A health IT company that has developed a predictive analytics platform designed to trigger important decisions based on re-admission risk and palliative care has raised $5 million in a Series A round.
In a phone interview, Dan Hogan, the CEO of Medalogix, told MedCity News that the funding would be used to expand the platform designed for post acute care patients to skilled nursing facilities and in-patient rehab for patients as they recover from major surgery.
Coliseum Capital Management, a hedge fund sponsor based in Stamford, Connecticut, was the sole investor in the round, Hogan said.
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Hogan started the company two years ago after running a home health agency. Medalogix has two main applications. One, Medalogix Home, uses clinical data to predict which patients are at greatest risk for re-admission. The other, its Bridge tool, uses clinical data to do a daily assessment to identify appropriate patients for hospice care.
Hogan points out that navigating the balance between doing everything to ensure a patient lives as long as possible with the challenging decisions facing patients and their families when the outcome is bleak is an area that’s tough for clinicians to do. One goal of the Bridge tool is to make that process easier by using clinical data to trigger conversations about whether to prolong hospital care and when to consider hospice care and whether the patient can live out the rest of their days at home and the quality of life issues that surround this sensitive area.
Although discussions about palliative care frequently get framed as more cost-effective than the alternatives, in a recent blog entry Hogan cited a 2010 study of patients with metastatic non small-cell lung cancer receiving early palliative care in the New England Journal of Medicine. It showed that patients receiving this care experienced less depression, improved quality of life and survived 2.7 months longer.