Meet Alan and Stephanie Letzt, the company founders and co-inventors of Maudey. For 30 years, these spouses have been committed to improving patient-centered care for older adults.
Alan, a graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University, and Stephanie, a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, earned their master’s degrees in engineering and molecular biology, respectively. Alan’s minor in psychology spurred his career specialty in human factors/usability and Stephanie’s work in medical research inspired her specialty in public health.
Their early R&D was motivated by the healthcare experiences of their parents who were dealing with hearing loss, medication adherence issues and interactions with assisted living caregivers. Over the years, their cutting edge R&D and product commercialization have earned support from Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants awarded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA).
The first company they founded, ATC, developed and patented AccuNurse, a novel, voice-activated, hands-free system for use in long-term care. AccuNurse was installed in more than 400 long-term care facilities and was later acquired by Honeywell Corp. Their company’s accomplishments led to a prestigious “Tibbetts Award”, a “High Tech Excellence Award” and an invited exhibit at the decennial White House Conference on Aging.
Subsequently, Alan and Stephanie founded Healthcare Technologies and Methods (HTM) to address hearing healthcare for older adults. With the support of $4 million in NIA-SBIR grants, and the inspiration of veteran audiologist Maureen Wiskerchen, HTM’s talented interdisciplinary team succesfully developed and clinically tested Curated Aftercare by Maudey. While designed to meet the learning needs of older adults and others who are not tech-savvy, Maudey may be used effectively by younger adults as well.