Austin—Athenahealth is buying an Austin, TX, software company with a service that aims to help healthcare providers encourage patients to follow a healthcare plan they might receive after a visit to a doctor or hospital.
Watertown, MA-based Athenahealth (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ATHN]]) is paying an undisclosed amount for Filament Labs, a three-year-old startup that does business as Patient IO, the name of its patient-focused software app. The company had previously raised $2.6 million in cash from Athenahealth, San Antonio’s Geekdom Fund, Mercury Fund, RPM Ventures, and Boulder, CO-based Techstars Ventures. (It has raised $3.3 million total, including debt that was converted into equity.)
After visiting a hospital, healthcare providers typically prescribe patients a plan to follow before the next visit, such as how to manage medication, tracking side effects, and reading education materials, co-founder and CEO Jason Bornhorst said during an interview in February. Patient IO’s smartphone-focused application tool was built to help patients do that, while offering healthcare providers an administrative dashboard, which syncs with existing electronic health record systems.
That’s Patient IO’s differentiating point from the various other “coordinated care” tools offered on the market today, according to Bornhorst. Patient IO has application program interfaces (APIs) built to fully integrate and interface with existing medical record systems, he said.
“We’ve taken a very robust, technical approach to care coordination with an eye toward how software like this can integrate with every workflow in healthcare, via APIs,” Bornhorst said at the time.
With the acquisition, Athenahealth plans to make Patient IO the basis for its patient-facing mobile app, called AthenaWell. The company works with some 80,000 healthcare providers around the nation on electronic health records and care coordination.
Bornhorst is joining Athenahealth as executive director of product strategy, as are his co-founders, Brian Gambs and Colin Anawaty. Bornhorst helped sell another company when he lived in Ann Arbor, MI: In 2010, Expedia bought Mobiata, which made mobile travel applications such as FlightTrack and TripDeck.
Filament Labs participated in Techstars Austin in 2013.
