Patients, now more than ever, want transparency, agency and access to care. After a global pandemic gave people new perspectives on the level of proactive and reactive care needed to stay healthy and in tune with their healthcare systems, healthcare systems are seeking positive innovations to meet those desires.

Kezia Fitzgerald, Chief Innovation Officer and Co-founder of CareAline , understands the importance of those patient needs personally. Fitzgerald spoke with Daniel Litwin on how her healthcare journey led her and her husband to create CareAline, a medical supplies company that provides vascular products and personal protection solutions to healthcare organizations across the country.

For Fitzgerald, creating this organization focused on patient-centric solutions was a passion born from her own experiences.

“I was diagnosed with cancer in 2011, and, shortly after, my daughter was diagnosed with her own cancer,” Fitzgerald said. “So, we were sort of forced into the medical world. And we use that patient perspective when we’re looking at problems in healthcare. Not only do we look at problems patients are facing, but we also look at problems that clinicians are facing day-to-day in their care of patients.”

Something Fitzgerald noticed about some large medical product manufacturers is they may not always bring patient feedback into the product development conversation early enough.

“A lot of times, they wait until a product has a minimal viable product,” Fitzgerald said. “They’ve built something, and then they want to try to test it on patients versus bringing those patients in when they’re talking about the problem at the very beginning. Without bringing in those patients to the table at that time, you’re losing an entire frame of perspective.”