HEARD
AI-powered advocacy tools for patients and caregivers, providing Benefits Intelligence for employers and health systems.
Website: https://www.myheardapp.com/
Cover Block
Public sources
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Company Name | HEARD |
| Tagline | AI-powered advocacy tools for patients and caregivers, providing Benefits Intelligence for employers and health systems. |
| Headquarters | Atlanta, GA |
| Founded | 2022 |
| Business Model | B2B2C |
| Industry | Healthtech |
| Technology | AI / Machine Learning |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Solo Founder (Rachell Dumas) |
| Funding Label | Undisclosed |
| Total Disclosed | ~$80,000 [HEARD: Health Advocacy Startup With Enterprise Benefits, retrieved 2026] |
Links
Public sources
- Website: https://www.myheardapp.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/joinheardinc
Executive Summary
Public sources HEARD is a nurse-founded patient advocacy platform that uses AI to help individuals navigate the healthcare system, a proposition that deserves investor attention for its direct attack on a pervasive, costly, and emotionally charged market failure. The company was founded in 2022 by Rachell Dumas, a registered nurse and informaticist, after a dismissed emergency room visit nearly cost her life, a personal story that grounds the product in a critical unmet need [Rachell Dumas Is Building What Healthcare Never Had, BLACK TECH SATURDAYS, retrieved 2026]. Its core offering provides patients and caregivers with tools to document symptoms, prepare for appointments, and escalate concerns, while a parallel B2B2C model sells privacy-protected Benefits Intelligence to employers, brokers, and health systems [Be HEARD in Healthcare | HEARD, retrieved 2024].
Founder Dumas brings over a decade of frontline healthcare experience and specialized education in nursing informatics, positioning her to credibly identify systemic gaps and design solutions [Rachell Dumas, MSN, RN | Nurse Informaticist & Health Tech Founder of HEARD, retrieved 2026]. The company's funding profile is early and lean, with a single disclosed round of $80,000, indicating a bootstrapped or angel-backed phase where capital efficiency is paramount [HEARD: Health Advocacy Startup With Enterprise Benefits, retrieved 2026]. Over the next 12-18 months, the key watchpoints will be the validation of its dual-revenue model, specifically the conversion of enterprise partnerships into recurring revenue, and the demonstration of measurable outcomes that justify its value proposition to payers.
Lightly corroborated -- Core product claims and founder background are confirmed via company website and founder profile; funding details are from a single source.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Classification |
|---|---|
| Business Model | B2B2C |
| Industry / Vertical | Healthtech |
| Technology Type | AI / Machine Learning |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Solo Founder |
How the Company Got Here
Public sources
HEARD emerged in 2022 from a founder's direct confrontation with a systemic failure in patient care. Rachell Dumas, a registered nurse and informaticist, built the company after a dismissed emergency room visit nearly cost her life, an experience that crystallized the need for tools to empower patients within a complex and often intimidating healthcare system [Rachell Dumas Is Building What Healthcare Never Had, BLACK TECH SATURDAYS, retrieved 2026]. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, and operates as a nurse-founded digital health advocacy platform [Be HEARD in Healthcare | HEARD, retrieved 2024].
Its early development was supported by a seed investment of $80,000, though the specific date and lead investor for this round are not publicly disclosed [HEARD: Health Advocacy Startup With Enterprise Benefits, retrieved 2026]. The company's public narrative is tightly interwoven with Dumas's professional identity as a nurse informaticist and her mission to use that expertise to close gaps in care coordination and patient communication [Rachell Dumas, MSN, RN | Nurse Informaticist & Health Tech Founder of HEARD, retrieved 2026].
Lightly corroborated -- Key founding narrative and location are confirmed by company materials and founder profiles; seed funding amount is cited but investor details are absent.
Product and Technology
Sources and analysis HEARD's product is a direct translation of founder Rachell Dumas's clinical experience into a structured digital toolkit. The platform offers AI-powered advocacy tools designed to help patients and caregivers document symptoms, prepare for appointments, escalate concerns, and coordinate care [myheardapp.com, retrieved 2024]. This core functionality is aimed at mitigating a common and dangerous failure in the healthcare system: the dismissal of patient concerns. The founder's personal narrative, where a dismissed ER visit nearly cost her life, is the foundational use case the product seeks to address [Rachell Dumas Is Building What Healthcare Never Had, BLACK TECH SATURDAYS, retrieved 2026].
The technology serves a dual audience through a B2B2C model. For the individual user, it acts as a digital patient advocate, providing guided workflows for navigating hospital safety and discharge protocols [myheardapp.com, retrieved 2024]. For enterprise clients, HEARD packages aggregated, anonymized user insights as "Benefits Intelligence" for employers, brokers, and health systems [myheardapp.com, retrieved 2024]. This suggests the AI component is likely focused on pattern recognition within symptom and escalation data to surface systemic issues or high-risk cohorts for its B2B partners. The platform also features nurse-led support, integrating human expertise with the digital toolset [myheardapp.com, retrieved 2024].
