Local Startup Rethinks Knee Recovery
Writer: Jimmy Girot III
In this digital age of innovation, no industry is overlooked when it comes to mobile app development. Most people are familiar with the phrase, “there’s an app for that.” Well, now there is an app for optimizing knee recovery, and the founders of this app are Indiana natives and two are graduates of Cathedral High School — Tommy Crowe and Dan Fisher.
RecovAware develops recovery awareness software. RecovAware’s software builds motivation and confidence in the patient by giving them the ability to capture, track and understand their recovery progress.
These local entrepreneurs sat down for a Q-&-A to tell us more about RecovAware.
Why start RecovAware?
“Two years ago, Dan Fisher was working on sensors and instrumentation for monitoring biological signals and realized the potential of smartphones as instrumentation for monitoring these signals. Soon after, Fisher began developing an iOS application for collecting data related to the recovery of knee function during the treatment of knee conditions. Towards the end of 2016, he founded RecovAware and approached Tommy Crowe and John Bishop about joining as co-founders.
All three members of the RecovAware team have experienced the difficulties of recovering from a medical condition and, as such, have a deep passion and personal stake in the company’s vision and products. Fisher and Crowe both grew up active in school sports and extreme sports. During that time, they sustained many injuries, including ACL tears, ankle sprains, rotator cuff tears and broken bones. With these experiences in mind, they refocused the company on developing engaging, patient-facing experiences and evolved the knee application to specifically address the problems that have traditionally been difficult to address throughout treatment.”
What are your professional backgrounds? How did you meet?
“Dan Fisher is a biomedical engineer with training in sensors, bioinstrumentation and signal processing. Tommy Crowe is a digital marketing and branding specialist that owns a web design and digital marketing agency based in Carmel. John Bishop is an attorney specializing in intellectual property and business law. Crowe and Fisher met in high school at Cathedral. They also wake-boarded competitively together growing up. Bishop and Fisher are cousins.”
What do you see as the long-term purpose of RecovAware?
“RecovAware aims to create data-rich and informative recovery profiles and health records for patients. This is accomplished by leveraging highly engaging and relevant user experiences whereby patients capture their own data while tracking the progress of their condition and the effectiveness of their current treatment plan.
The most important stakeholder during any treatment is the patient and we believe they should be in the driver’s seat of their recovery. Currently, data relevant to the progress of a recovery is segmented across multiple sources such that the data is either not accessible or is too difficult to aggregate by the patient. It is almost impossible for a patient to track their recovery and gain a deep understanding of their progress. RecovAware’s design alleviates this problem by unifying all of the important data while automating the delivery of relevant trends and insights.
Once the design is optimized for users, we will begin launching versions of the app for other use cases. RecovAware will become a suite of software applications that act as a focal point for all data and insights relevant to a patient’s current recovery.”
RecovAware’s app will be available in the Apple App Store. For more information about the intersection of technology and recovery, visit RecovAware.com.