Why digital health fails without caregivers and how to build apps for them

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Jan Kamiński: Welcome to Keep It Healthy Podcast where we explore how technology is transforming healthcare. I'm your host, Jan Kamiński Co-founder of Momentum. Today I'm speaking with Wynter Johnson, the president and co-founder of Katie, which is a platform born out of Wynter’s personal experiences navigating, caregiving her career and her family life.With a strong background in marketing and operations, she's spent her career building teams, launching products, and solving complex problems in the tech space. As a mom and a member of a sandwich generation, Wynter is passionate about creating technology that generally makes lives easier. Leading with empathy and designing tools that connect and support families.All right, so let's start with the heart of your story. Could you take us back to the moment when you realized there had to be a better way to handle caregiving, and could you share a bit about your background for our listeners?

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Wynter Johnson: I feel very fortunate to be building Caily right now with my business partner, McKenna, and we were really lucky to have an opportunity to partner together on a business, and we both had backgrounds in the ed tech space and real estate. When we were looking for something to do, we were really focused in education. It was what we knew. We, we really believe in education and the ability to help people. And so we started looking at education in the healthcare and medical space and specifically dementia, Alzheimer, and care along those, those, uh, avenues.And as we started down this path in the healthcare space, I was telling McKenna one day about how much I had learned from some of these education providers and how helpful it would've been when my grandma was aging and we were caregiving for her. And we were just having a really off the cuff conversation one day about, you know, I wish I knew this, or I wish I knew this.And if there had been a place where my family could have, uh, cared for my grandma together in one place, it would've made the experience a lot better. And we went from. Education to wait. We can build this, we can do this, and we can make this experience better for everyone. And so Kali kind of came about through, you know, a really difficult conversation related to care, and it's really just evolved since then into what it is today and what we're launching.

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Jan Kamiński: Could you give us more details on what Caily is today and where you're heading as a product?

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Wynter Johnson: Yeah, so Caily is an all-in-one caregiving app that brings together all of the different facets of care for caregivers, care receivers, and their entire care circle. So whether it's integrating health records or schedules or daily check-ins with a loved one.

It really connects all of the different facets of caregiving. Caregiving is really, really complicated. There are so many moving pieces and so many people who are involved on a daily schedule on a daily basis. That having one centralized place where your family can can connect and communicate is really important. And there are a lot of different options in the marketplace today. You can get an nap too. Manage schedules or manage medication or you know, all of the different elements, but there isn't anything that really brings them all together while creating a strong, cohesive care circle that really involves the care receiver and allows them to be a part of their care as well.

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Jan Kamiński: Caregiving is obviously challenging for families in many ways. Um, how did you research the scope of this problem? What statistics or insights really drove the product development? Like who? You talked to in those early days before launching?

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Wynter Johnson: Yeah, so you know, my partner McKenna likes to say caregiving is love in action.And you know, she said it and it's something that's really stuck with us because there is no better way to show your love for someone than to care for them and caregiving. A lot of times you might not even realize you're a caregiver. And so when we set out, I don't think we, we realized at first how big the market was and how many caregivers there are, and how much of a need there was for what we were building.

And so A A RP did a study and in 2020 there's over 53 million unpaid caregivers in America. And we know that that is growing and that doesn't even represent what's happening worldwide. And studies show that 60% of those caregivers are burnt out and they need help. They don't have the resources they need, whether it's from a technology perspective, a financial perspective, or just a a care circle perspective. They feel alone and they're doing this, um, on their own. They aren't able to create the care circle that they need. And so as we started to do research, we realized this market is big and it's growing and it's underserved right now. And the thing that's been really unique for us is. When we tell people what we're building or what we're doing, everyone comes out and says, I could have used this when I was caring for my mother, or I could have used this when my wife had cancer. Or we have a child with special needs and this would be so helpful. And so it's, it's something where the more we connect with the community, the more we learn about caregiving, the more we realize that this is just something that's really needed right now to support caregivers and care receivers.

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Jan Kamiński: There are significant costs, emotional, financial, and professional, obviously, that families face in caregiving. How does Caily streamline this complex process?