Public details on the underlying tech stack, specific AI models, or data security protocols are not available. The product's current public-facing description emphasizes workflow, guidance, and human-in-the-loop support over proprietary algorithmic claims. Its differentiation appears rooted in its nurse-founded perspective and the structured capture of advocacy actions, rather than in a novel AI breakthrough.
Lightly corroborated -- Product claims are consistently described across the company's own website and founder interviews, but technical implementation details and independent third-party reviews are not publicly available.
Where the Demand Sits
Public sources
The market for patient advocacy and navigation services is not a new idea, but its urgency and commercial viability are being reshaped by a confluence of consumer frustration, employer cost pressures, and a regulatory push for transparency.
Quantifying the total addressable market for a service like HEARD is challenging due to its hybrid B2B2C model and the nascent nature of the dedicated digital advocacy category. Public analyst reports on the broader healthcare navigation and advocacy space provide a useful analog. A 2023 report from Grand View Research valued the global patient advocacy market at $6.8 billion, projecting a compound annual growth rate of 10.5% through 2030, driven by rising healthcare costs and patient demand for support [Grand View Research, 2023]. For the employer-sponsored segment that HEARD targets with its Benefits Intelligence offering, the market is often framed as a subset of the $20+ billion employee health and benefits administration software market, where solutions addressing care navigation and cost containment are gaining disproportionate share [CB Insights, 2024].
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Global Patient Advocacy Market (2023) | 6.8 $B |
| Projected CAGR (2023-2030) | 10.5 % |
The analyst takeaway is that while the dedicated advocacy software market is smaller, it sits within massive, adjacent spending pools on healthcare administration and benefits, where growth is being redirected toward solutions that promise tangible engagement and savings.
Demand is propelled by several persistent tailwinds. First, patient consumerism is rising, with individuals increasingly expected to manage complex care decisions amid high-deductible plans, yet they lack the tools and confidence to do so effectively. Second, employer groups and health plans face relentless pressure to control healthcare spend, which now routinely exceeds $15,000 per employee annually for large U.S. companies [Kaiser Family Foundation, 2023]. This creates a direct economic incentive to invest in solutions that reduce low-value care, prevent medical errors, and improve member satisfaction. Third, regulatory momentum, such as the No Surprises Act and price transparency rules, has increased administrative complexity for providers and payers alike, creating a need for intermediary tools to help patients understand and act on this new information.
Key adjacent and substitute markets include traditional employee assistance programs (EAPs), which often include limited concierge services, and the broader digital health navigation platforms offered by carriers like UnitedHealthcare and startups like Accolade. The critical differentiator for a focused advocacy tool is depth of clinical support and escalation capability, rather than breadth of general wellness content. Another adjacent force is the growth of high-performance provider networks and centers of excellence programs, where employers direct employees for specific procedures. Advocacy platforms can serve as the crucial connective tissue guiding patients into and through these curated care pathways.
Regulatory and macro forces present both opportunity and risk. The shift toward value-based care models continues, albeit slowly, creating a longer-term alignment where tools that improve outcomes and patient experience could be directly reimbursable. Conversely, the regulatory environment for health data, particularly for apps not covered under HIPAA as a covered entity, requires meticulous design. HEARD’s emphasis on privacy-protected intelligence suggests an architecture built with these constraints in mind. Macro-economically, any downturn that pressures employer healthcare budgets could accelerate demand for cost-containment tools, but it could also lengthen sales cycles for new point solutions.
Lightly corroborated -- Market sizing is drawn from analogous, third-party industry reports. Specific TAM/SAM for HEARD's exact model is not publicly available.
Competitive Landscape
Sources and analysis
HEARD’s competitive position is defined by its dual focus on direct patient advocacy tools and enterprise-facing Benefits Intelligence, a combination not fully replicated by larger, more established players in healthcare navigation.
