WELL Health, a provider of patient communications solutions, has raised $45 million in a Series C funding round. This is the company’s first publicly announced investment, and it comes alongside the news that it has tapped Dr. Dana Gelb Safran, a founding executive at Haven, to serve in a senior vice president position.
WELL Health, which was established in 2015, provides a two-way digital health solution that allows clinicians to connect with patients via the patient’s preferred channel of communication — be it text, email, phone call or web chat. The solution allows for communication in multiple languages.
“WELL delivers what patients expect today — the ability to engage with their healthcare provider as easily as they’d text a friend,” said Guillaume de Zwirek, CEO and founder of WELL Health in a press release. “Although the pandemic fueled the adoption of digital health by many healthcare providers, patients today expect real-time, personalized communication, an expectation that will never fade.”
The company has raised $75 million since its inception, including the most recent funding round, which was led by Lead Edge Capital. Other investors in the Series C round included Martin Ventures, Jackson Square Ventures and Health Velocity Capital.
In addition to bringing new product features and capabilities to market, the company plans to use the new funds to build strategic partnerships, expand its reach and marketing presence in existing and new markets, and grow its customer service and support team, de Zwirek said in an email.
WELL Health serves more than 250 hospitals and health systems across the country, including Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and UnityPoint Health headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa. In the past year, the company has facilitated more than 1 billion patient communications for more than 30 million patients, de Zwirek added. The company also recently partnered with EHR giant Cerner Corp. to add new text message capabilities to the vendor’s patient portal.
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As part of its growth, the company has added Safran as senior vice president of value-based care and population health, de Zwirek said. In her new role, Safran will help expand the company’s use cases and focus on improving healthcare quality and affordability through partnerships with payers and accountable care organizations.
Safran was most recently a founding executive team member at Haven, the joint venture of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase. She also has experience as chief performance measurement and improvement officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Further, she has served on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission since 2017.
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