Health Gorilla, one of the initial Qualified Health Information Networks under TEFCA, has launched an accelerator program to give early-stage healthcare startups access to the company’s portfolio of healthcare data application programming interfaces (APIs), software, and services.
The company is now accepting HG Accelerator applications at this link. Ideal applicants will be based in the U.S., have raised less than $3 million in financing, and must involve or serve as a business associate of a healthcare provider, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company said.
During the three-month program, startups accepted into the program receive full and free access to Health Gorilla's portfolio of products, including access to comprehensive clinical data, diagnostic data, pharmacy data, and social determinants of health (SDOH) data through Health Gorilla's national network of data sources. Participating startups will work with Health Gorilla's solution architects, implementation staff, and interoperability experts to connect to the national data framework, embed the company’s APIs or software platform, and successfully retrieve data to support their use case.
Startups will receive mentorship from the experts on interoperability, including former leaders from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Sutter Health, Epic, Carequality, and CommonWell Health Alliance. Upon successful completion of the program, startups will participate in a Demo Day presentation with a panel of healthcare investors evaluating pitches for potential funding.
"Much of the innovation in our healthcare system starts at small organizations, where providers can develop new care models using data and technology," said Steve Yaskin, CEO and Co-founder of Health Gorilla, in a statement. "For the first time ever, we're opening up our entire product suite for health tech founders in the early innings of development. We're excited to provide support and see what they build."
"The cost of retrieving comprehensive health data has dropped with the rise of nationwide exchange, but there are still a large number of providers that can't afford it," said Steven Lane M.D., M.P.H., Chief Medical Officer at Health Gorilla, in a statement. "The HG Accelerator program ensures that hefty fees do not prevent an early-stage provider organization or their partners from accessing the data they need to deliver patient care. I'm looking forward to mentoring these entrepreneurs and lending my expertise to their health data initiatives."
The following startups have been accepted into the HG Accelerator program.
- Oatmeal Health (oatmealhealth.com). AI-enabled cancer screening as a service.
- Long Health (longhealth.io). A patient onboarding and care coordination platform.
- Stealth startup. Data aggregation and insights service for patients.
"On behalf of our founding team at Oatmeal Health, Jonathan Govette and I are thrilled to enter the HG Accelerator program," said.
"We enable Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and payers to run tech-enabled lung cancer screenings for their underserved patient populations, improving health equity and lowering costs,” said Ty Vachon, M.D., co-founder and CEO of Oatmeal Health, in a statement. “Through the partnership with Health Gorilla, Oatmeal's health center customers can diagnose cancer patients sooner, providing timely access to treatment without the administrative burden or cost of running the program themselves."
In February, Health Gorilla was named one of the first six QHINs, along the CommonWell Health Alliance, eHealth Exchange, Konza, Epic Systems, and Kno2.
The QHIN applications were approved by the nonprofit Sequoia Project, which was selected by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) to serve as the Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE) to support the implementation of TEFCA and determines the process and requirements for becoming a QHIN. Other organizations are in the process of applying to become QHINs, according to the RCE.
The six QHINs have committed to begin exchanging data by the end of 2023.
