Press Release
September 1st, 2021
September 1st, 2021
Phoenix, AZ – Phoenix-based healthcare technology startup, LiteraSeed has been awarded a $256,000 Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in collaboration with Virginia Tech. The highly competitive STTR/SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) program encourages domestic small businesses to engage in federally funded research/research and development (R/R&D) with the potential for commercialization. Through an awards-based process, the SBIR program enables small businesses to explore their technological potential, stimulates high-tech innovation, and nurtures an entrepreneurial spirit across the United States. The SBIR/STTR program was established under the Small Business Innovation Development Act of 1982 and, through fiscal year 2019, awarded more than 179,000 awards totaling more than $54.3 billion. Funds will be utilized by LiteraSeed to further develop the app and pilot it with a variety of healthcare providers and patient populations.
“NSF is proud to support the technology of the future by thinking beyond incremental developments and funding the most creative, impactful ideas across all markets and areas of science and engineering,” said Andrea Belz, Division Director of the Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships at NSF. “With the support of our research funds, any deep technology startup or small business can guide basic science into meaningful solutions that address tremendous needs.”
The objective of the LiteraSeed app is to overcome language, health literacy, and cultural barriers to improve communication between patients and medical providers while simultaneously enhancing the user’s long-term health literacy. As documented in hundreds of research studies, language, cultural barriers, and health literacy have adverse impacts on health outcomes and costs for patients and the national health care system, including increased length of hospitalizations, accidental overdoses, and preventable deaths. According to the United States Census Bureau, approximately 62 million Americans reside in a non-English primary-language (NEPL) household and 25 million have limited English proficiency. In the U.S., almost 120 million people, or 36% of the population, have low health literacy, disproportionately affecting racial and ethnic minority groups and patient populations that are uninsured, underinsured, or on Medicaid/Medicare.
The web-based LiteraSeed platform empowers the patient with a visual symptom guide to help describe symptoms, even if the patient does not know the words in English. Once all information has been input, the patient can receive a report and/or have the report securely sent to their medical provider. All information is stored and shared in compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to ensure patient privacy. LiteraSeed can be accessed from a computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone.
In addition to expanding the current visual-based symptom capture app, LiteraSeed will use the NSF STTR funding to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) based risk assessment engine to effectively triage the patient and leverage predictive analytics to recommend appropriate treatment options, including a management support tool to assist the medical provider in providing focused, timely care to the patient.
“Data from our first pilot has demonstrated success in helping patients more completely and succinctly communicate their symptoms to their healthcare providers,” said Aziza Ismail, co-founder of LiteraSeed. “We are thrilled that the NSF recognized the potential and is supporting us with funds to expand the pilot to other underserved patient populations.”
LiteraSeed is collaborating with Phoenix-based Valleywise Health, which is piloting the app with patients of its Refugee Women’s Health Clinic, and Hoda Eldardiry, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech and Director of the Machine Learning Laboratory. The Machine Learning Laboratory specializes in building human-machine collaborative AI systems that can learn context-aware and explainable models from multi-source and interconnected data.“
The positive impacts of LiteraSeed go beyond a single patient-provider encounter,” said LiteraSeed co-founder, John Waldeisen. “Our goal is to improve the user’s overall health literacy, empower the patient to more effectively communicate with their healthcare team, and improve outcomes in vulnerable patient populations that are disproportionately affected by medical errors.”
Once a small business is awarded a Phase I SBIR/STTR grant (up to $256,000), it becomes eligible to apply for Phase II (up to $1,000,000). Small businesses with Phase II funding are eligible to receive up to $500,000 in additional matching funds with qualifying third-party investment or sales.
About LiteraSeed
Founded in 2013, LiteraSeed™ is the inspiration of Aziza Ismail who was motivated by the tragic, but preventable death of a beloved child in her family due to miscommunication in an urgent healthcare situation. The company is mission‐driven to advance health equity for the most vulnerable by improving communication between patients and doctors, while building trust in the process. LiteraSeed strongly believes that nobody should suffer harm nor be denied high‐quality healthcare because of a communication barrier, which can be because of language, literacy, or learning disabilities. LiteraSeed aims to provide a technology that will make it easier for patients with low literacy to capture symptoms progressively and effectively communicate their medical history in a way that can empower medical providers to deliver quick and focused care. For more information, visit LiteraSeed.io.
About the National Science Foundation's Small Business Programs
America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF awards $200 million annually to startups and small businesses, transforming scientific discovery into products and services with commercial and societal impact. Startups working across almost all areas of science and technology can receive up to $2 million to support research and development (R&D), helping de-risk technology for commercial success. America’s Seed Fund is congressionally mandated through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The NSF is an independent federal agency with a budget of about $8.5 billion that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering.
Media Contact
Aziza Ismail
COO & Co-founder
