Startups:Digital Health Accelerator Program Accepting Applications

Last week, the New York eHealth Collaborative announced the New York Digital Health Accelerator (NTDHA) that is run by the NYeC in partnership with the NYCIF and the New York State Department of Health.  The program will fund 12 early- and growth-stage digital health companies that are developing cutting edge technology products for healthcare providers. Each  of the 12 chosen companies will be awarded up to $300,000 along with invaluable mentoring from senior-level executives at leading hospitals and other providers in New York. The focus areas of innovation will support the development of products that help the state’s Medicaid Redesign Team and its new “Health Homes” program, an initiative intended to make the state’s treatment of Medicaid patients more coordinated and efficient.

See online application form. Deadline for applications – Friday, June 1, 2012.

View the print application – Please note, you MUST fill out the online form linked above to submit your application. This PDF is provided only for informational purposes.

Who Should Apply? 

We are interested in early- and growth-stage companies where access to clinical and technical feedback from provider organizations could have a meaningful impact on the company’s development prospects. At a minimum, the company should have a beta version of its technology.

The application is open to any company, although the company must have a New York presence, at least for the duration of the program.

Pharmaceutical, biotech, surgical medical device, and diagnostic companies do not qualify for the program.

Products and technologies focused on our 4 focus areas are invited to apply:

Care Coordination

• Collaborative care solutions that reflect the continuum of information on a patient and support team based care, management of patients by risk category, secure messaging, and transitions of care.

Analytics

• Retrospective and predictive analyses related to care coordination, quality management, and decision support. Tools capable of identifying high risk patients and notifying patients of follow-up care appointments, based on standard criteria for risk. Analytic capabilities that take into account both quality and financial measures to adequately identify risk. Statistical tools related to quality improvement and public health reporting.

Message Alerts

• Alert tools that provide a secure and standardized messaging environment for accurate communication and information exchange between transferring and receiving provider.
• Clinical decision support including point-of-care alerts indicating transitions in care settings, hospitalizations, medication changes, discharges, non-medical referrals, other medical changes to care plan.

Patient Engagement

• Personal health management solutions that facilitate better healthcare decisions, and help improve communication on care management between the provider and the patient and/or family members. Patient engagement tools need to span the possibilities of innovation and present a wide range of options that allow for easy access by patients.
• Examples of innovations in this focus area include but are not limited to telehealth, consent management, patient portals, personal health records, medication adherence, caregiver tools, appointment scheduling, tools that facilitate self-management and capture health risk behaviors, preventive care elements, community resources, health and wellness tools, patient understandable lab results, etc.

The program’s unique feature is that it offers participants the opportunity to engage directly with a broad network of providers in New York State, including hospitals, long-term care providers, community health centers, and primary care providers. Tech companies accepted into the program will receive direct mentorship and feedback from senior-level executives with the participating providers. In addition, companies will have priority access to the technology platform that is connecting electronic health records across New York State, the Statewide Health Information Network of New York (SHIN-NY). The program will provide up to $300,000 of funding per company from a syndicate of leading venture capital and strategic investors. In addition, winners will have the opportunity to meet other leading digital and tech entrepreneurs in the New York community. This program will leverage the $840 million investment made in New York to adopt electronic health records, and the investment made by New York eHealth Collaborative to create the SHIN-NY, connecting these EHRs across the state. The participating providers are actively looking for new technology products that will help them effectively implement the new Health Homes model, which is part of New York’s Medicaid redesign initiative. Approximately 975,000 patients with multiple chronic illnesses are being transitioned from fee-for-service to this new managed care model, which will require a higher level of coordination among the patients’ various care providers.

18 leading healthcare providers have agreed to participate in the program:

• Albany Medical Center
• Catholic Health System
• Community Healthcare Network
• Continuum Health Partners
• Ellis Medicine
• FEGS Health and Human Services System
• Finger Lakes Community Health
• Hometown Health Centers
• Hudson Valley Initiative
• Institute for Family Health
• Maimonides Medical Center
• NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation
• New York-Presbyterian Hospital
• North Shore LIJ Health System
• NYU Langone Medical Center
• Stony Brook University Medical Center
• Visiting Nurse Service of Schenectady and Saratoga Counties
• Winthrop University Hospital