Bridging healthcare gaps with innovation and accessibility 

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Working as a communicator in a health care setting, Seun Adetunji could see the impact of medical jargon was having on people with English language barriers and disabilities. During repeated interactions with doctors and medical staff, she could see that patients and caregivers were overwhelmed hearing medical language and instruction. As a communications and equity, diversity and inclusion professional, Seun decided to do something about it. 

Always entrepreneurial at heart, she saw a very real problem and one that tug at her. Seun created MedInclude, an AI-based data processing platform that can help health-care providers transcribe patient notes into lay terminology in real time. MedInclude also includes a text-to-audio and language translation feature for people with disabilities and English language barriers.   

Seun already had a master's degree but felt that there were some missing pieces to making her business a success. She looked into MBA programs at first but felt like that wasn't quite right. When she stumbled on the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology program, she looked at the curriculum and it hit all the missing pieces she was thinking about. 

Seun Adetunji

You're rich with connections in this program. When you layer that with your own experiences and with those of the people you meet in and through the program, it's just really, really amazing."

Dedication and perseverance pay off  

Seun is now in her final year of balancing the part-time program with full-time employment and building MedInclude. It hasn't been easy, but she's managed it all. By automating and delegating as much of her workload as possible as well as honing her time-management skills, she’s been able to meet the demands on her time. 

It's the connections that she's made that she's found invaluable. "You're rich with connections in this program" she says, "When you layer that with your own experiences and with those of the people you meet in and through the program, it's just really, really amazing." She credits these connections with getting MedInclude to where it is today. 

As for where MedInclude is going next, they've completed a pilot with KidsAbility, an organization that provides early family-centered services for the wellbeing of children and youth. From there, she hopes to bring meaningful, accessible medical information to patients and caregivers. 

Read Seun's full story on Waterloo News