Houston health technology firm Koda Health is being awarded a National Science Foundation grant to expand its advanced care-planning platform.
Koda Health's platform works to streamline and digitize conversations with patients about medical care preferences. The cloud-based platform asks patients questions about quality of life preferences, power of attorney to make end-of-life health care decisions, emergency contacts and more.
Now, Koda Health is being awarded a $256,000 NSF grant to deploy its care-planning platform at Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina to assist with shortages of life support equipment during the Covid-19 pandemic. The company plans to test the platform with a 900 participant study through the Wake Forest pilot program. Upon the completion of the pilot, Koda Health will be eligible to apply for a Phase II award of up to $1 million from the NSF, the company said.
“Understanding patients’ preferences for their future care can be used to help systems prepare for the needs of their aging population and ensure that they stock up on the life support and labor resources required to meet those needs, said Tatiana Fofanova, CEO of Koda Health. Fofanova earned her doctorate in molecular medicine from Baylor College of Medicine.
Separately, Koda Health said that it has started to raise $3.1 million in financing. The startup raised a $600,000 pre-seed round last year after taking part in the UnitedHealthcare Accelerator Program Powered by Techstars.
Koda Health is headquartered in the TMC Innovation Institute in the Texas Medical Center. The firm was incorporated in March 2020. It was spun out of the TMC's Biodesign program, which brings together medicine post-grads, engineering, computer science, research and private industry to tackle large health care issues.