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Wynter Johnson: Absolutely. The hidden costs are substantial. I mean, you have hidden costs that are financial. Um, you don't realize how much the copays are gonna be or the medications or the transportation to the different appointments or even running to the pharmacy to just pick up the little odds and ends that you need on a daily basis. It adds up and. Women specifically according to Guardian life in 2023. Spend $24,000 over two years caring for a loved one. And so the financial cost and the time cost, especially for women who are the majority of caregivers, I think 60 to 65% of caregivers are women. Depending on the stat that you see, it's impacting their careers, it's impacting their free time, it's impacting their mental health. A large majority of caregivers say they're unable to. Care for their own mental health, their own physical health, and that they're suffering. And when you have one caregiver caring for a care receiver, those numbers are even higher. And care receivers are found to be less anxious and have less stress when there's a care circle caring for them instead of one individual caregiver. Uh, they don't wanna be a burden and so often. There's one person who's caring for them. They don't wanna ask, they don't wanna share because they don't wanna add more to that person's plate. So when they have an entire care circle that you can reach out to, you can ask for help. They're more likely to get the help that they need, be less, less anxious, and have better mental health and less depression. And the entire idea of Caily is that you have a care receiver at the center of the circle, and you're building an entire care circle around them. And whether it's unpaid family, paid professionals. Friends and neighbors, whoever it is, you're building this entire support system to help with those hidden costs, to improve mental health, to make sure everyone is getting the care that they need.

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Jan Kamiński: I followed your journey, and I know the idea pivoted along the way. Uh, could you walk us through the evaluation from your initial concept to launching this AI powered caregiving assistant? Like what influenced those pivots and the specific features you decided to implement?

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Wynter Johnson: It started. When my grandma was aging, um, caregiving for her was really complicated. They were about four hours away and she didn't wanna relocate 'cause she was in her hometown where she lived her whole life. And so my mom was her primary caregiver and that was really difficult to watch. My mom really struggle with caring for her and watch my grandma struggle. And my sister and I really struggled with, you know, how can we help? What's, what's going on with grandma? When's her next appointment? What medication is she on? Uh, how, how does she need help? Does she need supplies? Does she need help with groceries? You know, really what can we do? And my grandma didn't wanna be a burden. And so often you'd ask grandma, how are you doing? And she'd say, I'm fine today. And she really struggled with technology. So getting her onto FaceTime to really connect with her, or, you know, using Facebook or whatever it might might be. She kind of struggled there. And towards the end of my grandma's, um. Experience, which she was. Um. You know, before we lost her, there was a moment where she was in the hospital for several days before we knew. And you always think that that's not gonna happen to us. You know, the nurses would call, or I talked to grandma almost every day. That wouldn't happen. But, you know, you'd call and you'd think maybe she's at lunch, or maybe she's in her exercise class. And so this started out. Something where I would've loved a way to check in with my grandma on a daily basis. And so the first feature we started with, or what this launched as was really a scheduling and check-in process. And so one of the features that the Kaley app has is the daily check-in where a care receiver can say, Hey, you know what? I'm having a great day, or I'm really struggling today and this is why. And it lets the entire care circle know. This is how we check in with grandma. Grandma needs some extra attention today, or whoever it might be, we need to call them or we need to figure this out. So this really started as something as a way to communicate with family, give care, receivers a voice. And as we did research, as we met with people who were both care receivers and caregivers, we realized there was a much bigger gap in the daily need and that we were able to add features such as integrated health records or um. Vital signs and daily check-ins and medication reminders, and a lot of these other features that we've added that would really help the experience on a regular basis. And so as we, we did a lot of research with caregivers and care receivers, and we worked with the momentum team. Who really helped us understand these features would be really, really helpful. And so as we developed and we built wire frames and we all got together and we had these brainstorming sessions, you know, it was really great to be able to say, we should add this and this is what it looks like. Or, you know, maybe people wanna way to have a family chat, um, within the app so that we can keep all of the health and medical stuff separate from the Chads where, you know, kids sports or you know. Family events get looped into it. And so it really evolved over time from a communication platform to an all-in-one caregiving platform.

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Jan Kamiński: Uh, right this, this all-in-one caregiving platform concept really resonates with me. But there are several. Caregiving apps out there, some handled scheduling, uh, other focus on medication reminders and digital therapy has become a big trend recently. Uh, when you were researching this space, what specific pain points kept coming back? Uh, and. You know, which of those your solutions were addressing? Uh, what questions were going through your mind as you envisioned how Kali should work differently?

