Making room for innovators
Step into Rm8, where healthcare startups go to bring their work to the wider world
Get your foot in the door. Bet on your idea. Let us help you.
Rm8 is where healthcare startups go to bring their ideas or products to life.
In this innovation lab, entrepreneurs work directly with AANA and its advisory panel. With this support in a nurturing environment, new or early-stage products find the foundation to flourish. This opens the door to accelerated product development and eventual launch in the healthcare marketplace.
“The healthcare space is full of brilliant, creative, driven innovators. Rm8 gives their startups the partners, capital, and expert advice they need to grow.”
Eric O’Connor, AANA Chief Innovation Officer
Innovators check in to Rm8 to share ideas and get support from AANA, affiliated business leaders and available capital. With this access, entrepreneurs find the knowledge, insights and funding to develop their products.
2026 Pitch Winners
WINNER: MudFlap is a transparent, non-sterile protective overlay designed to be applied over an existing central line dressing to shield it from external contamination and mechanical disruption without interfering with the sterile insertion site.
SECOND PLACE: Anesthesia Connect replaces every fragmented system into one unified platform interconnecting providers, students, employers, and programs into a single, continuous workflow. At the center of this system is the comprehensive digital anesthesia wallet. Providers can store their licenses, certifications, documents, case logs, CEUs, track tax expenses, request reimbursements, and professional history all in one centralized location. That data becomes portable, structured, and instantly shareable across the entire ecosystem.
THIRD PLACE: AERIS Airway solves the aforementioned clinical challenges by delivering oxygen and detecting CO2 in the supraglottic region and does so seamlessly by fitting in Guedel-type OPAs and standard NPAs. With the AERIS Airway™, an OPA or NPA is transformed from an airway patency device to a state-of-the-art oxygen delivery and CO2 monitoring system.
FOURTH PLACE: Nelo is a patented smart sharps safety enclosure designed to transform traditional sharps disposal into a proactive risk management system. It retrofits onto existing sharps containers and provides real-time visual fill-level indicators, alerting staff before containers become hazardous. Once full, the system initiates an automatic lockout to prevent further use, reducing the risk of needlestick injuries. Nelo™ is designed for seamless integration into existing workflows without disrupting clinical operations, while improving safety, compliance, and accountability across healthcare settings.
FIFTH PLACE: Clyvara is an AI-powered clinical learning platform that transforms how nurse anesthesia students are trained by combining digital simulation and machine learning–driven personalization into one system. At its core is a fully simulated EMR environment where students actively manage patient cases. Instead of answering isolated questions, they assess patients, order labs, interpret results, and make anesthesia decisions in real time. This creates a continuous, scalable form of case-based learning that mirrors actual clinical workflows and builds true decision-making skills rather than passive recall.
Early-stage ideas or products that show the promise to advance healthcare, the nurse anesthesiology field or patient outcomes are ideal candidates for Rm8. Our three pilot initiatives exemplify the innovative spirit of Rm8.
Go further with our expert advice
When your idea becomes a Rm8 project, the Innovation Panel supports you throughout each step of development. Our panelists are deeply experienced in their fields and in successfully delivering products and services to market.
