A new social enterprise is using product innovation to solve a human healthcare problem by revolutionizing patient attire. SEE Change spoke with GIV Gowns co-founder Shawn Gibbs about what inspired the business, its vision, and how he’s helping people feel more confident, dignified and empowered during a typically vulnerable time in their lives.
GIV Gowns co-founder Shawn Gibbs is tackling a traditional challenge he often witnessed while practicing in the healthcare industry
Tell us briefly about you
My background is a mix of healthcare and entrepreneurship. I’ve spent 15 years as a medical provider in family medicine, specialty care, and I was a founder, co-owner, and head of operations of a dermatology practice. I’ve been involved in the formation and operations of some other businesses in and outside of healthcare over that same time period.
How did you learn about the challenge that inspired your business?
Through firsthand experience seeing patients is how I witnessed the challenge that inspired my business. After years of watching otherwise confident, capable patients instantly lose their dignity and confidence the moment they put on a traditional patient medical gown, I realized this was a problem worth fixing. To put a name to the challenge, it is indignity and inefficiency in our current healthcare system that I believe can be solved by what GIV is bringing to the table.
Patients’ dignity and comfort are not being taken into account as evidenced by what they are forced to wear when they go see their providers. This leads to a lack of care as they often avoid the doctor’s office because of those gowns. That creates more stress on the system as a whole, as patients are waiting until they are in dire straits before seeking care requiring more resources than otherwise would be needed had they been seeking appropriate care along the way, not avoiding it. Hundreds of patients over 15 years told me they themselves avoided care, and there is data to support that they aren’t the only ones.
The other side of that coin are the providers that are often backed into a corner, wanting to practice the way they were taught in their training, but often being hindered by uncomfortable patients who often won’t allow for a full and thorough exam due to feeling overexposed in the current medical gowns of today. This leads to undue stress on the providers who are having to notate that they performed an exam that was not up to an expected standard, but the patient chose not to allow it, and now everyone hopes for the best and that doesn’t come back to bite them in a few years.
How did you come up with the idea for GIV Gowns?
Again, through clinical practice I saw the need and decided that someone should do something about it. Over time I started to realize that the best person to do something about it was me, having a mixed background of medicine and business I could come at the problem from a unique perspective of what patients, providers, and medical businesses as a whole ALL need in order to see a benefit and make a change to GIV as the new Gold Standard of healthcare attire globally. As I came across a situation with a standard gown that was frustrating and required adjustments to clinical practice norms, I would write them down and what would need to be true with another gown in order to address that issue. Our GIV Gowns collection gives providers solutions to all of those and many more problems I and many other colleagues face daily in clinical practice.
Tell us a bit more about the business – how long you’ve been in operations, where you’re based, your mission?
GIV has only been in operation since September of 2025, but the framework to GIV has been being built in the background since January 2023 between my and my co-founder. We are based in Utah, just south of Salt Lake City.
Our mission is to become the new gold standard of healthcare attire globally through our innovation, ability to create and address new problems with our solutions, and our patient and provider-centric driven products. Our mission is to create a company that is always GIV’ing, hence the name. We GIV a better healthcare experience to patients, to providers, to administrators and operators and the underserved around the world. When that happens, the entire healthcare ecosystem thrives by putting those needs at the forefront of everything we do at GIV.
What’s your business model and who are your primary clients?
Our business model includes a salesforce of experienced sales professionals to get our products into the hands of the end users; the patients, providers, and staff. Currently we are operating in the US, but have intentions to provide our solutions globally by the end of 2026. We use social media, podcast interviews, articles and others, as ways to spread the message of what we are doing and its impact. We also are working on some strategic partnerships to help support some of our upcoming products that are in the final stages of development and should hit the market this year. We are really excited about some of these new verticals in healthcare and addressing those needs.
Our primary clients are anyone who is currently using medical gowns in their facilities, and I could make a case that even those that aren’t should be in order to give optimal care to their patients. The facilities that have been the quickest to implement out of the gate have been dermatology, plastic surgery, medical spa, and other elective medicine spaces, but we are yet to have a conversation where the concept and solution isn’t recognized as needed and desired.
Can you share the measurable impact you’ve had so far?
Despite being a new company, we measure our impact through the testimonials of the patients and providers who have made the decision to implement GIV into the businesses. Patients are voicing “finally being thought about,” and “I felt so special,” among others. Providers are using phrases like, “I’m so glad someone finally did something about those horrible old gowns, I hated those things,” and “man, it’s about time those things died,” referring to standard cloth gowns.
There’s the example of how the gown helped a 12-year old boy, recently diagnosed with cancer and having to spend months in the hospital. We created a GIV Classic Gown for him that looked like his lacrosse jersey, and all of his teammates signed it. Now that gown is what he wears during his hospital stays. That GIV Gown reminds him that he has people in his corner, and that he is more than just a patient in a bed. He is thought about and being considered every second of his difficult journey.
Another example is of an older man, stuck in his bed for lack of strength. His caretaker spends hours with him and expressed how difficult it was to get him in and out of clothing to bathe and take care of his other basic needs. She tried a traditional cotton gown, not knowing about GIV Gowns, and found it to be incredibly revealing, and was embarrassing for the patient. We supplied her with a GIV Forward gown that closes in the front, is more comfortable, immediately provides more dignity, and makes it easier to take care of his physical needs.
Measuring patient dignity and comfort goes beyond numbers and percentages for us. We’re committed to reimagining healthcare for patients and providers to make sure thorough care is provided while ensuring comfort and privacy for the patient is a top priority.
What are the greatest challenges you face today in meeting your goals?
One, is getting the word out to people that there is another solution, and that GIV provides it. Second, is educating providers who have never known anything different than current medical gowns, that patients actually do care about what they wear when they see their doctor. That there is a subset of people avoiding care because of current medical gowns – and that GIV Gowns were developed to be a clinical tool for providers, not just a fancy new version of the old thing.
A third challenge is overcoming the barrier of everyone wanting a better solution that meets everyone’s criteria, makes everyone happier, elevates the healthcare experience, feels, looks, and operates at a level not seen in healthcare in over one hundred years, but at a price cheaper than the paper towels and starchy open-backed things they wear today. One of those things does not fit……
What’s your vision long-term?
As mentioned earlier, our vision long term is to create lasting impact in people’s lives, to change and even potentially save lives in the case of people not seeking or not getting the appropriate level of healthcare currently. Our vision is to be a signal that people can look to in the healthcare space that is founded in GIV’ing to every life that it touches.
Our GIV Back Initiative uniquely positions us to take needed healthcare supplies, food, clothing, or meet any other need we find by setting aside a percentage of each gown sold to that end. Our vision includes growing the Initiative to reach more people, affect more lives, and GIV more peace to a world in turmoil.
It is possible, and we are going to do it. This is why GIV was created. This is GIV’s ultimate purpose.