The year 2020 will be forever marked as a year that transformed the world. When everything shut down, businesses, schools, and people had to instantly adapt. Services suddenly went online. While people struggled to get access to their healthcare providers during the pandemic, these digital health startups did something no one could have imagined. They innovated. With healthcare costs continuing to rise, these entrepreneurial endeavors did two things. They lowered the cost of healthcare and offered it from the comfort of home.
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People see technological advances as something that increases costs, but these digital health startups are doing the opposite. Their creative and visionary approach connects people with better healthcare that costs less money than many traditional models. From telemedicine, to mail in diagnostics, to a remote fit test to detect cancer, these digital startups are reimagining ways to provide quality health care.
Dispatch Health
Dispatch Health recently raised another $200 million in funding for their digital health platform. They launched in 2013 to deliver exceptional health care in the home. During the pandemic, they even provided at-home testing for COVID-19. Their care providers come to the home to provide urgent care treatment. A Physician’s Assistant or Nurse Practitioner along with a Medical Technician bring everything they need to assess and treat a wide range of conditions.
They make it simple to receive treatment in the comfort of home. Whether it’s a new mom who needs care for herself or her baby, or an elderly patient who struggles to get out of the home, the healthcare teams at Dispatch Health can help. By leveraging PA’s and NP’s and consolidating non-emergency cases, they are able to deliver exceptional care without the high costs.
Visby Medical
To date, Visby Medical has raised over $127 million in funding. As a diagnostics company, their desire is to create devices with people in mind first. They make PCR tests accessible and available over-the-counter to anyone, anywhere. Their instrument-free PCR tests means that patients get accurate results fast. Their mode of delivery and accessibility make their testing products more affordable. They bring diagnostics into communities that may lack the technology to provide these tests quickly and affordably. Instead of waiting weeks for results from a lab, with Visby Medical COVID-19 tests, you can get results in 30 minutes.
Heal
For residents in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas, patients receive non-emergency medical care from the comfort of home. Heal combines the best of in-home care and telemedicine. They’ve raised $164 million in funding to help them deliver telemedicine for $79 or in-home medical appointments for just $159 or an in-network copay. Their innovative approach to healthcare means they can deliver patient-centered care that people can afford.
One of the challenges with the current delivery model is that the costs are never stated up front. This means that even with some co-insurance options, patients receive multiple bills in the mail long after their doctor’s visit. With their groundbreaking health technology, they serve patients with common infections, injuries, and even asthma care. No need to wait days for a medical appointment, they serve adults and children within hours.
Freenome
The future is now. As a digital startup with more than $500 million in funding, Freenome provides quality non-invasive diagnostics to detect early-stage cancers. The pioneering professionals behind Freenome designed a system to find cancer in the blood, and then leveraged artificial intelligence to bring that information to the next stage. This leads to revolutionary advances in early cancer treatments to improve quality of life and stop the cancer from spreading. By using technology, they are able to more quickly and accurately detect what the human eye cannot see.
Second Nature
Did you know that the majority of illnesses are associated with poor lifestyle habits? Smoking, lack of exercise, and obesity all contribute to heart disease, lung disease, diabetes and more. Second Nature received over $13 million in funding to create an app to combat obesity and help people lead healthier lifestyles. It’s so much more than a simple calorie tracker.
Second Nature helps you replace bad habits with healthy ones. Their health tech platform utilizes programming that personalizes a plan to each individual. It provides support and accountability through app-based groups and helps participants transform their lives in just a few months. These science-backed methods are proven to reduce the risk of disease later in life. The cost of providing treatment long-term for diseases like Type-2 diabetes is astronomical. This app provides an affordable way to focus on preventive care.
Hyfe
If you’ve ever had a cough and tried to describe it to a medical professional, you can understand how hard this can be. What if you could analyze a cough to hear what’s really going on in a person’s lungs? How could doctor’s use this information to provide precision care to patients? Someone asked this question, and Hyfe was born.
With Hyfe, users can count, quantify, and record their coughing episodes. This data helps people discover patterns about when they are coughing, the intensity of the cough, and what it means for their health. The Hyfe app helps users discover when they should seek medical attention based on the changes in their cough or coughing patterns. This data can easily be shared with doctors and other medical professionals to help them create a treatment and care plan. Whether it’s patients suffering from COPD or needing tuberculosis care, the app can identify and learn more about the patient over time.
