TagTeams
Provided CTO-level technical leadership for TagTeams, a healthcare startup targeting operating room inefficiency. Designed HIPAA-compliant workflows integrated with Epic and Cerner, helped secure investor funding, and built a product grounded in real surgical staff workflows.
Challenge
Operating rooms lose significant time between surgical cases — not for clinical reasons, but because of fragmented communication and a lack of real-time visibility into preparation status. TagTeams was built to solve this, but the technical challenges were substantial: HIPAA compliance, integration with Epic and Cerner (the dominant platforms in surgical environments), and the need to design interfaces that surgical staff would actually use under time pressure.
Approach
What started as a CTO consulting engagement evolved into a deep collaborative partnership. Conducted extensive interviews with OR staff to understand workflows from the inside out, then translated those operational realities into technical requirements.
Researched and designed the integration approach for Epic and Cerner, created HIPAA-compliant data models capable of working across different hospital systems, and worked with UX designers to develop interfaces that matched how surgical teams actually communicate. Built both mobile and desktop approaches with real-time visibility into OR status and task assignment.
Results
The technical foundation was strong enough to attract investment from both UB Cultivator and Valmar Holdings. The depth of the collaboration led to an offer to join as co-founder. The platform addressed a real operational problem with a compliant, integrated solution — not a prototype built in isolation from how healthcare actually works.
“The technical vision transformed our initial concept into a viable healthcare solution. The deep understanding of both healthcare workflows and technical integration challenges was instrumental in creating a product with real-world applicability.” — TagTeams Founder