Self Health Network (SHN) is joining the booming market of services that help patients follow aftercare and wellness instructions when they leave the clinic or hospital.

The San Francisco-based company has raised $5.6 million to further develop its platform, according to a filing with the SEC. The money came as a combination of equity and debt financing, though no names were provided.

Self Health Network comes with a UI that like a social network on which various members of a care team can keep tabs on patients.SHN offers a software-as-service platform that enables health care providers and payers to prevent patient from coming back into the system soon after they’ve left. This in turn saves time, money, and resources for the healthcare system.

According to the company’s CEO Kevin Murphy, lots of people just don’t understand the discharge orders. Patients are often confused how much activity they should limit themselves to, or they’re confused about their meds. So people lose these documents, forget them, or just don’t follow them.

Self Health Network, and similar services like Jiff and HealthTap, come to the rescue, presenting patients with an easy-to-grasp instructions on their computer, phone or tablet. The solution’s UI looks like a social network on which various members of a care team can keep tabs on patients.

The service is HIPAA-compliant, allowing clinicians and patients to securely share information, upload documents and so on. The platform can “handle” data from various wellness devices like step trackers and connected scales.

Health providers aside, SHN is also looking to large employers, which could use the service to promote wellness activities of employees. In fact, they are working with two companies as we speak, in addition to two healthcare providers.

[Via: VentureBeat]