A Denver-based digital health company has raised $3.6 million in seed funding in a bid to expand an acute care service, according to a company statement. It uses mobile cars with acute care clinicians, a CLIA-certified lab, medical devices, medications and a network of mobile radiology providers to administer care in homes, offices or senior care facilities. The seed funding will help it expand its services and customer base.
Among its investors is EMP Holdings. It’s the majority shareholder in one of the largest physician-owned emergency medicine companies, and was an investor in iTriage (acquired by Aetna in 2011), and StatHealth (acquired in 2015 by Teledoc). Dr. Peter Hudson who was the CEO of iTriage, has a seat on Dispatch Health’s board.
So far, a South metro Denver municipality deploys its service when cases are pressing but don’t rise to the emergency that, say, a chest pain or stroke would. By deploying its service it hopes to save the $2500 average cost of an ambulance ride.
A spokeswoman for the company told MedCity News in a phone interview it regards its service as an expansion of the hospital’s care team. In October, it plans to roll out an app.
The company got its start in 2013 and was previously known as True North Health Navigation, when it was founded by former mobile health executives, Dr. Mark Prather and Kevin Riddleberger. Prather, the CEO, said in a statement:
“Whether caring for an elderly parent, an injured or ill child, or facing an acute illness or injury themselves, consumers now have a new option to address individual healthcare needs without the expense, inconvenience and time requirements often associated with urgent and emergency care facilities. Dispatch Health’s network is unique relative to our competitors because we have employer relationships, senior care relationships, payer contracts and 911 diversion efforts in place, as well as the common direct to consumer approach we have begun to see in the marketplace.”
Several companies have sought to claim a slice of the growing concierge care industry, but most services have drawn a clear line between the non emergency care they offer and the emergency services a hospital is better qualified to provide. Dispatch Health seems to be something of a hybrid. That makes it more complex for investors to understand and raises some questions for its would-be patients about how much the service costs and what would be covered.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Photo: Flickr user Steeleman204
