Tailored Remedy part of gBETA’s latest cohort

In the spring of 2021, while most of the nation was still shut down, 18-year-old Abigail Crocker was working as a certified nursing assistant at a long-term care facility in her hometown of Boston. She relished the opportunity to support her community during the crisis, but one aspect of the job frustrated her.

“A lot of the times when I was working, I would notice that something was off with my patient. It was hard to express this to a doctor or whatever provider was on call,” Crocker said.

Her reports were often dismissed as symptoms of her patient’s dementia, but Crocker, who spent 40 to 60 hours a week with these patients, felt differently. “Often, it was because their medications were interacting. That was really frustrating for me,” she said.

It was a frustration that stuck with her long after she left the job to attend Marquette University and study biomedical sciences.

“When I was a CNA, these problems would occur on a daily basis, and no one was working to solve them. I thought my solution was to eventually open a long-term care facility, but that would only help with patients in my facility. I want to expand to a broader market,” she said.

As a project for a business class, Crocker began to explore what could be done to provide a solution for the problem that would reach a large population of patients. Her idea quickly formed into a business plan.

“I created Tailored Remedy to try to help as many people as I can in long-term care and home health care facilities be able to take healthcare back into their own hands and empower them to question what medications they’re on or what course of action they’re taking and be able to have the knowledge necessary to ask those questions to their provider,” Crocker said.

“It’s an AI software that democratizes medical information to present it in a clear and accessible manner for the patient. It would be marketed directly towards long-term care and home health care facilities. It works as a tool to help bridge that gap between the providers and the patients,” she said.

Tailored Remedy aims to bridge the gap between providers and patients by using a chatbot to answer healthcare questions in commonly used language.

“It’s pulling from only reliable sources, but also from a healthcare survey that you would upload that way. If you’re asking questions about certain medications that you are on … it’s taking to consideration all of the back end of things that often get missed when you go to a doctor’s appointment because it’s just moving too quickly and you, you can’t even think of a question to ask in the moment,” she continued.

Crocker states the tool not only benefits patients by empowering them to understand and question their medical care, but also saves time for healthcare providers.

The incoming senior successfully competed in several startup pitch competitions, including MU’s Brewed Ideas Challenge and then went on to represent the university in the 2024 Big East Startup Challenge.

She was awarded a fellowship through the Marquette University Entrepreneurship Program to continue working on her emerging business into her summer break.  That is when she decided to take her work outside the classroom and join the gBETA business accelerator.

“I love gBETA. Tailored Remedy was presentation ready, but I didn’t know what the next step was. I was very stuck. I have no background in software development or coding. With gBETA, I thought there was going to be a catch. I didn’t think it was going to be free… I applied, I got in, and thank God I did it,” she exclaimed.

“The MVP (minimum viable product) will hopefully be done by the end of the year. I have the wireframe done right now. I’ve already secured someone to build out the MVP, it’s just getting the funding and making sure that I know exactly what I want the software to look like. The coding will be done by a California company that went through the gener8tor program. He started as a mentor, then I ended up contracting him because he was so trustworthy. It was perfect,” she said.

The business accelerator is part of gener8tor, a venture capital firm that operates 261 accelerators in 41 communities. The organization reports it has provided over $2 billion in funding to over 1,300 startups.

Crocker plans to launch her company after she graduates in 2025.

“The point I’m at right now is just to keep networking. That’s all I’ve done since the beginning…everything has been so helpful for me because honestly, I’ve no clue what I’m doing, but I’m getting steered in the right direction. This works so far, so it’s very helpful. I’m going into my funding phase soon and talk to some investors to try to build out things on my end. That’s my focus for the next few months,” Crocker said.

To follow this emerging company, connect with Tailored Remedy here.