• Pharos, a YC Summer 2024 startup, raised a $5 million seed round led by Felicis, with participation from General Catalyst, Moxxie, and Y Combinator.
  • Pharos uses AI to automate data extraction from electronic medical records (EMRs) for hospitals' quality reporting to clinical registries.

Medical and administrative staff in hospitals face a daily struggle with time-consuming paperwork, leaving many overwhelmed. Recognizing an opportunity to reduce this burden, Pharos, a Y Combinator (YC) Summer 2024 startup, is using AI to streamline quality reporting, an often-overlooked yet essential administrative task. Pharos recently raised a $5 million seed round led by Felicis, with participation from General Catalyst, Moxxie, and YC.

While numerous startups are exploring AI applications to alleviate healthcare administration, Pharos is unique in that it focuses on reporting data to external clinical registries. These registries, such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the American College of Surgeons, track the quality of care provided by healthcare centers.

Although not always mandatory, hospitals benefit from participating, as registry data can reveal critical quality issues like an increase in post-surgery infections, helping hospitals enhance patient care.

Currently, quality reporting is labor-intensive, with nurses and staff often dedicating up to eight hours to sift through a single patient's electronic medical record (EMR) to gather the necessary data for each registry.

“A single case can take up to eight hours to report,” noted Felicis Partner Ryan Isono. “It’s a big problem, but one that you only know about if you’re deep in the industry.”

Pharos co-founders Felix Brann and Matthew Jones, who previously worked at the emergency room software company Vital, recognized that AI could significantly improve the process. They joined forces with Alex Clarke, a medical doctor and AI expert, to develop a solution that uses AI to extract and populate data from EMRs.

"We have five years of experience selling and deploying into hospitals, and we have top-tier AI talent. That Venn diagram doesn’t normally overlap. That’s why we think we’re going to win,” said Brann.

With the new funding, Pharos plans to expand its team to support product sales and hospital relationships.

Edited by Harshajit Sarmah