COVID-19 Efforts

The Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator has been working closely with hospital leadership, government agencies, and external companies to help inform the public and meet the changing health needs brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The following is a sampling of ongoing efforts:
  • HealthMap, the online, global infectious disease surveillance system built by IDHA, has been tracking the spread of COVID-19 since late December. More information regarding HealthMap’s efforts here.
  • The HealthMap team also launched COVID Near You, developed in partnership with volunteers from Amazon, Apple, Google, and others. COVID Near You, a sister tool of Flu Near You, is a crowdsourced symptom collection tool, aiming to build a more complete picture of the pandemic, in the absence of population-level, and representative testing results.
  • COVID Near You is partnering with Survey Monkey and Withings to expand symptom collection to users across U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
  • IDHA is supporting the hospital’s COVID-19 Innovation Task Force, instituted to evaluate and assist internally developed ideas that aim to solve top COVID-19 challenges. Those interested in submitting ideas should fill out this short intake form.
  • Executing digital-first response efforts across care continuum including: access (portal, bi-directional texting pilot), triage (phone, chatbot), and care and remote monitoring.
  • Chief Innovation Officer John Brownstein, PhD was among the experts to testify on the spread of COVID-19 to the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.
  • Virtual Visits have expanded rapidly from ~20 visits per day pre-COVID-19 to ~1,700+ per day as of late April.
  • Buoy Health, an AI-driven online symptom checker, was featured in STAT News and MobiHealthNews for its new coronavirus tool and partnership with HealthMap. The coronavirus tool helps educate patients on their symptoms and provides action steps based on CDC guidelines.

Portfolio News

  • Congratulations to IDHA spin-out, 1upHealth, for raising $8M in Series A funding. 1upHealth is a patient data aggregation platform for app developers, providers, and patients, bridging the gap between patient-centered data and provider needs.
  • Early Literacy Screener was featured in the Early Childhood newsletter as the game that can spot preschoolers with reading deficits. The Early Literacy Screener was developed by IDHA in partnership with Dr. Nadine Gaab of Boston Children’s.
  • Nutrimedy, a video platform that provides nutritional counseling, and one of IDHA’s first portfolio companies, has launched in the Northwest with a national dialysis provider and signed a contract with a global pharmaceutical company after successfully completing a pilot for IBD in 2019.

Partnership Updates

  • IDHA is partnering with Abridge, a startup out of UPMC Enterprises, to launch a pilot at BCH and advise on product evolution. Abridge empowers patients to securely record, review, and share their health care encounters & uses machine learning algorithms to highlight important takeaways and provide contextualized education.
  • IDHA is advising two new behavioral health companies through MassChallenge Health Tech: Limbix, a prescription digital therapeutic designed to support adolescents with depression and Eleos, a behavioral health platform for therapists to reduce administrative burden, generate new revenue, track client outcomes, and enable more personalized care.