It was graduation day for the eight members of New York eHealth Collaborative’s inaugural class for its digital health accelerator. But the second class, already in the planning stages, will also include patient and caregiver coordination in an expanded remit for its portfolio companies, according to David Whitlinger, the executive director of the New York eHealth Collaborative.
It runs the accelerator with the Partnership Fund for New York City. The graduating companies presented their technologies to an assembled group of investors, providers and supporters after playing with the statewide health information network or SHIN-NY for the past nine months. Their products were adjusted in collaboration with New York hospitals to improve care coordination between accountable care organizations and providers.
The companies’ offerings ranged from an automated system to follow-up with patients after they’re discharged to reduce preventable readmissions and healthcare costs (CipherHealth) to a patient-engagement platform to improve communication between patients and clinicians (Avado) to a tool to read and analyze unstructured text by physicians in electronic medical records and structured text in electronic medical records entries for signs of deviation to avoid medical errors (MedCPU). One member of the initial class, Remedy Systems, was acquired by bundled payment manager Remedy Partners in February.
The largest funded healthcare IT accelerator program in the country, the accelerator began with an initial investment of $4.2 million. Since its launch in September last year, the companies in the class have raised $5 million, hired 40 new staff and expect to add 41 more by the end of the year.
An additional $1.3 million will be invested in the portfolio companies, according to a statement from the Collaborative.
“We have already seen from the investment community a lot more desire to come play with this program and that’s because of what they see as the successful components–the ability to pair job stimulus with the public utility of the SHIN-NY and the richness of that data with the provider community or potentially customers as they are and really bring those together in one program.”
[Featured picture photo credit: Big Stock Photo Healthcare Network]
