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There's plenty of hype around AI and robots in healthcare, but the problem that's actually costing hospitals money right now is operating room coordination. Two to four hours of OR time is lost every single day, not because of the surgeries themselves, but because of everything in between from manual scheduling and coordination chaos to guesswork about room turnover.
TechCrunch’s Equity podcast caught up with Conor McGinn, co-founder and CEO of Akara, the startup that recently landed a spot on Time's Best Inventions of 2025 and is building what’s essentially air traffic control for hospitals using thermal sensors and AI.
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
00:54 - Air traffic control for ORs
02:35 - Where hospitals lose hours daily
03:54 - Selling into risk-averse hospitals
06:21 - Thermal sensors and edge AI
09:11 - NHS as proof of concept
13:16 - The AI under the hood
18:12 - Privacy benefits of thermal
21:22 - Infrastructure before robots
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