Workforce Reliability Starts in the Operating Room

Why We Built GownCard

In one of the most expensive environments in healthcare, critical knowledge still lives in paper binders and individual memory.
In operating rooms across the country, surgeon preferences, case setup nuances, equipment variations, and procedural adjustments are scattered across:
  • Outdated preference cards
  • Informal notes
  • Email threads
  • Personal memory
  • Shadowing during long orientation cycles
  • Dusty binders sitting in office corners
When teams are stable, these workarounds hold.
When turnover increases, volumes rise, or complexity expands, they fracture.
The result is variability, longer orientation time, unnecessary stress, and preventable disruption in a high-stakes environment.

This is not a documentation problem. It is a workflow integrity problem.

Why We Built GownCard

At Hashed Health, we build companies where structural friction creates systemic risk.
GownCard emerged from a simple conviction shared by its clinical founders:
Critical procedural knowledge should be a durable institutional asset, not tribal memory.
Dr. Alex Langerman, a practicing surgeon and former founder of Explorer Surgical (exited to GHX), has seen firsthand how variation in case setup creates inefficiency and tension in the OR.
Zach Smith, RN and co-creator of NurseGrid (exited to HealthStream), understands how fragile workforce systems become when frontline knowledge is informal and inconsistent.
Together, they asked a focused question:

What would it look like if every circulating nurse, tech, and surgeon could access clear, current, case-specific setup guidance in seconds?

Not a new workflow.
Not another dashboard.
A structured, searchable layer that lives inside the existing rhythm of surgical services.
That is GownCard.

Why Co-Building Matters

Enterprise software in healthcare often fails for a predictable reason:
It is built outside the workflow and introduced as a finished product.
We believe workforce infrastructure must be shaped inside the institutions it serves.
Our co-build model is simple:
  • Align around measurable operational impact
  • Pilot inside real departments
  • Iterate with frontline teams
  • Expand only when value is demonstrated
This approach requires partners who are serious about operational reliability, not innovation theater. It allows us to partner to solving problems where we have true conviction. No membership fees. No capital calls.
It creates stronger alignment around outcomes and long-term adoption.

A Structural Shift in the Workforce

Health systems are navigating: 
  • Persistent nursing shortages
  • Increased case complexity
  • Financial pressure on surgical services
  • Growing expectations around standardization and safety
At the same time, many organizations are exploring AI.
But AI layered onto fragmented frontline knowledge only amplifies inconsistency.
Before healthcare can scale intelligence, it must stabilize institutional memory.
Workforce transformation starts with reliable workflow infrastructure.

What GownCard Does

GownCard digitizes and structures surgeon preference data and case-specific setup knowledge so that:
  • New nurses ramp faster
  • Teams operate from a shared source of truth
  • Institutional knowledge survives turnover
  • Variability is reduced at the point of care
  • Cases flow smoother
It is designed to reduce friction, not add clicks.
It is built with frontline clinicians, not around them.
And it is deployed in partnership with health systems willing to co-design rather than outsource thinking.

An Invitation

The operating room is the economic engine of most hospitals.
If we want surgical services to be more resilient, more efficient, and more supportive of the workforce, we must treat frontline knowledge as infrastructure.
GownCard is an early but important step in that direction.
We are actively partnering with health systems that want to begin down the road of workforce transformation
If that describes your organization, we would welcome the conversation.