We're building the language layer for healthcare.
A physician and a former Apple engineer, building from San Francisco.
Our story
“I grew up in Taiwan. I barely spoke English when I came to the United States.”
My first class here was U.S. history. I could say hello and thank you, and not much else. I spent the hour hoping the teacher wouldn't call on me.
I was young, and I could learn. My parents couldn't. They never came to speak English.
Not long after we moved, my mom got really sick. Like so many immigrant families, we trusted that once we walked through the hospital doors, she would be in the best hands in the world.
In the emergency department, we waited fifteen minutes for a phone interpreter. When the interpreter came on, much of what my mom said was translated incorrectly. Symptoms were omitted. Details were changed. My mom was misdiagnosed and sent home on the wrong medication.
Two days later we rushed her back due to severe complications. The doctors told us how close we had come to losing her.
“This wasn't a medical failure. Everyone was trying to help. The language failed us.”
Small team. Enormous standard.
A handful of principles we hold to, in the product we build and the company we keep.
Principle 01
Users first
We’d move mountains for the clinicians and patients who rely on us.
Principle 02
Impact
We exist to save lives. That’s the bar for everything we do.
Principle 03
Experience first
Start with how care should feel. Engineer backwards.
Principle 04
Technology should disappear
When Opalite works, no one is thinking about Opalite.
Principle 05
Trust, sentence by sentence
Every utterance we interpret carries someone’s health.
Principle 06
Integrity
We do right by patients even when it costs us and no one would know.
Help every patient be understood.
We hire people who feel this mission in their bones, even before we've posted the role.
Every patient deserves to be understood.
See how Opalite connects your providers and patients in seconds, in any language.