Healthcare IT · Clinical communication
ListRunner
A Y Combinator app built to replace the paper patient list doctors carry on rounds. It launched in 2014, was tested in hospitals on three continents, and was bought by the healthcare platform Commure in 2017. The app is still on the App Store under Commure's name today.
Index cards on a phone
Every hospital doctor keeps some version of the same object: a folded sheet of paper with a short line for each patient under their care, filled in with a pencil between rounds and handed off, sometimes imperfectly, to whoever covers the next shift. ListRunner's pitch was to move that sheet into an app.
"Electronic medical records. It's like you just open up your email and hit print screen and use that to manage your day right now," co-founder Jeeshan Chowdhury told TechCrunch in 2014. Co-founder Dominic Savoie put the distinction this way: "It's like if you printed out your emails in the morning, answered them on paper with a pencil, and then would type them back in Gmail at the end of the day. The EMR isn't designed to help teams collaborate at the ward level."
The app ran on iOS, Android and the desktop, worked offline, and encrypted patient data separately from a clinician's personal device data for HIPAA compliance. It synced patient summaries and task lists in real time and pulled in data from Epic, Cerner, McKesson and Allscripts records.
The problem it named
"We call ourselves scut monkeys sometimes because we are buried in paperwork and writing things over and over again instead of actually attending to the patient," Chowdhury said, citing a Joint Commission figure that up to 80 percent of medical errors trace back to miscommunication during hand offs between clinicians.
Not everyone was sold immediately. Dr. Corey Rood, at Children's Medical Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told TechCrunch he was skeptical: "I don't know that many entities would feel comfortable having secure medical info on cell phones, even through an app." Stanford Hospital surgeon Matthew Wetschler took the other side: "You can't expect us to just drop how we work in the real world when we get to the hospital. We use our smartphones to communicate."
A hackathon, then Y Combinator
Jeeshan Chowdhury studied medical science at the University of Alberta, then went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar for an MD and DPhil in health information systems. In 2012 he met software engineer Dominic Savoie at a hackathon in Montreal, and the two co founded Hacking Health, a nonprofit that still runs clinician and technologist hackathons across North America, Europe and Asia.
Out of that world came ListRunner, built with Savoie and fellow University of Alberta alumnus Dr. Trevor Chan, inspired by Chowdhury's own medical residency. "One of the doctors used index cards to manage his patients, and he told us that we should do the same," he told the University of Alberta's alumni magazine in 2016. The first working prototype debuted at a Hacking Health event in Cape Town, South Africa, meant as a one off demo. "We started to get all these complaints that the app wasn't working," Chowdhury told TechCrunch. "We had no idea people were actually using it."
The company moved to Mountain View, California, and went through Y Combinator's Summer 2014 batch. By August 2014 it had raised $120,000 from the accelerator and a $500,000 seed round, described by VentureBeat as coming entirely from independent physician investors, for $620,000 that year, per PitchBook. In March 2015 the company closed an early stage VC round from Creandum, Maverick Capital and Maverick Ventures, and Real Ventures; PitchBook lists $747,000 raised in total, implying roughly $127,000 more came in with that round.
Sold to a platform builder
PitchBook records a merger and acquisition event for the company, filed under the name Desma Health at a San Francisco address, completed on October 27, 2017. The buyer was Commure. Neither PitchBook nor any source found for this profile discloses a purchase price.
Commure itself was taking shape around that time. Independent research firm Sacra, writing in 2024, describes Commure as "hatched inside General Catalyst in 2017 by ex-Livongo founder Hemant Taneja," which put Commure's own founding the same year it picked up ListRunner, years before Commure's public launch as an integration platform in 2020. Sacra's account lists the deal plainly: Commure grew in part by "acquiring ListRunner for patient lists (2017), Merlin for healthcare worker hiring (2020), and Karuna Health for patient communication (2021)."
Chowdhury's own account, in a 2026 speaker bio for the Aspen Ideas Festival, is consistent: he "started ListRunner, a Y Combinator backed digital tool for frontline clinical teams, subsequently sold to health care integration company Commure." He went on to co-found Journey Colab, a biopharmaceutical company developing psychedelic-assisted addiction treatment. What became of co-founders Savoie and Chan after the sale is not documented in any source found for this profile.
