relatively short period, it’s helpful to know how those in the industry regard Health Level Seven International (HL7), the organization that oversees the most prevalent software used to transfer healthcare data between care providers, government agencies, healthcare services companies, patients, and others.
“HL7 is inherently not bad, but it’s definitely not modern,” Soelberg says. “What Redox is offering is a way for new technologies to increase their exposure to large health systems at a rate we haven’t seen before.”
One Redox customer is ER Express, an Atlanta-based startup whose software lets patients with non-life-threatening ailments virtually “check in” to an emergency room or urgent care center and wait at home until a clinician is almost ready to see them.
Sahil Patel, the co-founder and CEO of ER Express, uses an electricity analogy to explain how Redox’s software tools make it easy for companies like his to integrate with electronic health records systems.
“Redox is like a power outlet,” Patel says. “You can think of the hospital as the house and companies like us as things that plug in, whether it’s a blender, a lamp, or a laptop. You can buy these things and plug them into any outlet in any house in the U.S. That’s pretty powerful.”
The integration required is fairly straightforward. Soelberg says ER Express hands off requests to Redox, which notifies the emergency room or urgent care facility of the pending arrival. Then, after patients receive care and are discharged from the hospital, updates flow back to ER Express via Redox.
For software makers like ER Express, using Redox’s software means only having to set up a single connection, and then being able to interact with electronic health records systems developed by vendors like Epic, Cerner (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CERN]]), and Athenahealth (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ATHN]]). That’s more cost-effective than setting up point-to-point connections for each application, which Soelberg says generally cost about $30,000 to $50,000 apiece. He says integrating with Redox is “several orders of magnitude less expensive,” and that the company charges customers a monthly $500 subscription fee.
During its brief lifespan, Redox has been selected to participate in three accelerators for healthtech startups. Earlier this year, it graduated from Dreamit Health Baltimore and TMCx, which are affiliated with Johns Hopkins University and Houston’s Texas Medical Center, respectively. And just last week, Redox entered the Healthbox Studio program in Salt Lake City, an accelerator associated with Intermountain Healthcare.
Soelberg says one reason Redox chose to take part in the three programs is their ties to large networks of hospitals and clinics. The strategy has paid off with new sales, he adds. “We’ve been able to establish partnerships at each of our accelerators.”
This week, Soelberg and other Redox employees are traveling to the San Francisco Bay Area with a delegation of entrepreneurs, economic development officials, and others representing the Madison area. He says Redox has additional meetings with investors scheduled, as the company begins work on its next financing round.
