Santa Clara, California-based CareInSync raised an undisclosed amount from the Samsung Venture Investment Corporation. CareInSync will use the money to improve its care coordination solution with secure mobile communications technology and expand its mobile offering to the Android platform.
Last year, CareInSync raised $1.6 million in funding from HealthTech Capital, a group of angel investors, venture capital, and nonprofit foundations. HealthTech members that invested in CareinSync at the time included the California HealthCare Foundation through its Health Innovation Fund and First Databank through Hearst Business Media’s Healthcare IT Venture Fund.
Samsung Venture is part of Samsung Corporation and has invested in biotechnology and software companies in the past.
CareInSync's product Carebook offers physicians, nurses and other care providers a patient-centered mobile platform on which to communicate. The platform allows different care teams, including attending, consult, and bedside nurse, to communicate with each other and also allows direct messaging between specific users. Carebook tracks patients' transitions from admission to discharge and then provides a report from the messaging data during care transitions. This way care teams can identify the gaps in care and design processes to improve care transitions.
According to COO and founder of CareInSync Siva Subramanian, 70 percent of all healthcare errors attributed to communication failures. Though Subramanian's main goal is to bridge the gaps that occur during patient care transitions, he also aims to make sure the HIPAA-compliant service, which primarily exists on smartphones and tablets, remains secure.
Last October, Greenbrae, California-based Marin General Hospital, went live in its cardiac specialty unit with communications functions of Carebook. Marin General Medical Director Dr. Susan Cumming reported that the hospital turned to Carebook because the app incorporates principles from Project RED (Re-Engineered Discharge), a federally funded research group at Boston University Medical Center that seeks to cut the number of rehospitalizations by focusing on patient safety during the initial discharge process.
Since then, Marin General Hospital and CareInSync built on their partnership when the two companies announced the formation of Mobile Care Transitions Network in Marin County, California. The service connects physicians, nurses, caseworkers, and home care managers across seven health care organizations. As patients transition out of Marin General Hospital, Carebook automatically risk-stratifies patients and applies risk-specific interventions to ensure efficient focusing of the right resources at the right time.