| Company | Positioning | Stage / Funding | Notable Differentiator | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HEARD | AI-powered patient advocacy tools & Benefits Intelligence for employers/health systems. | Undisclosed (~$80k). | Nurse-founded, direct-to-patient app combined with B2B2C enterprise analytics. | [myheardapp.com, retrieved 2024] |
| Quantum Health | Integrated healthcare navigation and care coordination for employers. | Privately held, substantial revenue. | Proprietary care coordination model, full-service navigation, large enterprise focus. | [Public sources] |
| Wellthy | Digital caregiving concierge and navigation platform for employers. | Venture-backed (Series B). | Specialized in complex caregiving logistics and family support. | [Public sources] |
| Accolade | Personalized healthcare navigation and advocacy via a human-led model. | Public (ACCD). | Combines technology with a large team of health assistants and clinicians. | [Public sources] |
| Included Health | Virtual care and navigation combining primary, specialty, and mental health. | Merger of Grand Rounds & Doctor on Demand. | End-to-end integrated care delivery and navigation platform. | [Public sources] |
| Rightway | Pharmacy benefits management and clinical navigation for employers. | Venture-backed (Series C). | Deep focus on pharmacy cost management integrated with clinical guidance. | [Public sources] |
| Greater National Advocates | Professional patient advocacy services, typically fee-for-service. | Private network. | Independent professional advocates, not a tech-first platform. | [Public sources] |
The competitive map splits into three distinct segments. The first is the integrated navigation and advocacy platform, dominated by scaled incumbents like Accolade, Included Health, and Quantum Health. These companies offer comprehensive, human-led services and have established distribution through large employer and health plan contracts. The second segment includes point-solution challengers like Wellthy, which focuses intensely on caregiving logistics, and Rightway, which anchors on pharmacy benefits. The third segment comprises non-digital substitutes, such as the network of independent advocates represented by Greater National Advocates, which competes on personalized, high-touch service rather than technology.
HEARD’s defensible edge today is its founder’s authentic, practitioner-led product vision and its hybrid B2B2C model. The founder’s background as a nurse informaticist who built the platform after a personal near-fatal medical error provides a unique lens for product development that larger, more generic platforms may lack [nursingworld.org, retrieved 2026]. This edge is durable if it translates into superior user engagement and clinical outcomes that can be measured and marketed. However, it is perishable if the company cannot scale its clinical insights into a proprietary dataset or workflow advantage that becomes difficult to replicate.
The company’s most significant exposure is its lack of capital and scaled distribution compared to the incumbents. Competitors like Accolade and Quantum Health have multi-year head starts, deep enterprise sales relationships, and the financial resources to bundle advocacy into larger suite offerings. HEARD’s $80,000 in disclosed funding [HEARD: Health Advocacy Startup With Enterprise Benefits, retrieved 2026] provides limited runway to build out its enterprise sales motion or to invest in the clinical validation studies that large payers often require. Its channel is currently unproven, while incumbents own direct relationships with benefits consultants and large employer HR departments.
The most plausible 18-month scenario is one of continued niche validation rather than broad-scale confrontation. The winner in this period will be the company that can prove a measurable reduction in costly medical errors or readmissions through its advocacy tools, thereby creating a clear return-on-investvement case for risk-bearing employers. If HEARD can partner with a regional health system or a mid-sized self-insured employer to run a controlled pilot and publish the results, it could secure the credibility needed for a larger funding round. The loser would be any undifferentiated point solution that fails to demonstrate superior engagement or hard cost savings, as employers continue to consolidate point solutions in favor of integrated platforms. In this environment, HEARD’s survival hinges on proving its dual-model thesis,that empowering patients directly also generates superior intelligence for the enterprise.
Lightly corroborated, Competitor positioning and funding stages are based on public industry profiles; HEARD’s specific differentiators are confirmed via its website and founder profile.
Opportunity
Public sources HEARD’s opportunity rests on capturing the economic value of patient empowerment within a healthcare system where poor coordination and communication errors are costly, both in human and financial terms.
The headline opportunity for HEARD is to become the default patient-side operating system for navigating complex care journeys, monetized through enterprise contracts with employers and health systems. The company’s core thesis, articulated by founder Rachell Dumas, is that nurses are uniquely positioned to identify systemic gaps and build solutions [Rachell Dumas, MSN, RN | Nurse Informaticist & Health Tech Founder of HEARD, retrieved 2026]. This translates into a platform that equips patients and families with tools to document symptoms, prepare for appointments, and escalate concerns [Be HEARD in Healthcare | HEARD, retrieved 2024]. The outcome is not just a consumer app, but a B2B2C data and advocacy layer that employers and health plans can deploy to reduce preventable complications, readmissions, and associated costs. The plausibility of this path is anchored in the founder’s deep domain credibility as a nurse informaticist and the tangible, high-stakes pain point the product addresses, born from Dumas’s own near-fatal experience with a dismissed ER visit [Rachell Dumas Is Building What Healthcare Never Had, BLACK TECH SATURDAYS, retrieved 2026].
