PatientPing, a care coordination business that gets its name from the real-time notifications or “pings” provider customers get whenever their patients receive care at other facilities, has closed a $31.6 million Series B round, according to a news release. The fresh capital will help the company scale its network of healthcare facilities and add the staff needed to support that growth, PatientPing CEO and Cofounder Jay Desai noted in response to emailed questions.
Unlike many digital health startups, PatientPing doesn’t seem to be trapped in the purgatory of endless pilot studies. In response to emailed questions, Desai said it currently has “hundreds of paying customers” that include accountable care organizations, health systems and post-acute facilities “with thousands of organizations and providers sharing data with us.”
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PatientPing’s 15,000 provider customers want to track when patients are readmitted to the hospital and where discharged patients go. Providers at the facilities where patients receive care can obtain care instructions such as contact information for members of the patient’s care team and patient visit histories, the news release said. PatientPing’s customers view this kind of data liquidity as an asset.
In April, the business inked a deal with Vermont Information Technology Leaders and every hospital in the state to bring our care coordination service statewide. It has also added skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, and federally qualified health centers to its network.
Desai said the company currently works with health systems in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Vermont and New Hampshire. It is close to announcing several more new markets on the West Coast, in the Mid Atlantic region, and in Midwestern states, he said in an email.
Andreessen Horowitz and Leerink Transformation Partners led the latest fundraise. Other investors in PatientPing include GV (formerly known as Google Ventures), FPrime Capital, First Round Capital and SV Angel. PatientPing has raised $41.2 million to date, including $9.6 million last year through seed and Series A rounds.
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“We want to at least double the size of our approximately 50-person team in 2017,” Desai said. “We believe firmly in our product and our mission, which is to connect providers to seamlessly coordinate patient care and are thrilled to have the support from leading investors who feel similarly. We cannot wait for what the future has in store.”
With no easy fix for interoperability, several different groups are attempting to solve the data sharing conundrum bit by bit. There are state and regional initiatives, positive lip service from the CommonWell Health Alliance and Carequality frameworks and health IT startups like PatientPing. One challenge with some of these approaches is they risk creating new silos that inevitably shut out all but their customers and network members.
Desai noted that there’s no cost to help others in the PatientPing community know when patients are receiving care at any participating hospital.
“If any participants want to know when their patients receive care elsewhere, we charge based on the size of the patient panel. We are affordably priced.”
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