As the healthcare IT space continues heating up, both the patient and doctor experience have been changing in dramatic ways. Thanks to telehealth, people can access physicians through their mobile phones, while health-specific social networks allow patients to play an active role in their care—collaborating with others on their health experiences and conditions. But with these innovations come a number of new challenges. That’s where par8o (pronounced par-eight-oh) comes in.
The Newton-based company offers a cloud-based "healthcare operating system," which aims to create a common point of contact for coordinating care delivery and plan design—a benefit to providers, payers and patients alike. And today, par8o announced that it has raised $10.5 million in Series A funding from investors including Atlas Venture, Founder Collective, CHV Capital and Allscripts. The money will be used to expand its healthcare IT system, which initially launched in 2012 in the wake of the Affordable Care Act, and was founded by the physicians behind the well-known online physician community Sermo.
Healthcare tech explosion
In a news release, Atlas Venture's Jeff Fagnan noted that there has been "an explosion in healthcare technology innovation in the last few years."
"With shifting demographics, policy changes and cost pressures on the healthcare system, the environment is ripe for innovation," Fagnan said in the release. "Par8o is well positioned to usher in the change that is needed."
A diverse list of organizations have adopted the par8o platform, including MGM Resorts, Harvard Medical School affiliated hospitals in Boston and facilities that are part of the Mount Sinai Health System in New York. The platform, which is EMR-agnostic, is based on (and named after) the economic principle of Pareto optimization, which helps organizations "match the right patients to the right resources at the right time."
The 80/20 rule
par8o can create a simple method for healthcare institutions to better understand the flow of their patients and better match supply and demand.
Co-ounder Daniel Palestrant explained that Pareto optimizations are also known as the 80/20 rule, and when applied to the healthcare industry, they hold the promise of being able to improve overall access to healthcare while lowering costs. Par8o achieves this through a technology that provides a seamless platform to facilitate the flow of patients around the healthcare ecosystem. Within that platform, par8o can create a simple method for healthcare institutions to better understand the flow of their patients and better match supply and demand.
By giving healthcare organizations a more comprehensive view of patient activity, par8o empowers doctors to be more engaged in every phase of treatment—from scheduling appointments to coordinating referrals, getting test results and devising a discharge plan.
And the company has a few stats to show its impact among networks, providers and insurers. MGM Resorts, the largest employer in the State of Nevada, lowered costs for staff through a par8o enabled provider network. Meanwhile, a Harvard Affiliated Academic Medical Center reduced patient out migration to other facilities by 25 percent in six months by using par8o to improve access and care coordination.
As for the future, Palestrant said 2015 will be "a year of scaling for us, moving from success in 2014 with large enterprise-level deployments to metropolitan and regional level deployments."
Palestrant's co-founder on the startup is Adam Sharp; both are MDs who together had founded Cambridge-based Sermo in 2005. Sermo had raised $40 million in funding prior to acquisition in 2012 by New York City-based WorldOne.
Image of doctor with smartphone via Shutterstock.