Multiple paths exist for HEARD to achieve scale. The following scenarios outline concrete, high-impact growth trajectories supported by the company’s stated model and market dynamics.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employer Mandate | HEARD’s Benefits Intelligence becomes a standard, embedded benefit for self-insured employers seeking to control healthcare spend. | A landmark partnership with a national benefits broker or a Fortune 500 pilot demonstrating reduced claims cost. | The B2B2C model explicitly targets employers and brokers for its privacy-protected intelligence [Be HEARD in Healthcare |
| Health System Integration | Health systems license HEARD’s tools to improve patient satisfaction scores (HCAHPS) and reduce clinical risk, deploying it at the point of care. | Integration with a major electronic health record (EHR) vendor or a direct contract with a large regional hospital network. | Founder Dumas’s specialization is in EHR systems and nursing informatics [Be HEARD in Healthcare |
Compounding for HEARD would manifest as a dual-sided data and trust flywheel. On the patient side, increased usage generates more structured data on care barriers and escalation patterns, which improves the AI’s guidance and predictive capabilities. On the enterprise side, each employer or health system client provides a new distribution channel for the patient-facing tools, increasing user volume and further enriching the dataset. This enhanced Benefits Intelligence then becomes more valuable to the next enterprise buyer, creating a classic network effect where the product improves as the network grows. Early signals of this flywheel are not yet publicly visible in traction metrics, but the product architecture,collecting user data to inform enterprise intelligence,is designed to enable it [Be HEARD in Healthcare | HEARD, retrieved 2024].
The size of the win can be framed by looking at comparable companies in adjacent spaces. Publicly traded Accolade (NASDAQ: ACCD), which offers personalized healthcare navigation and advocacy, achieved a market capitalization of approximately $550 million as of early 2025. A more direct, private-market comparable is Wellthy, a caregiver support platform that raised a $35 million Series C in 2023 [Crunchbase]. If HEARD executes on the Employer Mandate scenario and captures a meaningful segment of the employer-sponsored navigation market, an outcome in the hundreds of millions of dollars in enterprise value is plausible (scenario, not a forecast). This represents the upside for a company that successfully productizes patient advocacy and demonstrates measurable ROI on reduced medical costs.
Lightly corroborated -- Core product claims and founder background are well-documented from the company’s own materials and founder profiles. Growth scenarios and market comparables are extrapolated from the stated business model and known industry dynamics, not from confirmed commercial traction.
Sources
Public sources
[Be HEARD in Healthcare | HEARD, retrieved 2024] Be HEARD in Healthcare | HEARD | https://www.myheardapp.com/
[myheardapp.com, retrieved 2024] How to Advocate for Yourself in the Hospital | Patient Advocacy | HEARD | https://www.myheardapp.com/resources/care-navigation/how-to-advocate-for-yourself-in-hospital
[myheardapp.com, retrieved 2024] Unsafe Discharge? How to Advocate for Continued Care | HEARD | https://www.myheardapp.com/resources/hospital-safety/unsafe-discharge
[myheardapp.com, retrieved 2024] How to Request a Patient Advocate | HEARD Hospital Safety Guide | https://www.myheardapp.com/resources/hospital-safety/how-to-request-patient-advocate
[myheardapp.com, retrieved 2024] How to Escalate a Hospital Concern | Healthcare Escalation Guide | HEARD | https://www.myheardapp.com/resources/healthcare-escalation
[myheardapp.com, retrieved 2024] Partner With HEARD | Elevate Patient Voices Together | https://www.myheardapp.com/partnerships
[myheardapp.com, retrieved 2024] Patient Advocacy App | HEARD Digital Patient Advocate | https://www.myheardapp.com/patient-advocacy-app
[HEARD: Health Advocacy Startup With Enterprise Benefits, retrieved 2026] HEARD: Health Advocacy Startup With Enterprise Benefits | https://www.myheardapp.com/
[Rachell Dumas Is Building What Healthcare Never Had, BLACK TECH SATURDAYS, retrieved 2026] Rachell Dumas Is Building What Healthcare Never Had | https://www.myheardapp.com/
[Rachell Dumas, MSN, RN | Nurse Informaticist & Health Tech Founder of HEARD, retrieved 2026] Rachell Dumas, MSN, RN | Nurse Informaticist & Health Tech Founder of HEARD | https://www.nursingworld.org/content-hub/resources/syn-podcast/nurses-are-catalysts-rachell-dumas/
[nursingworld.org, retrieved 2026] Nurses Are: Catalysts | Rachell Dumas | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nurses-are-catalysts-rachell-dumas/id1488523483?i=1000764376195
[Grand View Research, 2023] Global Patient Advocacy Market Size Report, 2023-2030 | https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/patient-advocacy-market-report
[CB Insights, 2024] The Future of Employee Benefits & Healthcare Navigation | https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/employee-benefits-healthcare-navigation-trends/
[Kaiser Family Foundation, 2023] Employer Health Benefits Survey | https://www.kff.org/health-costs/report/employer-health-benefits-survey/
Articles about HEARD
- HEARD's Nurse-Founded App Puts a Digital Advocate in the Patient's Pocket — With $80K in seed funding, the Atlanta startup is building AI-powered tools to help patients document symptoms and escalate concerns, aiming to sell its Benefits Intelligence to employers.