Qassandra
Building trusting relationships
between patients and medical practitioners
for improved health outcomes
Qassandra
Building trusting relationships
between patients and medical practitioners
for improved health outcomes
About Qassandra
Our story
Our combined medical journey spans across open heart surgery, cancer, fertility treatment, chronic pain, pregnancy, rare diseases and mental health. All across different countries and health systems. Together, we have learnt that what you say and ask in each consult can change entirely the type of care you will receive.
In particular in terms of:
- How easy and comfortable exams, procedures and treatments can feel
- And how adequate to your personal circumstances doctors' recommendations would be
We have learnt the hard way.
So we have developed QASSANDRA to spare you the painful and sinuous learning curve.
Interested to know more? Get in touch!
Our vision
We want to improve health outcome for patients.
We are patients ourselves and we believe effective communication between medical practitioners and patients yield better health outcomes.
Our entire philosophy is based on patient-to-patient empowerment. Harnessing the wisdom of the community and finding innovative ways to help everyone build the skills and confidence they need to advocate for themselves and be an active partner in the patient - doctor relationship.
Our rationale
- Better communication means higher trust. Higher trust means more transparency, making it easier for patients and doctors to jointly develop treatment plans that 1) patients can realistically follow and 2) where all side effects and interactions are taken into account and managed. Both resulting in improved treatment adherence (and potentially faster diagnosis).
- Higher trust means less stress, which in itself help improve health overall.
Who can benefit?
- Patients (so virtually everyone!) with better health outcome and a journey that becomes less anxiety inducing
- Medical practitioners: with higher trust and improved relationships with patients, we can expect higher job satisfaction and lower rates of burnout
- Health systems as a whole, whether private or state-funded, thanks to reduced complains and reduced financial waste (less no-shows, better treatment adherence, improved staff stability)
Our promise
We want our services to be:
- Personalised and personable
- A safe space to learn and be
- Inclusive of all (personal history, religions and sprititual beliefs, race, literacy level and of course medical condition and overall health)
- Give you plenty of opportunities to practice and develop your skills
We are here to help you become a team with the medical practitioners who surround you and vice versa.
We do not provide medical guidance here.
Friends of Qassandra
Allison Carvajal
Allison Carvajal
Allison Carvajal
Ali is the co-founder of Qassandra. She brings with her medical expertise and insider knowledge of medical institutions.
Ali practices as a Hospitalist Nurse Practitioner in Boston, MA. Her personal health journey prompted her career in healthcare, which now spans over a decade in hospital/ critical care, clinic, and mobile outreach setti
Ali is the co-founder of Qassandra. She brings with her medical expertise and insider knowledge of medical institutions.
Ali practices as a Hospitalist Nurse Practitioner in Boston, MA. Her personal health journey prompted her career in healthcare, which now spans over a decade in hospital/ critical care, clinic, and mobile outreach settings. Her interests include equity in medicine, education, and patient empowerment. She is training in Trauma Informed Care, and works daily with individuals from a variety of backgrounds undergoing their own health journey.
Roxanne Lavie
Allison Carvajal
Allison Carvajal
Roxanne is the founder of Qassandra.
In her day-to-day job as a healthcare qualitative insight specialist, she strives to understand the lived experience of patients, caregivers, nurses, doctors and health practitioners. She is a patient voice and women's health expert.
She recently presented her personal journey and Qassandra's ambition at
Roxanne is the founder of Qassandra.
In her day-to-day job as a healthcare qualitative insight specialist, she strives to understand the lived experience of patients, caregivers, nurses, doctors and health practitioners. She is a patient voice and women's health expert.
She recently presented her personal journey and Qassandra's ambition at the Radical Health Festival in Helsinki and at the World Health Innovation Summit.
Roxanne also actively collaborates with the Patient Partnership programme of Geneva public hospital (Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève).
Yarek Kumechko
Allison Carvajal
Yarek Kumechko
Yarek is the founder and CEO of Queery+.
He sits on the board of Qassandra. His role in developing Iris has been pivotal to our journey. With his help Qassandra can be an inclusive space for everyone to feel safe, heard and suported.
More about Yarek and Queery here.