Having worked as a flight nurse, Joey Chafatelli has witnessed firsthand the issues with patient transfers between medical facilities. He has observed that a lack of organization often delays necessary treatment for patients.
To solve these problems that he experienced every day, Chafatelli founded Medicporter, a startup providing a centralized platform to help medical facilities and transport agencies organize patient transfers.
On the Medicporter website, healthcare facilities can quickly list each patient that needs to be transported from their facility, as well as what separate facility each patient needs to be moved to. Meanwhile, external transport agencies receive notifications of nearby patients requiring transfers and can easily contact the healthcare facilities to arrange for pickups, streamlining an otherwise unreliable process.
Chafatelli’s background as a flight nurse and ICU manager helped shape his vision for a software that would simplify the transfer process for medical facilities, with the main priority being to create a quick way for healthcare providers to list patients that need to be moved.
Creating an efficient solution
Traditionally, the lack of a centralized platform listing patients ready for transfer has led to confusion amongst healthcare facility staff, delays in patient treatment and a lack of coordination. Patient care providers are often overloaded with patients and can spend significant time on the phone trying to coordinate transfers, Chafatelli said.
For the agencies, meanwhile, the lack of a centralized platform making nearby available transfers visible can cause vehicles to sit idle or plot inefficient routes.
With Medicporter, medical facilities and transport agencies alike can increase their efficiency in the patient transfer process—and in doing so, increase their revenue, Chafatelli said. Medicporter also helps ensure that patients are getting the care they need as quickly as possible.
“Patients are sitting in ERs waiting to go to higher level of care facilities because they need care at a different facility,” Chafatelli said. “What happens is the patient deteriorates and gets worse, or care is delayed and the patient’s outcome isn’t as good. Outside of just being a convenience for healthcare facilities, this is a better, safer alternative for patients.”
While other startups have sought to address patient transportation in terms of moving patients from their home to doctor visits or to a hospital, Medicporter is unique in that it is the only software targeting patients that need to be transferred from one facility to another.
Scaling Medicporter
Medicporter operates with a subscription-as-a-software model, charging healthcare facilities and transport agencies a monthly subscription fee to use the platform.
Hospitals and other medical facilities are charged a subscription fee per facility, while agencies are charged per agency.
“We feel that hospitals and transport agencies will see the value in that monthly subscription, being able to—for the hospitals—increase patient throughput, move patients faster and quicker to where they need to be, and—for transport agencies—to fill their empty trucks and fill them by at least 20% to 30% more,” Chafatelli said.
The United States’ medical transport industry, including all medical facilities and related agencies, is about a $785 million market, Chafatelli said.
In 2024, Medicporter was awarded a $10K NC IDEA MICRO grant and participated in the organization’s accelerator, which helped Chafatelli connect with other healthcare startup founders and gain educational insights into running a health startup, he said.
Additionally, Medicporter recently partnered with the North Carolina Healthcare Association as a transport solution for the state’s medical industry.
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Startup: Medicporter
Founder: Joey Chafatelli
Founded: 2023
Team size: 1
Location: Durham
Website: www.medicporter.com
Funding: Bootstrapped
Currently, Medicporter has several transfer agencies ready to use the platform and is hoping to partner with medical facilities soon.
As Medicporter grows and connects with more healthcare facilities and transport agencies, Chafatelli said that he wants to expand the software to create more solutions for the transport environment—such as texting loved ones when a patient is being moved, and enabling location tracking for vehicles transferring patients.
“Our goal is that Medicporter will be a national transport solution for the United States,” Chafatelli said.
