A company looking to create a virtual "cone of protection" around the hospital-bound patient has secured $20 million in venture capital funding for its mHealth-based solutions.
PatientSafe Solutions, based in San Diego, recently announced the Series C financing, led by the Merck Global Health Innovation fund with participation from Camden Partners, TPG Capital and the Psilos Group, among other investors. The company has now raised $50 million in funding since 2010, shortly after it rebranded (from Intellidot) and launched its PatientTouch clinical app.
Aside from the PatientTouch app, which helps nurses track critical patient information like vital signs and other clinical assessments, the PatientSafe platform enables clinicians at the bedside to communicate with other clinicians via text and phone and manage their workflows, all without interrupting the transmission of data from the patient to appropriate portals.
According to a press release issued by the company, PatientSafe's point-of-care mobile solutions are designed to enhance patient safety, connect with the EMR platform, and increase clinician efficiency and satisfaction. Future enhancements to the system, officials said, "will focus on delivering more value for hospitals under meaningful use guidelines, value-based purchasing programs and cost removal for healthcare systems."
“PatientSafe is redefining point-of-care by fulfilling health information technology’s promise of delivering measurable value across safety, quality, and efficiency of care throughout the continuum,” said Joe Condurso, the company's president and CEO, in the press release. “This Series C round is an affirmation of our vision and strategy to move healthcare forward by arming providers with real-time actionable data and making care team workflows easier and more productive. I am delighted to work with Max Kahn and the Merck GHI team to build an open ecosystem of partners to continue to serve our current and future clients across all settings.”
In a 2011 interview shortly after PatientSafe launched its PatientTouch solution, company founder Jim Sweeney – who has launched nine healthcare companies in his more than 30 years in the field, said PatientTouch is designed so as not to interfere with the interaction between nurse and patient, but to give that caregiver real-time access to important data and communications channels.
By smoothing out the nurse's workflow at the bedside, he said, the solution reduces the chance of medication errors or other clinical mistakes.
"Burdens on caregivers are significant today given the complexity of nursing documentation required, patient loads and the severity of illness for hospitalized patients," he said. "Nurses spend less than 19 percent of their time actually caring for patients and most of their time hunting and gathering critical patient information. PatientTouch allows caregivers to spend less time on documentation and administrative tasks and more time delivering care to patients and their families."
