Providence St. Joseph Health System and ChristianaCare have both become strategic investors, as well as customers, of a Seattle-based company called Twistle that helps automate patient education and care communications.
Both health systems use Twistle across their enterprises in efforts to improve patient outcomes, reduce costs and differentiate their services. This investment completes Twistle's latest funding round at over $18 million, the startup said.
Founded in 2011, Twistle describes its service as offering "turn-by-turn" guidance to patients as they navigate specific care journeys before, during, and after a clinic or hospital visit. “Patients are motivated to engage in their own care and follow best practices, communicate as needed with their care teams, and realize measurably better outcomes,” a press release said. Twistle engages patients through secure messaging, interactive voice response, patient portals or the health system's own digital apps.
In the past year, Renton, Wash.-based Providence has expanded its use of Twistle to span more than 17 hospitals, involving 150,000 patients navigating most types of surgery and procedures, chronic disease, and wellness and collecting patient-reported outcomes (PROs) along the way.
"Providence St. Joseph Health is building highly engaged digital relationships with patients to improve the health of populations where we operate," said Aaron Martin, Executive Vice president and chief digital officer at Providence, in a statement. "We have made Twistle's care pathway automation platform a core piece of our digital strategy to amplify our care teams' capacity to deliver timely, personalized and proactive care to our patients. We are so excited about what Twistle brings to health care that we also want to participate as a strategic investor and help the company scale its innovations across the world."
In 2016 ChristianaCare of Delaware was one of the first healthcare providers to adopt Twistle, creating innovative communication pathways to support patients in surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pain management, and virtual care coordination. ChristianaCare also uses Twistle to send updates to families whose loved ones are going through major surgery.
