CareVibe founder: prove ROI, integrate with EMRs and protect clinicians' workflow

Madeline Herzfeld, cofounder and vice chairman of CareVibe, described how CareVibe used SBIR funding to develop symptom‑management pathways and stressed the need to align commercialization plans with measurable return on investment and clinical workflow.

Herzfeld said the commercialization plan must reflect company roles and strengths; she recommended involving the CEO for vision and IP, clinical and scientific advisors for evidence and competition analysis, product and sales teams for market fit, and finance for pricing. "Teamworks makes the dream work," she said.

On value, Herzfeld noted that clinical outcomes do not always equate to financial incentive for adopting clinicians in fee‑for‑service settings; startups should show where the financial benefit accrues (for example, to payers under value‑based care) and target the stakeholder most likely to pay. She also emphasized dependencies such as EMR integration: technologies that cannot integrate into clinicians' workflows face steep adoption barriers.

Herzfeld closed by advising applicants to clearly state how the SBIR project fits company vision and accelerates revenue, and by offering CareVibe's example of upselling to existing customers, expanding EMR channels, and licensing de‑identified symptom data for research.