The ink is officially dry on Providence-spinout Praia Health’s $20M Series A fundraise, and we couldn’t have asked for a better frame up of the startup’s potential impact than SignalFire’s investment memo on why it co-led the round.
Praia Health is helping hospitals avoid the commoditized care caravan by enabling the creation of consumer profiles that extend beyond the medical record, allowing them to recreate the “digital flywheels” enjoyed by other industries.
- These flywheels have been hindered by healthcare’s reliance on the legacy architectures and closed-system constraints of the EHR, which fails to incorporate the behaviors happening outside of medical encounters that drive a lion’s share of health outcomes.
Here’s how Praia enters the picture:
- The first step is a “lift and shift” to Praia’s Secure Patient Identity Service that enables a single sign-on for all of a system’s digital experiences (branded apps, portals, etc.).
- Praia’s PersonStore then marries those patient profiles with consumer data, synchronizing the EHR to connect-the-dots between outside data and outcomes.
- The SPI and PersonStore capabilities lay the groundwork to link Praia’s growing partner ecosystem into ecommerce-like experiences that emphasize patient satisfaction and loyalty – critical priorities for C-suites grappling with margin pressure and patient attrition.
SignalFire’s history on the patient engagement evolution highlights the leap in Praia’s approach:
- Gen 1: Unidirectional patient notifications primarily focused on scheduling marked the first step in delivering healthcare info through more accessible channels like SMS.
- Gen 2: Bidirectional communication transformed medical interactions by giving patients the ability to respond to provider messages.
- Gen 3: Omnichannel engagement with tech-enabled interactions and seamless integrations let patients perform tasks like rescheduling appointments with options pulled from the provider’s practice management software.
- Gen 4: Praia Health’s breakthrough – an AI-powered patient engagement suite and automated actions driven by deep EHR integration to connect all data sources and orchestrate the end-to-end patient experience.
The Takeaway
The healthcare industry is at a well-traveled crossroads, facing the same challenges as the banking sector encountered with the rise of online services. Just as fintech companies disrupted banking with fine tuned experiences and lower costs, digital health startups are going after health systems’ lowest hanging service lines with the same promises. Praia gives providers a way to fight back with the tried-and-true digital flywheels that have so-far been out of reach.
