Sudbury health care cloud company closes $1.1M Series A round
Courtesy of iGetBetter Inc.
Keeping patients out of the hospital after they’re released is a top priority for hospitals today.
Just ask Win Burke, CEO of iGetBetter Inc., an early-stage company that provides a cloud-based application to manage patients’ care after they’re discharged from the hospital.
“Medicare doesn’t want to pay the hospital if the patient is readmitted within 30 days, so that’s going to be on the hospital’s nickel,” said Burke, referring to Medicare’s new reimbursement policy that’s designed to drive down patient readmissions.
Financing now at $2.6 million
Burke’s new company, based in Sudbury, is positioned to help hospitals adjust to this new reality by providing post-acute care management services through iGetBetter’s cloud-based system, which helps maximize patients’ odds for successful recovery through remote monitoring of medication, vital signs and lifestyle habits.
With a number of pilot programs and some commercial contracts in place, iGetBetter is poised to grow. On Wednesday, the company announced the completion of its second round of Series A financing, which added $1.1 million, bringing the company’s fundraising total to $2.6 million.
This will allow iGetBetter to complete ongoing pilot programs, including those at Faulkner and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals in Boston, as well as hospitals in California and Utah, and “convert them to commercial contracts,” according to a company statement.
iGetBetter has already worked with at Brockton Hospital, which completed a pilot of the company’s applicatiion and is now paying for it, as well as with Tallahassee Memorial Hospital in Florida. Burke said Brockton Hospital was exceptionally successful in curbing readmissions of patients hospitalized for congestive heart failure by using iGetBetter: Since launching the app in February 2014, not one of the patients who were monitored using the system was readmitted. That’s significant given that the national average 30-day readmission rate is nearly 24 percent, according to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
How it works
Burke, an MIT graduate who has founded six other companies, including a targeted mobile advertising company he sold to Google in November 2012, said iGetBetter is unique. While there are many companies that offering tele-monitoring and patient communication services, he thinks his solution has the edge because it offers communication tools and custom care plans through one service.
iGetBetter works via patients’ smartphones, or through iPad minis issued by the company, for patients who don’t use smartphones. Doctors assign patients a care plan and are given a weight scale and blood pressure cuff, both of which communicate metrics to the iGetBetter cloud through the mobile device. Patients also receive daily instructions, and any sign of health complications, such as increased blood pressure or weight gain from fluid retention, result in an alert to the doctor.
But how do you get patients to comply? The system is administered on a voluntary basis, and Burke said compliance is not usually a problem. Even older patients find the service easy to use, he said, and many people enjoy it, as evidenced by a participation rate of about 90 percent for patients who sign up.
“It’s pretty neat stuff and people like using it,” Burke said.
With 13 employees in Sudbury, Burke said the company will continue to grow. After taking “a few deep breaths” following the Series A round, iGetBetter is preparing to launch a “significantly larger” Series B investment round, which Burke said he hopes to close this summer. That, he said, will fund the company’s expansion across the country.
WBJ Web Partners
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