Health IT, Hospitals, Startups

NantHealth launches Clinical Operating System – biggest of big data startups – with $1B

An indisputable star of the Startup Showcase at the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems […]

An indisputable star of the Startup Showcase at the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference is NantHealth, not so much for what it’s accomplished, but for who — and how much money — is behind it.

Culver City, Calif.-based NantHealth is backed by a $1 billion from pharmaceutical magnate Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, and represents the rollup of eight legacy companies started or purchased by Soon-Shiong. It officially launched in January after nearly two years in stealth mode under Soon-Shiong’s NantWorks umbrella.

The company announced its presence at HIMSS in Orlando, Fla., Monday by unveiling the NantHealth Clinical Operating System (cOS), an open, cloud-based platform for collecting and processing data to help deliver safer, more accountable care. NantHealth is positioning cOS as the “centerpiece” of this massive investment.

“NantHealth’s mission is to solve the chief problem plaguing our healthcare system, which is the lack of truly coordinated care connecting patients and their providers with actionable knowledge in time of need, at the point of care,” Soon-Shiong says in a press release. He is scheduled to make a brief appearance at HIMSS on Tuesday.

cOS relies on technology from iSirona, Net.Orange, Qi Imaging and Eviti – all companies Soon-Shiong has acquired in recent years – to pull in and process information from electronic health records, health information exchanges, billing claims and other data repositories, including genomic profiles. Genetics, genomics and personalized medicine have long been interests of Soon-Shiong. NANT, short for Nantan, is an Apache/Native American name meaning “he who speaks for the people.”

“We can aggregate all of this data from various, disparate data sources,” says David Dyell, senior vice president for product development at NantWorks. “Data they’re using today is trapped in EMRs.”

Dyell was CEO of medical device connectivity firm iSirona until NantHealth acquired his company last week.
The target market for cOS, according to Dyell includes accountable care organizations, integrated delivery networks, independent practice associations and large, self-insured employers—basically anyone looking to reduce hospital admissions and be more proactive in delivering healthcare. “We are trying to keep patients out of the hospital,” Dyell says.

The goal is to make clinical alerts and reminders “nearer to real time than other analytics platforms,” Dyell explains.

With cOS, NantWorks is exposing the service’s entire application programming interface to the development community. According to Dyell, three “very large organizations” are already building apps on the cOS platform, though he is not ready to reveal any names.

“We are going down the ‘app store’ path,” Dyell says. Expect this service to launch in a few months.

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