The Hidden Cost of Complexity

Spend an afternoon inside any hospital and you will feel it in the corridors: the hidden tax of complexity. The nurse who is burdened with searching through supply room after supply room looking for an item that is on backorder, the procurement lead who sifts through spreadsheets to understand why an order is late, the supply‑chain leader who orders pallets of safety stock because no single dashboard shows the true on‑hand inventory, then scrambles to reroute shipments whenever disruption strikes. Each of them is paying that tax in time, energy, and, ultimately, in human potential.

Software Should Empower, Not Hinder

We founded Red Thread because somewhere over the last decade enterprise software shifted from ally to obstacle. Across countless conversations—whether with clinicians, supply‑chain teams, or health‑system executives, the pain is the same: “Our software is too complex, it doesn’t do what we need, and it forces us to change how we work just to fit inside its limits.” When we ask why they stay, the answer is equally stark: “There are no other options.”

The result? U.S. hospitals lose an astonishing $25 billion each year to supply-chain inefficiencies. Staff at a typical 300-bed facility spend over 20,000 hours annually just trying to find supplies. Hospitals exist to heal, educate, and serve. They deserve technology that honors that purpose.

Our Mission

These powerful insights shaped our mission: Modernize healthcare’s operational backbone with intuitive AI-first software, seamlessly connecting data, decisions, and people, and returning the focus to patient care.

Why "Red Thread"?

The name we chose, Red Thread, carries more than brand value for us. In myth it is the invisible strand that links those destined to find one another. In storytelling it is the narrative line that brings coherence to chaos. At sea it is the crimson yarn woven through rope, proving its origin and quality. We weave that metaphor into every design choice we make. Unity, clarity, and unmistakable craftsmanship are not slogans on a wall; they are the criteria against which we measure our work.

Five Principles

From the outset we committed to five core principles that function as the rails needed to keep the train on course. First, technology must feel like a helping hand. Second, complexity is a cost we refuse to pass along to our users. Third, trust grows only where outcomes are visible. Fourth, adoption must begin where an organization already stands, not at some distant shore of rip-and-replace upheaval. And finally, every solution worth building starts at first principles, not at the patch-on-patch edge of yesterday’s architecture.

From Principles to Product

Translating those principles into software meant resisting the urge to bolt features onto legacy architecture. We began instead with a new foundation centered around AI and a data fabric that understands relationships rather than isolated records. On that fabric we are layering intelligence that guides like an extension of the user. We built with today’s cloud, graph models, and explainable AI, yet insisted the surface feel familiar and approachable. Most important, we designed the platform to integrate before it disrupts. Value should appear in weeks, not in the third year of an over budget deployment.

What Users Experience

What does that look like from the user’s side? The clinician stops hunting for items and information and starts acting on insight. The supply-chain team sees emerging issues before they happen with enough time to prepare and even prevent them. Leadership views performance as a living picture instead of a monthly autopsy. The result is time returned to patients, resources returned to budgets, and confidence returned to every role that keeps a hospital moving.

Building Resilience

We are under no illusion that the work ahead is small. Healthcare will continue to face global shocks, regulatory shifts, and scientific breakthroughs that test every operational seam. But we are equally convinced that a resilient, adaptive, and truly human-centered operational core is not a luxury, it is critical infrastructure. We are building that infrastructure now, before the next crisis.

Our Invitation to You

We warmly invite you to:

• Share your biggest operational pain points—chances are, we're already exploring solutions for it.

• Follow our insights—learn from our journey modernizing healthcare software.

• Pilot with us—experience firsthand the benefits of an intuitive, connected workflow.

Enterprise software is entering its next era. Together, we can ensure healthcare leads the way—one Red Thread at a time.

With respect and resolve,

Ryan Cheney & Reid Crawford
Co-founders, Red Thread