Anyone who has taken care of aging parents or family members knows the agony of navigating all the doctors, insurance claims, and post-hospital care. That last one is its own special nightmare: once patients are discharged, they are basically on their own to find the right rehab facility, nursing home, or home healthcare agency.
And guess where that often leads? Right back to the hospital, which is a huge problem for everyone involved, especially the patient.
Hospitals can only do so much to aid patients after they leave the premises—but maybe, just maybe, technology can improve the process. That’s the idea behind a startup called CarePort Health, which makes online software to help patients and clinicians find post-hospital facilities and track the recovery process.
The Boston startup has just closed $2.2 million in new funding led by Baseline Ventures. Other participating investors include CommonAngels Ventures, Excelerate Health Ventures, Generator Ventures, Launch Capital, 500 Startups, and angel investor Andy Palmer. CarePort went through the Techstars Boston accelerator program in 2012 and has raised a total of $3.8 million to date.
CarePort CEO and co-founder Lissy Hu is an alum of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Business School (that’s a lot of years and training), so she sees the problem from both a healthcare and a business perspective. What CarePort’s software does is collect and analyze data from post-acute care organizations; it then tries to help match a patient’s needs and preferences to the right provider, via features like virtual tours and a facility rating system.
That’s much easier said than done: A lot of this hinges on the quality of the data about such facilities. But the company’s tools are already being used by institutions including Massachusetts General Hospital and the Cleveland Clinic.
In addition to signing up more customers, the next step for CarePort seems to be to dive deeper into collaborative healthcare—helping patients, doctors, and families stay on the same page when it comes to managing care and recovery long-term. While technology by itself isn’t enough to solve most healthcare problems, technology that enhances community and brings the constituents closer together seems like a step in the right direction.
