The Cedars-Sinai Accelerator has accepted eight health-tech companies from across the United States to its seventh accelerator class. The companies are creating solutions for a wide variety of healthcare challenges-from facilitating parts of the patient journey remotely while still maintaining a human connection, to designing the hospital of the future.
How will it work?
While the accelerator program was held entirely virtually in 2020, this year’s hybrid model allows company representatives to choose whether to attend in person at Cedars-Sinai or virtually via teleconference. However they choose to attend, the companies’ leaders work closely with doctors, researchers and administrators to understand how their products and solutions fit into the day-to-day experiences of clinicians, providers and patients.
Companies that choose to attend on-site will be able to interact, with COVID-19 protocols in place, in the Cedars-Sinai Innovation Space, which was designed to maximize collaboration among the startup teams and is directly across the street from the medical center.
All the businesses accepted into the program receive a $100,000 investment from Cedars-Sinai. At the conclusion of the three-month program, company CEOs will share their progress with an audience of investors, mentors, potential customers and members of the news media at a Demo Day.
The new Cedars-Sinai Accelerator class includes
- Enroute – Enroute is focused on optimizing in-hospital logistics so that people and supplies get where they need to be as efficiently as possible. Their software can be used to request transporters, notify transporters and staff of updates, and confirm trip confirmation. They are also developing proprietary algorithms to track and predict future movements, requests and journey times.
- EpiBone – EpiBone is a revolutionary skeletal reconstruction company that allows patients to “grow their own bone” or replace the cartilage in their joints. EpiBone’s technology utilizes stem cells and a scan of the patient’s defect to construct and cultivate a defect-specific bone or cartilage graft.
- Eternally – Eternally assists patients with the completion of an advance directive. The company partners with health systems to identify patients in need of an advance directive, and then provides virtual or phone-based coaching to guide patients through the process, facilitated by Eternally’s team of licensed clinical social workers. The completed advance directive is then filed electronically into the patient’s electronic medical record.
- Euphoria – Euphoria is a tech company offering a suite of technologies through iOS and Android apps to provide information and resources for transgender individuals during their process of gender transition. Apps include “Solace” – a resource hub for an individual user’s legal, medical and social transition goals – and “Bliss” – a platform for those transitioning to invest in U.S. Treasury bills to afford the $150,000 average cost of transition.
- FlexTogether – FlexTogether provides peer motivation and accessible fitness instruction for aging patients and those who are isolated. Patients are paired with a peer motivator, such as a hospital volunteer or a FlexTogether staff member. For the duration of the program, patients meet online weekly to video chat and watch specialized fitness videos with their volunteer.
- inTandem Health – inTandem Health provides peer-to-peer support groups for newly diagnosed patients, connecting them digitally to other patients who have experienced the same diagnosis.
- Optio3 – Optio3 uses cloud-based software to aggregate and analyze data from a variety of smart devices in the hospital to identify areas that could be more efficient at a facility level. The software assists hospitals with comprehensive risk management and compliance, better asset management, and improved maintenance operations.
- Rhaeos – Rhaeos is developing FlowSense, a wireless, noninvasive thermal flow sensor that can be mounted on a patient’s skin overlying an implantable shunt to detect the presence and magnitude of cerebrospinal fluid in a short amount of time. The company’s goal is to allow for the monitoring of shunt function in clinics, inpatient settings, emergency departments and homes, reducing the need for unnecessary imaging, hospital visits and admissions.
On the record
“We’re learning what the ‘new normal’ looks like for hospitals, providers and patients, and are excited to welcome these companies to our accelerator,” said Anne Wellington, managing director of the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator. “The solutions they are creating allow health systems like Cedars-Sinai to support our diverse patient population, offer innovative treatments and diagnostics, and keep our facilities on the leading edge of technology.”