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Wynter Johnson: Yeah, no, I think you said it perfectly there that there's a lot of different apps and one of the things we realized caregivers and care receivers really struggle with is technology and. Embracing it and knowing where to go and what to do. And so in my personal caregiving situation, it was really difficult to say, go to one app to manage medication, go to one app for the schedule, go to another app for the health records. And it got to the point where it was so overwhelming no one was using any of it.

Um, and so we would have the best intention of signing up for something or creating a system of spreadsheets or different calendars, and it all just fell through the cracks because it was too. Complicated. And so the whole idea and concept with Kalee is to be able to tell, you know, a care receiver, Hey, go to Kalee. Have you checked in with Kalee today? Did you add that in Kalee? And it's an all-encompassing place where everything can be found, and it's really easy for those who aren't always the most comfortable with technology or how to use it in this instance.

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Jan Kamiński: Let's give our listeners a peek inside the app. When someone opens kale for the first time, what will they see? How do the key features directly address those pain points you experienced? And for example, with your grandmother?

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Wynter Johnson: when you open kale for the first time, you see this home screen, that's an awesome landing space for everything that you need on a daily basis. And first and foremost, we have the daily check-ins. The daily check-ins are so important because of my personal experience and what we've heard from others. And so you can see how is my care receiver doing today? How are they doing over the last couple days? And you can really check in from there. And then you see your schedule. You can see tasks, what. Do I need to do today or what needs to be done for someone else? There's a really cool feature where you can ask for help. So maybe, you know, grandma has an appointment Tuesday at nine o'clock and I can't take her. I can send out a request for help to the entire group, and it's really easy for someone to say, I've got this. It assigns it to them, and it puts it on the calendar.

And so you see all of these things at a glance, which makes it really easy to see what's going on in the care circle right now. And then from there you can easily navigate at the bottom to schedule health, uh, chat, whatever you might need. It's all really easy to access and go into the different sections of the app. And so we've made it really easy for both care receivers and caregivers to navigate. We even have a simplified view where if you have a care receiver who's not completely comfortable with technology, they have just the few features that they need. The daily check-in, the request for help and a schedule that lets, uh, lets them know what, what's going on. And so we've really tried to make the app as intuitive and as easy and user-friendly as possible. And the first time you log in, we're gonna walk our users through it. There's helpful tips of this is where you are, this is how you use this feature, and what we recommend doing.

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Jan Kamiński: How did you test the platform with senior users? What feedback did you receive then? Because you mentioned some features were simplified. Um, what did you learn throughout the process?

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Wynter Johnson: Yeah. Oh gosh. You know, our friends and family have been absolutely invaluable in helping us test this, um, from parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, you know, we've had everyone digging in and giving us feedback and, you know, I think, um.

It highlights the need for something like this because we all have people who we're caring for or who are caregivers, and so it's been easy to find people to help us test this because there's such a great need in the market for it. And so as people are going through it with us, it's been really great to sit down and say, okay, this is how you use the app.And for people who are a little, um, a little scared of technology or, uh, intimidated and not quite sure they wanna use it, it's been really helpful for us to say, you know what? Click this one button. All you have to do, let's start small with this one feature. You know, grandpa, do this. Check-in today and tell me how you're feeling and let's start with that. And then, okay, now we're gonna add on, let's add a to-do list or, or a request for help or a medication. And so really stepping slowly into the app with people who aren't as comfortable with technology has been really helpful. We've had other users who log in. They sit down for, you know, 30 minutes or an hour and they've added everything that they've need, whether it's medication schedules to-do lists. Um, so it really varies on the user and how we've best integrated them into it for the first time.

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Jan Kamiński: Quick break for our listeners who are building in the health tech space, if you're looking to implement AI in their healthcare application, you know, it's not just about technology. It's about understanding medical data, regulatory compliance. And building solutions that clinicians actually trust. That's why we created our AI and health tech course to bridge the gap between AI capabilities and healthcare realities for startup founders and technical leaders. Check it out. If you wanna build AI that actually delivers value in healthcare, the link is in the show notes. Now, back to our conversation with our guest. Your background was in EdTech, so you transitioned into, uh, the healthcare space. How was it building a healthcare technology platform, and what were some of the biggest challenges you didn't anticipate when you first started the journey?

