Electronic Health Reporter

StartUp Health, a global start up platform accelerating health and wellness innovation, announces the addition of 14 digital health companies to its exclusive long-term coaching program and community.

The 14 companies represent an “entrepreneurs focused on building digital health companies that target some of the biggest challenges in healthcare,” according to the release announcing the news.

The companies include a broad spectrum from home healthcare, genomics, aging, sensors, patient and physician engagement, mobile health and wellness, nutrition analysis, concierge medicine, care coordination, and price transparency.

“We have received more than 1,200 applications from 22 different countries and have developed a process to hand-select and vet each healthcare transformer,” said Bari Krein, who leads StartUp Health’s review committee. “We work hard to select passionate digital health innovators who follow a “batteries-included” motto and care as much about growing a great business as they do about collaborating as a peer group to help each other succeed.”

The new StartUp Health companies and healthcare transformers include:

@Point of Care360
[Sub-sector focus: Patient Engagement; Physician Engagement; Point of Care Reference]
Robert Stern is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to provide clinician and patient collaboration for positive patient outcomes. Robert is the founder and CEO of @Point of Care360 (@pointofcare360), a continually updated point-of-care reference tool and platform for the clinician, which interfaces with customized real-time patient-care journals. Robert is also the founder, president and CEO of Projects In Knowledge and founder and past president and CEO of MedPage Today, which was acquired by Everyday Health in December 2010.

1eq
[Sub-sector focus: Genomics; Wellness; Behavior Change]
Anish Sebastian and Juan Pablo Segura are on a mission to make living a healthy lifestyle more personable and actionable. 1eq (@1eqhealth) leverages both genetics and lifestyle information, provided through wireless devices and mobile apps, to produce a more comprehensive health picture and actionable steps for its users to live a better and healthier life.

AdhereTech
[Sub-sector focus: Medicine Adherence]
Michael Morena, John Langhauser and Josh Stein are developing the future of prescription drug packaging. AdhereTech (@adheretech) has built a patented smart pill bottle to improve medication adherence. The bottle automatically determines the amount of medication in real-time, and wirelessly transmits this HIPAA-compliant data to the cloud via a Verizon network. If a patient hasn’t taken his/her medication, AdhereTech reminds the patient via phone call or text message, as well as via on-bottle lights and chimes. The company has secured trials with research institutions and pharma companies.

CoheroHealth
[Sub-sector focus: Home Health; Mobile Health; Medicine Adherence]
Melissa Manice, PhD, MPH, is on a mission to give kids the tools to change their health. CoheroHealth (@coherohealth) has created AsthmaHero, a mobile solution for kids with chronic asthma, incorporating an inhaler sensor and mobile application to track real-time adherence and mobile spirometry through an engaging, gamified patient interface.

DataGenno
[Sub-sector focus: Genomics; Big Data]
Fabricio F. Costa, PhD, and Marcelo P. Coutinho, MD, MsC, are on a mission to facilitate information exchange about genetic and rare diseases to translate the latest advances into effective clinical interventions. DataGenno (@datagenno) is an online medical information company created to be the one-stop source of information on genetic diseases and syndromes, connecting both clinical and molecular aspects of genetic diseases in a fully interactive environment.

Edamam
[Sub-sector focus: Wellness; Nutritional Analysis]
Edamam (@edamamco), founded by serial entrepreneur Victor Penev, is organizing the world’s food knowledge. The company provides cost-effective, on-the-fly nutritional analysis and diet labeling to businesses and consumers through its proprietary semantic food and nutrition knowledge database and natural language processing algorithms. Edamam aims to become the default digital nutrition engine of the web.

Gene By Gene
[Sub-sector focus: Analytics; Big Data; Genomics]
Gene By Gene, Ltd. (@gxgene) is a leader in genetic DNA testing with ancestry and medical solutions. Founded in 2000 as the world’s first company to develop consumer DNA testing for ancestry and genealogy applications, Gene by Gene provides a comprehensive approach to diagnostics tests, including AABB certified relations tests, genome sequencing, data management and computational analysis. Gene by Gene is headquartered in Houston, TX, which is also home to its state-of-the-art CLIA registered Genomics Research Center and Lab. Gene by Gene recently acquired StartUp Health company Arpeggi.

