One year after it was announced, the New York Digital Health Accelerator birthed its first clutch of startups on Wednesday at a demo day—including one acquisition deal in the mix.
Pared down from some 250 applicants from across the U.S. and 10 countries, the eight startups in this class created platforms for referrals for post-acute care facilities and used data analytics to help reduce readmissions to hospitals. The accelerator is run by the New York eHealth Collaborative and the Partnership Fund for New York City. In addition to guidance from advisors and mentors, the startups in the nine-month accelerator program were given access to data from the Statewide Health Information Network of New York.
Only seven of the eight companies in the class demoed yesterday though—and that was not a bad thing. Remedy Systems, which developed a care coordination platform, got acquired in February by Remedy Partners. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Maria Gotsch, president and CEO of the Partnership Fund, says feedback from investors and healthcare providers who worked with the accelerator will be used to fine-tune future iterations of the program. The accelerator’s mission will likely expand, she says, to address more issues that healthcare providers want addressed. “This year was a pretty tight focus on four areas: care coordination, analytics, patient engagement and alerts,” she says. Those issues were chosen, Gotsch says, based on needs expressed by hospitals.
The Partnership Fund has been pushing a number of initiatives to get more companies growing and creating jobs in the city. The health accelerator drew some of its structure from the FinTech Innovation Lab program, Gotsch says, and can accommodate up to twelve startups at a time. “This was a mix of early-stage companies that did not have their first pilot [programs] to people that had technology in a couple of hospitals,” she says.
The first class got underway last September and—in aggregate—the startups raised $5 million, which includes $2.4 million already invested in the companies and a pledge by the accelerator to invest another $1.3 million. The next run of the New York Digital Health Accelerator is expected to be announced soon.
The companies that presented yesterday were:
ActualMeds: Software helps manage medication, particularly for high-risk patients who take multiple drugs.
Aidin: Platform to help patients and their families pick rehab centers and nursing homes for post-acute care.
Avado: A platform for clinicians and patients to communicate and manage health information.
CipherHealth: Uses mobile technology to make sure patients adhere to their discharge instructions after leaving hospitals.
Cureatr: Messaging system for scheduling and paging to improve communication and care coordination among health care providers.
MedCPU: A system that lets advisors alert physicians to deviations from clinical best practice protocols.
SpectraMD: Analytics platform for tracking performance at health care organizations in financial, operational, clinical and other areas.