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Wynter Johnson: Uh, it's been such a great, fun transition. You know, we were really lucky where we had a team in the EdTech space who, uh, we've been able to work with again and engage and kind of transition into the development of this space.And so if there's any advice. I would, I would give founders who are building any type of technology in any space. It's find people who you trust. And so we have a really strong circle of, um, whether it's other entrepreneurs or um, developers, it, marketing, whatever it might be. We have a strong circle of people who we've been able to really lean into. And part of that has also been finding the right partners and vendors for us to work for. And so we've been really diligent. In choosing who we work with and what that looks like. You know, when it comes to challenges and things that we didn't expect to face, we've been really fortunate to work with very experienced teams. And so some of our challenges have been really narrowing down. There's a lot that we wanna do, but what is, what does our MVP, what does our launch look like? What do people most need? And then what comes after that? And so really figuring out our overall roadmap relative to. To the, to the need. There's such a great need. There are so many things that we wanna do with Caily, so many new features that are coming and really laying out the best process for if we build this, it'll lay a stronger foundation for what's coming next.

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Jan Kamiński: How do you prioritize features? Do you have a validation process? I mean, what's your methodology for deciding what to build next?

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Wynter Johnson: Oh, yeah. You know, we do, we've spent a lot of time interviewing both caregivers and care receivers, personal, professional, you know, we're really trying to make sure that we're building what's best for everyone in the space. And so we've really spent a lot of time on where's the greatest need, what's gonna have the best impact or the greatest impact, and. What does that look like from a tech perspective too? We really had to sit down and evaluate, you know, this feature might take. Longer to develop. And so we're gonna hold that until phase two or this group of features works really nicely together and so we need to make sure that they're developed from the beginning. And so we've spent a significant amount of time really researching what's needed so that we can prioritize, um, all the different phases of the, of the app and the platform.

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Jan Kamiński: Healthtech comes with some Munich challenges, obviously HIPAA compliance, EHR integration, security requirements, et cetera. So how did you approach those technical complexities while. You know, staying focused on your mission of helping families.

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Wynter Johnson: It's very interesting that you ask that, and you guys have played a big role in that. Your experience in the healthcare space has been really, really important. You've been able to guide us to make sure we have, you know, the security features that we need, the health features that we need, and we've also worked with our legal team to make sure we're covering all the bases. So from a technical, legal, and healthcare perspective, making sure we've evaluated what's needed without making it too complicated has been really important. You know, we've made sure that all of the information that's in there, whether it's financial, insurance, health, whatever it is, is protected with different settings, access levels, you know, it's up to the users to decide.What level of access their care circle gets, and your team has helped us really develop an app and a platform that that helps with that. So from a security perspective and a healthcare perspective, we've really made sure that we've made it user-friendly while still making it safe and secure.

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Jan Kamiński: Did you change anything from your initial vision once real users family test testers started using the platform? Uh, like what adjustments did you have to make?

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Wynter Johnson: Yeah. Yes, we did have some changes in what the security and the notifications look like, and we're putting a lot of control in the care receiver's hands. It's really important, you know, the care receivers need to have a voice in their care, and so we allow them to choose who can access what and who can see what. And in the beginning we really thought that might sit more on the caregiver side, and so we've really had to balance the. Access and notifications and security settings that care receivers versus caregivers have, um, so that everyone has a voice in the care that they're receiving and what that looks like.

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Jan Kamiński: I'm sure you have a bigger vision for where Caily headed. And how do you see this platform evolving? How do you envision serving, caregiving families in the ways. We haven't seen in other ops

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Wynter Johnson: As we grow Caily, we're working with our families and our partners to figure out what next steps look like and how we're going to evolve the platform. We know that there's some fundamentals in caregiving that are really important for us to address. Connection being one of them. We hear often from caregivers and care receivers that loneliness and having a circle of people who care for is really, really difficult. It impacts their mental, emotional, and physical health. So one of the challenges we're hoping to address in the caregiving space. Is connection and what that looks like. And so the, the first phase of our app has been to build a strong foundation from a technical perspective that really connects the day to day. And then we're gonna work closely with our families, our caregivers, our care receivers, to see what would benefit you most. What do you wanna see next and what would be most helpful to everyone who's using this?