The product did not disappear right away. An App Store listing for "Listrunner by Commure," seller of record Commure, Inc., describes a rebuilt version, "the new and improved secure collaboration platform for clinicians," with single sign on, data integration and admin roles added. The listing carries a company-published endorsement attributed to Robert M. Wachter, MD, of the Department of Medicine at UCSF: "Listrunner is the best product I've seen that effectively addresses the needs of these clinicians." The listing's most recent update recorded by the App Store dates to around 2021.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Y Combinator batch | Summer 2014 (YC S14), confirmed on YC's own company page and 2014 blog post. | Public record |
| 2014 funding | $120,000 accelerator investment (Aug 19, 2014) and a $500,000 seed round (closed Sep 26, 2014), for $620,000 raised that year, per PitchBook. VentureBeat and MobiHealthNews reported the $500,000 figure on Aug 18, 2014, a day before PitchBook's closing date. | Deal data |
| 2015 funding | An early stage VC round on Mar 30, 2015 from Creandum, Maverick Capital, Maverick Ventures and Real Ventures. PitchBook lists $747,000 total, implying about $127,000 above the 2014 rounds. | Deal data |
| SEC Form D | None found under ListRunner or Desma Health in SEC EDGAR company search or full text search, checked Sep 25, 2026. | Not found |
| Acquisition | PitchBook records a completed M&A event on Oct 27, 2017, filer name Desma Health, acquirer Commure. Deal price not disclosed. | Deal data |
| Acquisition, independent corroboration | Sacra's 2024 research on Commure lists ListRunner among its 2017 acquisitions. Chowdhury's own 2026 speaker bio confirms the sale to Commure. | Independent |
| Named hospital customers | None confirmed by name in press coverage. MobiHealthNews reported a 2014 trial at 12 hospital departments including two unnamed California facilities. A UCSF physician's endorsement appears in Commure's own App Store listing. | Not confirmed |
| Product continuity | An app titled "Listrunner by Commure" was listed on the Apple App Store under Commure, Inc. as seller. Store metadata shows a last update around 2021. | Company-stated |
Read plainly: the 2014 press coverage, seed round and YC batch line up with what deal databases show. What happened after the 2017 sale is thinner. Commure has never said what it paid, no health system has gone on record as a customer, and the only evidence the product kept going is Commure's own store listing.
What to watch
- Whether Commure still operates a ListRunner branded product, or folded its features into the larger platform it has become.
- Whether any health system ever confirms it used ListRunner, by name.
- Whether a purchase price for the Commure deal ever surfaces.
- Public records, if any, for the co-founders' careers after 2017. Only Chowdhury's next company is documented.
In their words
“Electronic medical records. It’s like you just open up your email and hit print screen and use that to manage your day right now.”
Jeeshan Chowdhury, co-founder and CEO, to TechCrunch, 2014 · Independent
“It’s like if you printed out your emails in the morning, answered them on paper with a pencil, and then would type them back in Gmail at the end of the day.”
Dominic Savoie, co-founder, to TechCrunch, 2014 · Independent
“You can’t expect us to just drop how we work in the real world when we get to the hospital. We use our smartphones to communicate.”
Matthew Wetschler, MD, Stanford Hospital surgeon, to TechCrunch, 2014 · Independent
“One of the doctors used index cards to manage his patients, and he told us that we should do the same.”
Jeeshan Chowdhury, to the University of Alberta alumni magazine, 2016 · Independent
“started ListRunner, a Y-Combinator-backed digital tool for frontline clinical teams, subsequently sold to health care integration company Commure.”
Jeeshan Chowdhury speaker bio, Aspen Ideas Festival, 2026 · Subject-stated
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordListRunner company page
- Public recordListRunner (YC S14) Eliminates Hospital Paperwork
- IndependentY Combinator-Backed ListRunner Eliminates Hospital Paperwork
- IndependentListrunner raises $500K, may rid doctors of paper notes, texts, and privacy risks
- IndependentListrunner raises $500,000 for physicians' rounds app
- IndependentListRunner wants to eliminate hospital paperwork
- IndependentForging Links
- IndependentDesma Health company profile
- IndependentCommure at $105M ARR
- Not foundSEC EDGAR company and full text search for ListRunner and Desma Health
- Subject-statedJeeshan Chowdhury speaker bio
- CompanyListRunner organization profile
- CompanyJeeshan Chowdhury profile
- CompanyListrunner by Commure app listing
- CompanyCommure company website
- CompanyWhat’s keeping hospital CIOs up at night?
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
