Entrepreneur Naveen Khan spoke to students about her company Pt Pal at a roundtable hosted by HW Venture on March 27. Khan, the CEO of Pt Pal, explained why she created the organization and demonstrated how her company’s app helps patients and doctors have better communication.

The app allows clinicians to send interactive information to the patients and track their progress, allowing them to adjust patients’ physical therapy tasks as necessary.

Founded in 2013, Khan said that app is now being used in the top seven pediatric hospitals in the world. According to Khan, an unpublished study performed in Australia said that the app was over 90% successful with children and the elderly, an increase from the 10% success rate that the old method of physical therapy had.

Khan, who was Director of the Los Angeles Orthopedic Hospital, was inspired to create the app after her personal experience with physical therapy. She said that she often couldn’t remember of all of her required exercises, so she began searching for an easier way to complete her physical therapy routines.

“If you ever have an idea, and it’s not out there, or even if it is but you have a better way of doing it, definitely go after it because I assumed it would be out there, and [then] I created the first rehab app ever to be in hospitals,” Khan said.

Khan also offered advice about how she was able to maintain a successful company.

“The focus is not on the individual but the team and how we make each other better as individuals, and how we make the company great according to the mission,” Khan said. “So just running a simple, clear-cut company that is mission-focused is really important.”

Incoming seventh graders will participate in a nutritional project that will incorporate Apple and ActiGraph watches with the Pt Pal app to monitor their health, which Khan said will be the first study of its kind to include children.