Two Northeastern students, dissatisfied by the overworking of healthcare employees they saw all around them, have turned to technology to rectify the problem.
Naomi Rajput, a fourth-year behavioral neuroscience, Spanish and American Sign Language major and Evan Smith, a Northeastern student currently on a leave of absence to pursue his startup, have created an AI healthcare company.
Eden, formerly known as CareWallet, is a software with AI components that aims to connect healthcare patients with providers and simplify administrative tasks in healthcare. Eden automates schedules, insurance checks and patient check-ins, which can significantly reduce the administrative burden on healthcare staff as well as help patients have a simpler scheduling experience.
“We’re focused on automating medical practice workflows,” Rajput said. “We focus on several different categories of automation, patient scheduling, patient intake, real time insurance verification, billing to help make healthcare easier to access [and] navigate through.”
Rajput said the mission of Eden encompasses targeting administrative burnout in addition to helping patients have an easier time accessing the medical system. A primary goal of Eden is to free up time that scheduling and billing tasks take up and dedicate it to patients.
“In an ideal situation, [the front desk] has minimal patient interaction, [they are not] answering 10 billion phone calls while also trying to check in patients. Ideally [they] can focus on one thing, checking the patient who is in front of them,” Rajput said, adding that she hopes Eden allows the automation of most of the other, more monotonous tasks, including referrals and scheduling.
In 2024, Northeastern recognized Rajput at the Northeastern Women Who Empower Innovator Awards for her mission to reduce burnout among healthcare administrators. Rajput, who had worked at a digital health startup prior to Eden, said she feels she has a focus on the medical side of the company as well as an important role as a cofounder.
Smith, Rajput’s cofounder, said he believes in making targeted improvements to the U.S. healthcare system — specifically in the check-in and administrative processes at healthcare facilities.
“Simply put, Eden is the best solution [for healthcare],” Smith said. “There is the potential to automate $950 billion worth of workflows.”
Smith was drawn to the startup side of business as a first-year when he participated in an entrepreneurship program in Silicon Valley. The program focused on how technology is built and the influences of innovation both nationally and worldwide.
In 2020, while he studied in the Bay Area, Smith started his first startup: A face mask and personal protection equipment (PPE) distribution company, Fair Air. Fair Air was the fastest supplier of KN95 masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the fall 2024 cycle, Eden just introduced its first co-op position, in which third-year data science and mathematics combined major Tamhid Washy works as a technical product engineer.
“Healthcare is a very competitive space in general and [it is] … dominated by enterprise players who have been around for 40 to 50 years, but seeing how it’s still possible to make a change in these industries is just very powerful,” Washy said.
Smith and Rajput both believe Eden has the potential to be the future of healthcare administration.
“In the visionary future, Eden is everywhere in all doctors’ offices, whether it is primary care [or] specialty care, [Eden] is everywhere,” said Rajput. “Eden is the future.”
