Saurin Shah is an accomplished technology executive with over 20 years of experience in product management, design, and strategy. He serves as chief product officer at TigerConnect, leading product management, design, and product operations to advance the company’s mission to transform communication and collaboration within the healthcare industry. Before joining TigerConnect, Saurin held several senior leadership positions at leading companies such as Medallia, Salesforce, Experian, and Accenture, where he spearheaded innovative product initiatives that drove growth and improved customer experiences. Saurin graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, earning a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. He also holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Q: Can you give a brief overview of TigerConnect and its mission?
TigerConnect simplifies the lives of healthcare professionals so they can deliver better patient care. We do that with a secure, easy-to-use unified communications platform that can deliver the right information to the right person at the right time. We’ve been around since 2010, and we were founded by healthcare professionals dedicated to improving the American healthcare system for all patients and healthcare professionals.
Q: What does your role as Chief Product Officer involve, and how does it contribute to TigerConnect’s success?
My focus is delivering a best-in-class experience for our users and ensuring our platform continues to evolve to meet their needs. Our products are used at over 7,000 facilities nationwide, so I spend a significant amount of time speaking with our customers to understand their unique challenges and gather insights.
It’s a balance of technology and empathy. On the one hand, we’re pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with our platform and in healthcare. On the other hand, we’re ensuring our solutions address real-world pain points. This blend of innovation and customer focus is what drives our success.
Q: What sets TigerConnect apart in healthcare communication?
Several key elements make TigerConnect unique. First, our cloud-based architecture makes us more resilient than other approaches, delivering 99.995 percent uptime. That’s critical in healthcare where every second counts.
Second, while we seamlessly interoperate with electronic health record (EHR) systems, we function independently. That means we can keep hospital staff communicating and caring for patients even when the EMR is down from power outages, cyber-attacks or maintenance.
Third, we offer a suite of solutions including turnkey applications as well as open APIs, so we can integrate with many of the commonly used applications within hospitals. Our vision extends beyond the hospital walls, creating a connected ecosystem that links care teams with external partners including EMS and Transfer centers, enabling smoother transitions and better outcomes for patients.
Finally, we combine technology with clinical expertise to support our customers. Our clinical consulting team consists of former clinicians who understand not only the tools but also the realities of hospital operations. They work alongside our customers to identify communication bottlenecks and help redesign clinical workflows using our no-code workflow engine for optimal efficiency.
Q: What are some of the biggest communication challenges in healthcare, and how is TigerConnect addressing them?
Through our own research and conversations with customers, TigerConnect identified seven categories of communication inefficiencies in hospital operations that put undue burden on care teams. The tasks that put undue burden on clinicians are: 1) Searching for contacts; 2) Mis-contacting people; 3) Waiting for responses or results; 4) Switching between systems; 5) Interruptions in delivering care; 6) Filtering through information; and 7) Decision making with limited information. The TigerConnect platform tackles these challenges by consolidating communication onto a single, unified communication platform. It replaces outdated, non-secure and inefficient tools such as pagers and phone calls with modern, secure and efficient technology, plus it integrates with other hospital systems such as EMRs, empowering care teams to work smarter, not harder.
Q: TigerConnect recently acquired Twiage. How will this acquisition improve the speed and accuracy of emergency care communication?
The acquisition of Twiage is a cornerstone in our vision to extend healthcare communication outside the hospital walls. By enabling real-time, efficient information exchange between EMS teams and hospital staff, Twiage streamlines the preadmit experience.
For example, EMTs can transmit patient information and estimated arrival times directly to the hospital, ensuring staff are prepared before the patient arrives. Twiage also enhances inter-facility transfers by improving coordination and reducing delays. It’s faster, more cost-effective and better for the patients. This is just the beginning of our commitment to redefining care transitions.
Q: Interoperability is key in healthcare. How does TigerConnect ensure its platform integrates seamlessly with other systems?
Interoperability is at the heart of what we do. Effective solutions address critical functions such as physician scheduling, alarm and alert management, and patient engagement, all while supporting unified communication across care teams.
Prebuilt integrations and APIs play a key role in connecting existing hospital systems—including EHRs, patient monitoring, nurse call systems, lab, and radiology platforms. This integration ensures critical data reaches the point of care in real-time, breaking down silos and empowering care teams with the information they need, when they need it most.
Q: What steps does TigerConnect take to maintain secure and reliable communication for healthcare teams?
Cyberattacks and data breaches are all too common in healthcare. Clinicians need quick, reliable access to patient data to make informed decisions and deliver effective care. At the same time, protecting patient privacy is non-negotiable. Striking this balance isn’t easy—too many restrictions on access can slow down care, while weak security measures leave sensitive information exposed.
Yet, many healthcare organizations still rely on outdated communication tools like pagers, unsecured text messages, and limited EHR chat functions. These tools create unnecessary tradeoffs, forcing care teams to choose between clunky workflows and security risks.
With the right tools, healthcare organizations don’t have to make that choice. TigerConnect’s secure clinical communication platform offers a solution to the paradox by providing exceptional uptime and robust safeguards against outages. Our platform is also HIPAA-compliant, securing communications within the platform.
For patient-facing interactions, secure messaging tools can direct patients to protected portals where they can access updates from their care team, including lab results and other sensitive information. In healthcare, trust is non-negotiable, and we’re proud to deliver solutions that protect both providers and patients.
