Why We Created EmmaWell
Last fall, we conceived of a platform that could provide convenient, high-quality access to maternal wellness support for women at all stages of pregnancy and the postpartum period.
We believe that doctors and healthcare providers want to share more knowledge, provide more guidance, and talk more about their own experiences — beyond what they’re able to do during a brief exam room encounter. Let’s face it — our women’s health providers (e.g. physicians, midwives, physician assistants, nurse practitioners) are overworked, stretched thin, and, frankly, not always the best suited to handle each individual patient’s concerns and needs.
So, we built EmmaWell, because we believe that all women and their families should have convenient access to high-quality maternal wellness services that augment the care they get from their existing women’s health providers.
We aim to empower new and expecting mothers to take control of their own health and get the maternal wellness services they need. To make this happen, we have partnered with women’s health providers and tapped modern technology to break down barriers to care, allaying the psychological and physical transition to motherhood.
We are focusing our early efforts on mental health support, as this is so central to the motherhood journey and a family’s well-being, and an often under-looked aspect of pregnancy and the postpartum period. EmmaWell’s platform of services is ultimately designed to help make all maternal care more accessible and more affordable, as we believe an integrative approach to care is the best way to improve maternal mental wellness.
Today, we are working with a select group of physicians during our “beta” phase. For the patients of these physicians, we make teletherapy (with an approved postpartum mental health expert) easily accessible, and provide highly curated guidance and education via our mobile app. During this time, we will also be tracking, assessing, and improving our systems and processes in preparation for a much wider launch of our platform over the months and years to come.
Who We Are
Your EmmaWell team is led by a group of individuals with incredible backgrounds as professionals, providers, and moms (and one dad). We are driven by a shared vision and passion for women’s health and together we bring to EmmaWell a unique combination of start-up energy, operational discipline, and medical expertise:
David Luk, our CEO, has two young daughters who inspired the name for EmmaWell. A technology start-up leader for most of his career, David most recently helped lead, build, and ultimately sell a startup focused on bringing AI into the mortgage industry. EmmaWell’s mission hits much closer to home, as David married into the women’s health equivalent of the Partridge Family — David’s wife Nikki is an OB/Gyn, her older sister is an OB/Gyn, and their mother is an OB/Gyn too.
Viraj Parikh, our Chief Experience Officer, is a mom of two amazing teenagers and was a practicing OB physician’s assistant for over 15 years before founding and leading a successful non-profit.
Wanda Lee, our Head of Product and Operations, is “that cool aunt” to kids all around the world and has been a VC investor and strategy and operations executive scaling tech startups for almost 10 years.
Copley Read, our Head of Content and Community, is a mom of three young children (her clones), and has been a digital media expert and creator/editor for the better part of her career.
Radhi Kakarla, our Medical Advisor, is also a mom of two amazing teenagers (and the cuddliest goldendoodle in the world), in addition to being the lead physician in her OB practice and founder of EmmaWell’s predecessor business, Hatch Motherhood.
Why We’re Launching Before We’re “Ready”
As the world has been thrown into the COVID-19 crisis, we made the decision to accelerate our public ‘unveiling’ ahead of our targeted soft launch date. We believe that our team’s expertise can be a voice of guidance to all moms and moms-to-be during this difficult time.
In April, a beta version of our maternal guidance app will be made widely available; our extensive local and online resource lists will also be featured on the website (these will be primarily focused on the Greater Philadelphia area); however, because we will never compromise on quality of care, our teletherapy services will remain available only to select partner women’s health providers (and their patients) during this initial launch.
We hope that we will be able to help make a positive impact during this time of need and also remain true to our mission as we embark on this new journey.
With warmth and wellness,
Your EmmaWell Team
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