We provide real-time digital interpretation for bedside conversations between clinicians and patients with limited English proficiency.
Vocalis Care is a healthcare communication company dedicated to eliminating language barriers at the bedside.
Our core product is a mobile app that enables real-time, context-aware communication between clinicians and patients who do not share a language. Designed specifically for hospital and clinic use on hospital-issued devices, it ensures medically relevant and culturally appropriate interactions when clarity is most critical.
The Problem
When patients with limited English proficiency arrive at the hospital, clinicians often struggle to gather basic information quickly:
- Are you in pain?
- How long has this been happening?
- Do you have allergies?
Current solutions—calling in-person interpreters or using video systems—often involve delays of minutes to 30+, especially at night. These delays compromise care quality, increase risk, and raise costs. In many routine but time-sensitive encounters (triage, vitals, post-op checks), interpreters are not called at all, leaving nurses and patients stressed and underserved.
Our Solution
Vocalis Care acts as an always-available digital interpreter, enabling rapid back-and-forth communication at the point of care. This shortens time to diagnosis and treatment, builds trust with non-English-speaking families, improves patient experience, and reduces spend on external interpreter services.
Our mission: A world where healthcare professionals communicate effortlessly and deliver equitable, compassionate care to every patient, regardless of language.
Clinical-First Origins with Strong Technical Execution
Vocalis Care originated at the bedside as a simple laminated paper tool created by a nurse to communicate with non-English-speaking patients. It was advanced by a director of nursing research and a bilingual cardiologist, who partnered with a digital health development group to transform this frontline solution into a scalable product.
This clinical-first foundation ensures the tool solves real nursing needs—not a technology searching for a problem. Most hospital innovations fail in adoption, not prototyping; nurses reject tools that slow them down. Vocalis Care is built for speed and workflow fit.
The team combines this deep clinical insight with experienced technical leadership skilled in PHI handling, HIPAA compliance, security, and health system infrastructure—giving Vocalis Care the rare ability to achieve sustained deployment in real hospitals.
Phase 1: Direct Deployment in Large Hospital Systems
We prioritize nursing and bedside care teams—the roles facing the greatest communication burden with non-English-speaking patients. Solving their needs first creates immediate clinical value, strong adoption, and clear cost impact.
- Deployment Model
Runs on hospital-owned devices (shared clinical phones, Rover-style devices). Integrates into existing infrastructure with no new hardware spend and stays within health system security boundaries. - Pricing
SaaS at the health system level: per-device or per-unit licensing, plus optional customization, training, and support. Value tied directly to interpreter cost reduction and improved access for LEP patients. - Current Traction
Active partnerships with two large hospital systems in Georgia for clinical validation, workflow fit, language coverage, and safety. Aligned with hospital IT/digital teams for HIPAA-compliant Azure deployment. - Quality & Risk Mitigation
Pursuing partnerships with professional medical interpreters and language validation providers to ensure clinically safe, culturally appropriate phrasing.
Vocalis Care operates a straightforward SaaS licensing model with hospital systems.
- Licensing Structure
Annual fees based on per-device or per-service-line/unit deployment—aligned with actual usage and easy for nursing leadership to budget.
Value Proposition for Hospitals
- Direct Cost Savings
Reduces reliance on internal and third-party interpreter services for routine/low-risk interactions, freeing human interpreters for high-risk encounters. - Operational Efficiency
Faster bedside communication decreases delays in triage, consent, and discharge—improving throughput and staffing utilization (metrics hospitals already track).
Seed-Stage Investment Opportunity
We are seeking seed funding and strategic support to advance Vocalis Care from successful pilots to a production-ready, enterprise-grade platform.
Use of Funds
| Area | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Security, Compliance & Contracting | Finalize HIPAA/PHI handling, audit logging, interpreter QA, legal frameworks (BAAs, licensing), and IP transition from Emory University—unlocking commercial contracts with large systems. |
| Product Hardening for Scale | Expand MVP to production platform: role-based access, admin dashboards, analytics, multilingual quality monitoring, support infrastructure, and validation for languages of lesser diffusion. |
| Commercial Readiness | Develop contracting playbook, customer success processes, and ROI narrative (interpreter cost reduction + time-to-treatment gains) for predictable, scalable deployment. |
This investment will enable broad enterprise rollout and position Vocalis Care as the standard for equitable bedside communication.
Vocalis Care has a fully functional MVP supporting real-time, bi-directional communication in the nine most common non-English languages in Georgia: French, Portuguese, Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Amharic, Burmese, Arabic, and Vietnamese.
- Design & Security
Built for bedside use on hospital-issued devices using HIPAA-eligible speech recognition, translation, and response generation. Architected to run securely within health system cloud environments. - Current Traction
Two active trials in large Georgia hospital systems testing real-world nursing workflows. Pilot feedback is driving ongoing phrasing and use-case customization. - Corporate Readiness
Incorporated as a C-corp to support commercialization, contracting, and scaling beyond initial sites.
Focus now: Targeted validation in specific service lines, nursing workflow optimization, and preparation for broader enterprise deployment.
Vocalis Care has received $178,000 in early funding and awards.
| Source | Amount |
|---|---|
| Johnson & Johnson QuickFire Challenge Award | $50,000 |
| Internal funds, foundations, and additional awards | $128,000 |
