PHL Inno's weekly "Startup Spotlight" feature highlights founders and new businesses cropping up in the region.
The startup: Journal My Health is a digital health platform designed to help people with chronic conditions better communicate with health care providers.
Founded: 2020
Home base: Remote, but based in the Philadelphia area
Founders: Tracey Welson-Rossman, chief marketing officer for Chariot Solutions, an IT consulting firm based in Fort Washington.
The idea for Journal My Health came to Welson-Rossman about 12 years before she started the company. She had been in a car crash two decades ago which resulted in a chronic health condition. During a meeting with her neurologist, Welson-Rossman thought it would be helpful if she was able to take notes and keep them all in one spot to relay that information to her physicians when she saw them.
“There's a lot that goes on when you have something that has a lot of unknowns to it, lots of doctors that you're going to and other different stakeholders in your health care journey,” she said.
The advent of Covid-19 and the emergence of “long Covid,” a condition marked by patients having long-term side effects as a result of contracting the virus, led Welson-Rossman to revisit the idea. She felt she could upgrade the experience of health apps that only track a patient’s symptoms and moods and include the impacts of factors like exercise, weather and heart rate that can affect a patient’s well-being.
Welson-Rossman is also the founder of TechGirlz, a nonprofit focused on diversifying tech talent. TechGirlz was acquired by CompTIA’s Creating IT Futures nonprofit in 2019. Journal My Health is her first for-profit company.
“Every day I'm learning something new, so it can be very humbling,” she said.
The product: Journal My Health lets users log symptoms and flare-ups of their chronic conditions. Journal My Health also integrates with wearables like Apple Watches to track sleep patterns, steps and more. The app then creates a personalized report that can track trends in symptoms and overall health that can be sent to a user’s doctor.
It is available for free on the Google Play Store and App Store.
Funding: Journal My Health is in the midst of a friends and family round, and the startup has raised $200,000 out of its $500,000 goal, Welson-Rossman said.
The goal: Welson-Rossman is looking to grow the app’s user base as quickly as possible. Journal My Health has had about 6,000 downloads since the app launched six months ago, Welson-Rossman said, adding the startup has had good retention of users.
New features are also being planned for the app.
Journal My Health is looking into white labeling its software for other organizations — such as health systems, chronic condition-focused foundations and pharmaceutical companies — to offer to patients with their own branding, she said.
“We're just hoping that we gain some traction and that we're having a conversation into 2023 of growth,” Welson-Rossman said.
