Project aims to link startups with care providers in state

If selected to participate in the 2019 cohort, companies will be guaranteed two pilot projects with Arkansas providers and receive $75,000 of investment capital from a private venture fund.

Six startup companies have been selected to participate in the 2019 HealthTech Arkansas health care accelerator.

HealthTech is an accelerator and investment fund that says it connects early-stage health care companies with disruptive technologies to state health care providers.

The six companies were selected from hundreds of applications from 18 nations and hail from what the accelerator said were innovation capitals such as San Francisco, New York, Boston, San Diego and Seattle, according to a news release.

Together, the companies have 177 full-time employees and have raised $90 million in outside capital after forming, which HealthTech Arkansas said is “a substantial increase over the companies selected for last year’s inaugural program.”

“We are excited to reveal the new cohort and introduce them to Arkansas and the powerful teams available to them at all of our health care provider partners around the state,” said Jeff Stinson, who directs HealthTech Arkansas.

If selected to participate in the 2019 cohort, companies will be guaranteed two pilot projects with Arkansas providers and receive $75,000 of investment capital from a private venture fund.

The nine participating health care providers include Arkansas Heart Hospital, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Arkansas Urology, Baptist Health statewide health care system, CHI St. Vincent regional health network, Conway Regional Health System, Mercy health system, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Washington Regional Medical Center.

The six companies selected for the accelerator are:

■ BardyDx of Seattle, which has developed a lightweight, extended-wear ECG patch monitor diagnosing heart arrhythmia.

■ Droice Labs of New York, which is an artificial intelligence company specializing in understanding real-world clinical data to help physicians provide better care to their patients.

■ Health Note of San Francisco, which uses an artificial intelligence platform to improve patient encounters by gathering pre-visit information and creating a doctor’s note, saving physician and staff time.

■ Medumo of Boston, which has developed an enterprise software application that helps hospitals deliver instructions to patients in a more intelligent way.

■ OMNY Health of San Francisco, which developed a data marketplace where health care providers can upload their supply chain and billing data in real-time. Manufacturers subscribe to the marketplace and pay for the real-time data that they consume, thus generating additional revenue streams for providers that supply the data.

■ toSense of San Diego, which has developed a lowcost, easy-to-use monitoring system that uses a body-worn sensor to measure vital signs, which can eventually be sent to an online system for clinical review.

The cohort will participate in a program that gives them access to clinicians and administrators while developing their products, according to the news release.

“The guaranteed pilot projects from nine hospitals from around the state is what truly sets our accelerator program apart from others in the country,” Stinson said.