Medicast
[Sub-sector focus: Concierge Medicine; Home Health]
Sam Zebarjadi, Sahba Ferdowsi, MD, and Nafis Zebarjadi are on a mission to make it easy for anyone to receive access to a doctor with the click of a button. The Medicast (@medicast) web and mobile platform provides consumers with 24-hour on-demand medical services, including delivering high quality, compassionate doctors directly to a patient’s home, office, or hotel.

Ondello
[Sub-sector focus: Home Health; Patient Relationship Management; Concierge Medicine; Telehealth]
Mark Hadfield, a serial entrepreneur, is on a mission to revolutionize the home care market and simplify how doctors and patients connect online. Ondello (@ondellortc) delivers WebRTC-based software services that enable healthcare providers to seamlessly communicate in real-time with patients through in-context chat, video and voice.

Respondesign
[Sub-sector focus: Patient Relationship Management; Home Health; Wellness]
John Grispon, Ted Spooner and Jason Leighton are on a mission to increase patient engagement in physical therapy for more effective PT treatment and reduced readmissions. Respondesign’s flagship product, FitWorld (@fitworldapp), is a Kinect-based rehabilitation therapy platform that targets all segments of rehab – from falls prevention and disease management to orthopedic and pulmonary rehab. The platform also enables therapists to deliver an engaging, personalized program that includes patient monitoring and clinician reporting for in-clinic and at home usage.

RxApps
[Sub-sector focus: Mobile Health; Patient Engagement; Wellness]
John Moore is on a mission to ensure that patients’ emotional well-being is seen as equally relevant to their clinical health as any biometric measure. RxApps (@rxapps) supplements standard management of chronic illness using customizable text message prompts to track patient health, experience and behavior metrics that influence outcomes.

Sense Health
[Sub-sector focus: Mobile Health; Patient Engagement; Patient Relationship Management; Home Health]
Stan Berkow, Brad Hammonds and Paul Biancaniello are on a mission to engage people with their health and improve patient support. Sense Health (@sensehealth) unlocks the potential of mobile health support for patients by giving healthcare professionals a mobile platform to easily create, deliver and monitor interactive support plans for their patients in between appointments.

TedCas
[Sub-sector focus: Hands-free Medical Care; Sensors and Tracking]
Jesús Pérez-Llano (@jesusperezllano), Enrique Muñoz, Daniel Calvo, Gerardo Caballero, and the rest of the TedCas team are on a mission to unleash the potential of touchless devices such as Kinect or LEAP inside the health sector. TedCas (@tedcas), powered by Wayra and Sodena, allows doctors to control and manipulate software through gestures and voice commands, without touching, saving time and reducing potential infections.

Yingo Yango
[Sub-sector focus: Wellness; Mobile Health; Employer Health; Patient Relationship Management]
Marty Jaramillo (@martyjaramillo) and his team are on a mission to unite the highly fragmented health/wellness industry. Yingo Yango (@yingoyango) is a white-label, stand alone, mobile patient engagement platform that integrates ecosystems of care. The platform is designed to maximize long-term employee/patient engagement, reduce readmissions, as well as brand clients as health minded, patient centric, and caring organizations. The low cost “connecting the dots” solution is designed for corporations, carriers, and providers.

StartUp Health Stats as of October 2013

~ Total Companies: 46
~ Total Raised to Date: $106 Million
~ International Companies: four companies (Brazil, Israel, Ireland, Spain)
~ Physician/Practitioner Founders: 15
~ Serial Entrepreneurs: 16
~ Women Founders: 11
~ Seed Accelerator Grads: 13
~ Sub-sector Focus: Advocacy; Aging; Behavior Change; Big Data; Brain Health; Care Coordination; Care Planning; Chronic Disease; Concierge Medicine; Diagnostics; Fitness; Genomics; Hands-free Medical Care; Home Health; Med Research Services; Medicine Adherence; Mobile Health; Neurotherapy; Nutritional Analysis; Patient Engagement; Patient Relationship Management; Physician Engagement; Physician Networks; Price Transparency; Social Health Content; Sensors and Tracking; Telehealth; Wellness
~StartUp Health invites between 10 to 20 companies each quarter to join its exclusive three-year entrepreneurship program