For two days last week, the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) hosted presentations and exhibits from 43 companies eager to show off their health IT initiatives. The gathering attracted big names like UnitedHealth and GE, as well as nine startups seeking to make a name in health IT. The organizers of NYeC were stunned by the demand for the event, which was their first: They had planned for 300 attendees and got 600 instead. “This broke all our expectations,” says David Whitlinger, NYeC’s executive director. “It gives momentum moving forward to health IT in New York.”
NYeC was formed in late 2006 as a public/private partnership between the New York Department of Health and companies working in health IT. It encompasses several programs that provide education and assistance to physicians and health facilities wanting to transition from paper-based records to electronic health records.
The organization is also trying to foster interactions between IT startups and the professionals they hope to serve, Whitlinger says. “For a number of years, health IT has not moved at a dot-com pace,” he says. “But the barriers are coming down now, and that presents opportunities for innovation.”
The conference served as a showcase for nine health IT startups, mostly based in New York. They were assembled by StartUp Health, a recently launched mentoring and support program for entrepreneurs interested in building companies focused
