The moment Kevin Volkema heard the pitch for a dialysis access monitoring device, he knew it was a good idea. The concept was the brainchild of Richie Li, MD, a vascular surgery resident at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, who noticed that too many dialysis patients were struggling to maintain a reliable access point for the critical procedure. Dr. Volkema and Li met through an interdisciplinary program designed to bring new medical innovations to market. And now, they’re partners in a new company that’s poised to do just that, proving that great things happen when worlds collaborate.
Dr. Volkema’s interest in business began while he was a medical student at Midwestern University. “I started to have this itch,” said Volkema, who wanted to help patients but also felt drawn to the business side of medicine. So, after successfully landing a job in family practice, he entered Gies College of Business’ fully online MBA program – known as the iMBA®.
The program was perfect for his situation, allowing him to pursue his career while developing key business skills. Eventually, he became the regional medical director at his health system, which meant he was directly applying the things he was learning in class. At the same time, he was also participating in interesting courses, like MBA 590: Carle Medical Capstone, which appealed to his entrepreneurial nature.
The unique course, hosted jointly between Gies College of Business, Carle Illinois College of Medicine, and The Grainger College of Engineering, is an immersive, year-long project that joins business and medical students in a challenge to identify medical problems and develop marketable products that solve them. In this case, however, Dr. Volkema wasn’t only a business student; he was a physician administrator. So, he instantly grasped the problem that Li was trying to resolve.
For dialysis patients, it’s essential to have a reliable access point where blood can be removed from the body, cleaned, and returned. And a fistula is one of the best ways to create that. The small, medical procedure links an artery to a vein, providing a convenient access point that’s less prone to infection than other methods. There’s just one issue. And for dialysis patients, it’s a big one.
“The problem is that you’re changing natural physiology,” said Volkema. “That means that fistulas have a really high failure rate.”
In fact, as many as 40% of fistulas fail in the first year. If the problem isn’t detected within 48 hours, it can be difficult and expensive to repair and often requires a complex hospitalization. The partners’ innovation, called Beacon, helps solve that by creating a wearable ultrasound device patients can use to check the health of their fistula as part of their daily care routine.
The new tool also has several applications outside the dialysis space, which means their company, Auvi Labs, has been garnering a lot of interest. In 2024, they earned second place in the Cozad New Venture Challenge, a campuswide startup competition managed by Grainger Engineering’s Landuyt Center for Entrepreneurship and co-sponsored by Gies Business’ Origin Ventures Office of Entrepreneurship. This year, they were featured in Crain’s Chicago Business, further raising their profile.
Dr. Volkema says there are still many challenges between now and potential production, including the first human trials, which will be conducted at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana. But he feels prepared for what’s ahead, thanks to the support he received at Gies Business.
“With the capstone, you have a really awesome group of mentors – people who have been in the field who can really bring you along and challenge your business assumptions,” said Volkema, who was equally impressed by his experience in the Cozad New Venture Challenge.
“The amount of financial support that participating companies receive has increased every year. The number of judges and the number of people attending all continue to grow. And I think it really shows how Gies Business has planted the seed for development, innovation, and entrepreneurship within the business school.”
Gies Business also brings that interdisciplinary approach to its new Healthcare Innovation, Design, and Entrepreneurship (HIDE) graduate certificate. Developed with Carle Illinois College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, and the University of Illinois' Siebel Center for Design, HIDE is available within the iMBA and as a standalone graduate certificate. The three-course sequence helps learners identify meaningful healthcare needs, develop practical solutions, and build strategies that support adoption.