Tampa tech firm aims to boost healthcare providers’ efficiency

A Tampa startup is trying to ease healthcare providers’ administrative overload, enabling them to offer better patient care.

Called accelEQ, short for accelerating efficiency quality for health, the company was inspired by founder Omar Fuentes’ family’s own challenges with the healthcare system.

“In my time working for insurance companies I had a lot of exposure into ... 
what medical providers -- physicians, patients -- deal with,” he explains. “Then it started becoming personal.”

First, it was his father, William, who suffered a major stroke and eventually died.

“It was really the post care that was disappointing,” says Fuentes, who studied healthcare management at College for America at Southern New Hampshire University.

Then it was his brother, Maurice, who committed suicide. Though he had medication, lack of finances prevented him from having “real access to care,” Fuentes says.

And finally, it was his wife, Rebecca, who went undiagnosed for almost three years until she pushed for a specific blood test and asked for a second opinion. Then she was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and successfully treated.

Initially a consulting firm to help employers access healthcare efficiently, Fuentes later geared up the business to serve medical providers nationwide through automated telehealth visits. 

“We really help the doctors or the providers to really improve their process,” says Fuentes, its CEO.

A former Marine who served in security forces, Fuentes had been working in the healthcare industry doing back-end administrative claims processing for self-funded insurance plans. He launched accelEQ in December 2020 after designing the platform with Ken Pomella, now the firm’s product development advisor.

With headquarters at the Tampa Bay Technology Incubator on the University of South Florida campus, accelEQ is looking to sign up initial customers for a beta, telehealth service program focused on primary care. Its platform is called intellicare.

The company’s automated transcription service, as it develops, is intended to help providers by transcribing telehealth visits and converting the information into standard progress notes, tracking symptoms, completing insurance claim forms and even suggesting potential diagnoses and testing.

“We know today about 80 percent or more of the issues we deal with on a daily basis can be handled through telehealth,” he explains. “Patients are satisfied with it.”

Relying on telehealth can free up providers’ time to deal with more complex issues in person, he notes.

The company’s goal is to collect enough data to help providers be more “proactive,” rather than “reactive,” he says. 

By connecting with patients’ Apple watches or fitbits, providers could receive alerts suggesting testing options and providing potential causes for symptoms.

AccelEQ, in essence, streamlines a host of services so they can be delivered in a seamless fashion.

Currently operating with a staff of six, the company has plans to expand next year to specialty providers like neurologists, cardiologists and urologists. In three years, they hope to provide services internationally.

Its fees are customized, based on usage, and include a one-time implementation fee and monthly subscription.

A finalist in its category at the Synpase Summit in downtown Tampa February 17, the firm has been self financed, with help from family and friends. It currently is seeking investors, Fuentes says.