You can feel the problem before you see it. A patient sits in a wheelchair, or lies in a bed, and the pressure never moves. The skin, starved of blood flow, begins to break down. It’s a quiet, expensive, and deeply human crisis that costs the U.S. healthcare system billions each year. Jessica Bussert, RN, has spent her career watching it happen. Now, through her company Wave Therapeutics, she’s trying to build a cushion that watches back.
Founded in 2017 and based in Nashville, Indiana, Wave is developing smart therapeutic cushioning. The flagship product is a seat cushion embedded with a microprocessor-controlled pump that automates two medically recognized therapies: dynamic pressure relief and sequential compression. Instead of relying on a caregiver to manually reposition a patient every two hours, the cushion does it for them, shifting pressure points and gently massaging tissue to promote circulation.
The Nurse’s Algorithm
Bussert is the company’s founder and CEO. An emergency room nurse and self-described lifelong technologist, she brings a practitioner’s intimacy with the problem to the engineering challenge. Wave’s cushion is designed to integrate with the workflow and liability concerns of long-term care facilities and hospitals. The value proposition is framed in the language of those facilities: reduced treatment costs, shorter hospital stays, and lower legal liabilities from preventable injuries.
The product roadmap suggests a vision beyond passive hardware. Current prototypes are paired with an analytics platform for remote patient monitoring, allowing staff or family to track compliance and pressure buildup. A planned second generation would incorporate an array of sensors to detect early warning signs like changes in skin temperature.
Traction Through Partnerships
Wave has raised approximately $1.6 million in total funding from a consortium of specialized investors including mHUB Ventures, the WBL Fellows Program, and Nurse Capital. It has progressed through accelerators like Techstars and mHUB, milestones typical for a company refining its design for manufacture.
Perhaps the most significant validation comes from its collaboration with the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Innovation Ecosystem and the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center on the design of its initial wheelchair seat cushion. Landing a development partner within the VA system suggests the technology addresses a recognized need within a massive, cost-conscious buyer. The company states it has partner factories lined up and is working on factory-ready prototypes.
| Milestone | Detail |
|---|---|
| Total Raised | ~$1.61M (estimated) |
| Key Investors | mHUB Ventures, WBL Fellows Program, Nurse Capital |
| Accelerators | Techstars, gBETA, mHUB Accelerator |
| Development Partner | Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Innovation Ecosystem |
| Team Size | 1-10 employees (estimated) |
The Scale of the Sore
The market Wave is addressing is enormous. Pressure injuries affect an estimated 2.5 million people annually in the U.S., and treating a single severe injury can add between $20,000 and $151,000 to a patient’s cost of care. The total annual cost to the healthcare system is pegged between $9.1 billion and $26.8 billion. Hospitals now face penalties for hospital-acquired pressure injuries, turning prevention from a moral imperative into a bottom-line necessity.
Wave’s initial focus is on the highest-risk, highest-cost settings: long-term care facilities, hospitals, and home health for mobility-impaired patients. Future applications for long-haul drivers and office workers have been mentioned, hinting at a larger ambition to move from a medical device to a consumer wellness product.
The Hardware Hurdle
The risks for Wave are primarily executional:
- The Manufacturing Cliff. Moving from a working prototype to a reliable, cost-effective, mass-produced medical device is a notorious valley of death.
- The Reimbursement Maze. Securing insurance reimbursement for a new durable medical equipment (DME) category is a multi-year odyssey requiring clinical studies and regulatory navigation.
- The Incumbent’s Chair. The market for pressure-relief surfaces is dominated by large, established players like Mölnlycke. Wave’s wedge is intelligence and automation, but it must convince budget-holders that its smarter cushion is worth displacing a known, cheaper alternative.
- Conflicting Signals. Public data on the company’s status is murky, with funding and headcount figures varying across databases.
The Next Twelve Months
For Wave Therapeutics, the immediate future is measured in physical milestones. The next year will be about transitioning from prototype to product. Key things to watch will be the announcement of a finalized manufacturing partner, the completion of any necessary regulatory clearances, and the first named commercial deployment outside of a development partnership. Financing will also be a focus, as the seed funding is likely insufficient for inventory build-out and a commercial sales push.
Ultimately, the question Wave Therapeutics is built to answer is cultural: in a care system stretched thin, where human attention is the scarcest resource, what happens when we offload the act of vigilance to a machine?