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Jan Kamiński: What's the most important lesson you've learned about building a health tech product and then startup that you wished you'd known at the beginning?

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Wynter Johnson: You know, I think that is one of the most important things. We really evaluated and talked about when we were launching Caily, was that our development partner could make or break this. We knew from our background, we had a strong marketing team. We had strong internal product development, strong resources who we could work with. But what we needed was a really, really strong development partner. And when we searched out to find our, or when we set out to find our development partner, we interviewed, I think we started out with a list of over 60 potential partners. Really we did. We did. Um, and we ended up meeting. We kind of did a deep dive into, I would say approximately 20, 25 of them. And we met with 14 groups all over the world and we ended up choosing momentum. Uh, meeting with your group was great, and one of the reasons we chose you guys was. Because you specialize in healthcare, you were able to answer a lot of questions from the beginning. And whether it was HIPAA or legal or features or EHR integrations, you guys really knew what you were doing from a development perspective. And so we think all the time how this could have looked differently if we had chosen a different partner. And working with your group has been fantastic. The way you guys were able to, to guide us and say, you know. The feature looks like this, but maybe it should look like this, or have you thought about it from this perspective? Or what happens, you know, a year from now when we wanna add this feature? Let's lay the foundation for that right now. And so I think one of the biggest lessons is make sure you have the right partners. Make sure you're working with the right people from the beginning. Spend some extra time to do your due diligence because it can make all the difference good or bad.

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Jan Kamiński: That was great to hear. I mean, thank you for the feedback really. Uh, you mentioned some of the team members are people you knew from the past and in your space it's crucial to find people who truly understand your vision and the problems you're solving. So how did you find the right team? Um, was it easier to attract talent? With your meaningful mission.

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Wynter Johnson: I do think the mission has made it easier to attract talent because everyone has been or knows a caregiver, and so it's been really easy for people to connect. And when we're interviewing people, whether it's for the marketing team or you know, accounting, legal, whatever it's been.One of the first things people do is share their story with us, and we found that that has continued through in the work that they do for us. And whether it's from designing the website and making sure it's accessible to making sure that our users are protected from a legal perspective, everyone seems to understand the need for this on a different level. That's different than anything I've worked with. And so it really validates. There is a need for this, and people want to be a part of it. And you hear these stories and you know you're moving in the right direction, and then you're gonna be able to help people. And so we've been really, really fortunate when building our team, both internally and externally, to be surrounded with people who not only understand the mission, but support it. They want the app to launch, they're ready to use it, they wanna be a part of it. And it's, it's different when people feel connected to the mission and the vision.

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Jan Kamiński: For listeners who are thinking, this is exactly what my family needs, or I wish I had this when I was taking care of my parents. How can they get involved with Katie?

And where should they go to learn more?

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Wynter Johnson: You can go to caily.com where you can learn everything about the different elements of the app, the different ways that we can support you, the different audiences that we can help. Or you can go to the Google and Apple app stores and download it from there. And just dive right in.

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Jan Kamiński: As we wrap up, I know you have plans for building the Kali community. How do you envision families not just using the platform, but also connecting with each other through their shared caregiving experiences?

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Wynter Johnson: Connecting with people through shared experiences is so important. And one of the things we found is there's not really an outlet for people to say, you know, I'm going through this and I just need someone to listen, or, I'm going through this and I really need some advice or resources, or whatever it might be. So our community will, we will approach the community from several different angles and whether it's here's resources that are built specifically for you or, you know, recommended. Partners that we're working with, or here's just a platform where you can talk to other caregivers and share your story, find out what they're going through, support each other. That'll all be a part of the community that we're building.

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Jan Kamiński: Thank you Wynter for sharing the story, and it was a great pleasure. Thanks for tuning in to keep it healthy where we explore how technology is transforming healthcare. If you're building a health tech, check out our AI and healthcare Masterclass. The link is in the show notes. Don't forget to subscribe for more conversations with the people shaping the future of care. I'm Jan Kamiński. See you next time!