, and a proud mother to their daughter Rose. They are normally together in Seattle, but Yormick’s dedication to bringing CLARA to the healthcare system prompted a temporary solo move to San Francisco to help grow the business.

"I am so grateful to both of them working equally as hard to keep our home functioning as I, pushed through business school, and now made a temporary move to the Bay Area to grow my network and do everything possible to bring CLARA to front line workflows," she says. "I am so lucky to have such a resilient partner who understands that taking turns and taking responsibility is how we show our remarkable daughter that she can do whatever she was born to do."

The team behind CLARA includes co-founder and CTO - Aaron Cooke, COO - Sireesha Panchagnula, Software Engineer - Heather Fryling, Health Systems Advisor- MD and Fractional CIO - Zach Litvack, and Fractional CFO – Amitesh Kumar. All of whom Yormick says, "make her better every day," have been working to see through the first official pilot program of the software in an operational department within the University of Washington. 

Nurses’ Stories Are the Foundation for CLARA’s Growth

Next, CLARA is aiming to launch paid partnerships and, as a nurse-founded company, hopes that the very nurses who make up the life-saving care hospitals provide will help them get there. Yormick is urging any nurses who see why the mission of CLARA is so vital to email stories, pictures, and testimonials to info@claraguide.com to help them gather real-life nursing evidence for the necessity of the software.

Additionally, she is actively seeking clinician investors. "It would be inspiring to keep this company owned by clinicians, for clinicians," she says, “If that’s you, let’s connect.” 

Another Nurse Role

Changing how healthcare is organized and delivered from the inside out might seem like an overwhelming task, but Yormick is adamant that she approaches her company the same way she has always approached her role as a nurse. 

"I think it just depends on how you take on nursing and what you, as a nurse, have decided to embrace as your journey. Even from the perspective of being a travel nurse, I was never looking at a problem and saying, 'Oh, this isn't mine to fix,' or 'This is so bad, and I'm a travel nurse, so I'm just not going to worry about it," she explains. 

"My approach is that a challenge is an opportunity," Yormick continues. "And that is exactly how I see CLARA—the challenge that hospitals currently face with a lack of understanding of their real-time operations and an inability to digitally support an industry that truly could be revolutionized with digital support. That's exciting to me."

It's a challenge she and the rest of the CLARA team are prepared to take on because as a nurse first and always, she knows the power of collaboration and pooling resources to deliver patient care. "It's exciting, as you know, being able to say, 'Hey, let me solve this problem in this thoracic surgery case because, I know a thing or two, right?’ – Taking that approach - our team knows how to improve operations through technology, and we are ready to serve health systems in the same way.” She states, “We know the importance of frontline connection and as funding permits, we are looking forward to finding the right fit for Chief Nursing Officer and regional nurses to support workflow integration and technology enhancements.”

Yormick stresses that the future of CLARA requires nurses who want to participate in the future of healthcare. "I'm reliant on them, truly – so let’s go there together," she says. Yormick hopes to hear from nurses who have ideas on how CLARA could be helpful to them. For instance, she sees the potential in CLARA being used in situations outside direct patient care, such as active shooter or violent patient and visitor scenarios. 

"We have the ability to understand location-time events, call support to a location-time event, and have external eyes on a system when we're in disaster-type scenarios, we can make this great impact together," Yormick notes. "And so, if nurses support this as a process, well, that would be the greatest gift."

🤔Nurses, what do you think about the CLARA App and how it could contribute to the nursing profession? Share your comments below!