Keen to jump-start your healthcare business? Ignition Key™ can help reach your goals.
Our Values
Teamwork & Respect
We operate in a mutually respectful partnership mode with you and your team, as well as with our extended network.
Creativity & Innovation
We first listen, understand and consider the world the way that you and your customers see it. We strive to go beyond and project what might, should and could be and help prepare you better for a future in which you are in control of your business destiny as opposed to the other way around.
Honesty, Integrity, and Trust
A transparent business model keeps our clients fully informed throughout the engagement period. We strive for long-term relationships and successful clients by providing honest, unflinching yet practical advice focused on business success.
Responsibility & Accountability
We meet or exceed each of our goals and promises; otherwise, we do not make them. We take our commitments very seriously. Quality of service is the foundation of our practice. We are not satisfied until you, the customer, is delighted. We provide to our clients recommendations that are real, practical, useful and most importantly, yield tangible results.
Our Founders
Pratap Khanwilkar
Pratap Khanwilkar
Pratap Khanwilkar
Pratap is an healthcare ecosystem builder, organizational entrepreneur and medical device innovator with 37 years experience. He is presently the Vice-President for Product Development at InCube Labs, a Silicon Valley based medtech incubator, co-leading its San Antonio Texas facility and directing its expansion and initiating new projects
Pratap is an healthcare ecosystem builder, organizational entrepreneur and medical device innovator with 37 years experience. He is presently the Vice-President for Product Development at InCube Labs, a Silicon Valley based medtech incubator, co-leading its San Antonio Texas facility and directing its expansion and initiating new projects while executing present ones. Pratap is also an active Angel Investor both individually and with San Antonio-based Alamo Angels.
Prior to InCube, Pratap was the founding Coulter Translational Research Program Director, Executive-In-Residence and Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh. He led Pitt's Coulter Program to nation-leading translational outcomes: founded and funded start-ups and licenses. He also developed commercialization courseware followed at Pitt, by the San Antonio medtech community, and by the National Institutes of Health for prospective Phase II SBIR awardees.
Pratap has founded 11 for-profit companies and 1 non-profit. He led MedQuest Products Inc. as CEO from sole proprietor to private corporate start-up to acquisition by publicly-held World Heart Corporation (NASDAQ: WHRT) while raising $60MM.
Pratap implemented this merger, transitioned WHRT to its next-generation product line. He also built up and helped consolidated WHRT operations in Salt Lake City, Utah. As an Officer, helped WHRT raise another $75MM and recruit new leadership (CEO,CFO).
Pratap is an inventor on 7 issued US patents. He has clinically introduced or commercialized each invention, from one of the most sophisticated medical devices, a long-term multi-year implantable Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD), the Levacor VAD, to a disposable surgical electrocautery blade, the AuTome.
Pratap's PhD in Bioengineering, MS in Bioengineering and MBA are from the University of Utah. His undergraduate is in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He is an elected Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and has been the recipient of many international, national, state-wide honors and awards.
More at: linkedin.com/in/khanwilkar
Elaine Khanwilkar
Pratap Khanwilkar
Pratap Khanwilkar
Elaine is a Clinical Nursing and Healthcare Administration Leader with 40 years experience in primary, secondary, and tertiary care healthcare delivery settings (inpatient including ICU, outpatient and special procedure areas, primary care). She has managed operations and organization-wide multidisciplinary projects in large multiple hos
Elaine is a Clinical Nursing and Healthcare Administration Leader with 40 years experience in primary, secondary, and tertiary care healthcare delivery settings (inpatient including ICU, outpatient and special procedure areas, primary care). She has managed operations and organization-wide multidisciplinary projects in large multiple hospital primary care, specialty care clinics, in-patient nursing units, and out-patient care settings. She has mentored and inspired staff to achieve challenging goals and enhance career opportunities, and led hospital nurse recruiting.
Elaine is a revenue enhancer through enhanced and ethical charge capture practices, and revenue workflow reconciliation. Elaine has also led teams in a variety of settings to obtain JCAHO accreditation and re-certification.
Elaine is a HealthCare IT Systems designer and implementer covering Electronic Medical Records, Billing and Coding using EPIC, Cerner and Meditech systems.
Her areas of expertise in clinical informatics include design and implementation of electronic medical records including charting, billing, prescription solutions, workflow optimization, regulatory compliance as well as systems implementation including training and team buy-in.
Elaine previously served as a Director of Clinical Informatics at Hill Country Memorial in Fredericksburg, Texas. While there, she was also the Director of Inpatient Services responsible for ICU and medical/surgical in-patient nursing care and clinic management.
Elaine presently is the Director of the Primary Care Medical Home at WellMed Medical Group, a 3-state ambulatory care provider. She has developed and helped implement COVID-19 vaccination processes and protocols at clinics and sites system-wide.
Elaine's leadership and management experience is at WellMed (San Antonio TX), Hill Country Memorial Hospital (Fredericksburg TX), the Allegheny Health Network, UPMC Health Plan (Pittsburgh PA), and at the University of Utah Hospitals & Clinics (Salt Lake City, Utah).
A Registered Nurse, Elaine's BSN is from Carroll College, Helena, Montana and her MS in Nursing Informatics is from the University of Utah.