Ten startups took the stage yesterday, showcasing their innovative approaches toward creating better health care outcomes to investors, sponsors, and mentors. Healthbox and its anchor partner, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA), selected these ten companies in August to participate in a rigorous three-month accelerator program based in Cambridge, MA. As part of the day, event attendees voted on which company they thought presented the most creative solution for an industry need. The company with the most votes received an additional $25,000.

“During the past twelve weeks, our accelerator partnership with Healthbox has built a community of more than 100 business leaders who have provided the ten entrepreneurs with intensive support to develop and launch their health care innovations,” said Andrew Dreyfus, President and CEO of BCBSMA. “These promising businesses have already created new jobs and have great potential to change how we provide quality, affordable health care.”

The ten companies that presented their progress to hundreds of leading health care executives and investors are:

• Aavya Health: created a web-based tool that transforms laboratory tests into rich, dynamic tools to help patients achieve meaningful insight into their health and motivate healthy behaviors.
• Abiogenix: developed the uBox, an intelligent pillbox that reminds, records and restricts when patients take their medication. The information is transmitted wirelessly to the cloud where it is analyzed for third parties including care circles, physicians and payers.
• Bon’App: will be the new standard for nutritional information. The easy to access iPhone and web-based application allows consumers to easily understand calories, sugar, salt and bad fat within food.
• GeckoCap: designed a cap that goes on an asthma inhaler that will be utilized as a platform to improve poor pediatric asthma adherence. The smart tool reminds children, sends tracking to parents and informs clinicians with usage data.
• Gweepi Medical: developed the Smart Brief system, which streamlines incontinence management by placing a sensor in the diaper, reducing direct and indirect costs for a skilled nursing facility.
• Healthy Delivery: established an online service that curates balanced, nutritious meal options and allows users to select a week’s worth of meals utilizing a proprietary algorithm to adhere to users’ preferences and restrictions. The food for the meals is delivered to the consumer’s doorstep.
• iQuartic: uses proprietary analytics to provide delivery systems with accurate insights into quality benchmarking, value-based payment optimization and chronic disease management.
• Smart Scheduling: applies data analytics to physician office records to enable administrators to optimize daily appointment scheduling, improving provider productivity.
• Uprise Medical: designed iPad applications that curate existing patient education content, allowing physicians to administer customized education at the point of care and track adherence.
• Yosko: an iPad-based, single-login physician portal that connects to and integrates with different EMRs to improve efficiency and achieve better outcomes.

At the end of the event, Healthy Delivery was presented with the $25,000 Healthbox Innovator Award, voted on by Innovation Day attendees, for demonstrating that their solution was the most creative approach to solving a large industry need.

“Healthbox is honored to support ten startups that are truly tackling the critical issues in health care,” said Nina Nashif, Founder and CEO of Healthbox. “Due to the support of our anchor partner, Blue Cross, and our strategic partners, Express Scripts, HLM Venture Partners and Long River Ventures, these ten companies have made significant progress in three months and are better poised to have a tremendous impact on the healthcare industry.”

In addition to the company pitches, the following panels of health care experts provided insight into how provider effectiveness, health and wellness and patient engagement are driving innovation:

• Provider effectiveness: Michael Sachs, Chairman and CEO, Sg2 and Tom Hawkins, Medical Director Health Informatics, BCBSMA, discussed approaches to encourage hospitals, doctors and other clinicians to deliver more efficient, coordinated care while improving quality outcomes.
• Health and wellness: Gigi Fioravanti Lyons, Senior Program Manager Wellness Strategy, BCBSMA and Andrew Sykes, Chairman, Health at Work, discussed the innovations in promoting and maintaining healthy behaviors.
• Patient engagement: Alexandra Drane, Founder, Chief Visionary Officer and Chair of the Board at Eliza Corporation and Devorah Klein, Principal at Continuum, discussed breakthroughs in the process to empower patients to take control of their own care.

About Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (www.bluecrossma.com) is a community-focused, tax-paying, not-for-profit health plan headquartered in Boston. Celebrating our 75th anniversary in 2012, we are committed to working with others in a spirit of shared responsibility to make quality health care affordable. Consistent with our corporate promise to always put our 2.8 million members first, we are rated among the nation’s best health plans for member satisfaction and quality.

About Healthbox
Healthbox is a platform for innovation in the healthcare industry. Our three-month accelerator program finds great companies and passionate healthcare entrepreneurs and helps them grow their businesses by providing seed capital, access to a broad and diverse network of mentors, topical forums, strategic guidance and an organized Innovation Day. Learn more about the Healthbox Boston companies at our website: www.healthbox.com.

About HLM Venture Partners
HLM Venture Partners (http://www.hlmvp.com/) is a leading venture capital firm providing capital to emerging companies focused on health care service, health care information technology and medical devices. HLM has over $400 million of venture capital under management and works with the leading growth companies that are improving the quality of health care while reducing overall costs. HLM supports entrepreneurs as they turn innovative ideas into market-leading businesses, offering guidance on financial structuring, resource allocation and deployment, strategic planning, strategic introductions, and recruitment. HLM has offices in Boston, MA, and San Francisco, CA.

About Long River Ventures
Long River Ventures was formed by a group of experienced entrepreneurs and venture investors. Over the past decade the firm has established a reputation as a value added investor with an extensive portfolio of seed and early stage companies in healthcare, IT, and other technology-driven sectors. Long River is designed and structured to make smaller initial investments than typical for a venture capital firm, with initial funding often in the $250,000 to $1MM range. Long River Ventures is currently investing out of its third fund, with offices in Amherst, Worcester and Boston. For more information, visit www.longriverventures.com.