PULSE@MassChallenge picks 32 for digital health cohort

Boston skyline along the Harborwalk

Building on the strong response to its inaugural digital health cohort this year, PULSE@MassChallenge expanded on the theme of champions such as hospitals, insurance, technology and pharma companies picking the startups they want to work with. The 2018 cohort will pair two champions with each of the 32 startups selected for the six-month program.

The PULSE program is geared to later stage companies that are ready to scale, have raised no more than $5 million, and generate under $5 million in revenue. The goal of the program is to hook up selected startups with strategic relationships, resources, mentoring, and community access needed to create an impact in digital health. Like a growing number of accelerator programs, PULSE@MassChallenge takes no equity from the companies.

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Although it would seem like the priorities of say, a pharma company and a hospital would differ, Nick Dougherty, the program director for PULSE, said in a phone interview that the champions did a good job of finding partners with shared goals.

Although Boston Children’s and Cerner were the only partners he called out by name, other examples of partners working with a startup included a pharma company and a provider, and a payer with a provider.

“What you get is a clinically valuable technology that is also highly implementable,” Dougherty said.

He noted that one partnership he was particularly pleased with was that the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs will work with the state’s eHealth Initiative, which oversees the digital health initiative. Another was AARP and Campbell’s Soup.

There’s been a lot of interest in developing technology to support the ability for seniors to live independently for longer from having a way for family caregivers to remotely monitor them, medication adherence and neurological assessments to identify cognitive function changes earlier.

The incoming class has more geographic diversity — only 15 startups taking part are from Massachusetts compared with 21 last year. Here are the members of the cohort

Astarte Medical Partners, which was a finalist in the Impact Pediatric Health competition at SXSW this year, developed a clinical decision support tool for Neonatal care physicians. The product gives an overview of clinical data in real time to assess the state of a preterm infant’s gut health. The company is based in Yardley, Pennsylvania.

Epharmix in St. Louis developed a platform that combines triage with patient outreach to follow-up through automated phone calls and emails with the sickest 20 percent of the patient population through disease-specific interventions. The company has received investment from Health X Ventures and cofounder and Chief Financial/Operations officer JoeMcDonald highlighted the challenges of implementing population health technology in an article for the MedCitizen section of MedCity News last year.

Epion Health in New Jersey has been on the scene for awhile, The practice management support business is aimed at improving the check-in process for doctor’s offices. Its tablet interface helps practices get patients’ medical history, medication information. It also helps practices with collections by having patients review their insurance policy, co-pay and outstanding balance information. Relevant data entered by patients can be integrated with a patient’s electronic health record.

Check out the rest of the cohort members below:

aam
Massachusetts

Aluna
California

BOLD Medical Partners
Illinois

Day Zero Diagnostics
Massachusetts

DeepHealth
Massachusetts

DocFlight
New York

DynamiCare Health
Massachusetts

Edification Project
Massachusetts

Epidemic Solutions
Massachusetts

Fitly
Pennsylvania

Folia Health, Inc.
Massachusetts