- Healthcare automation company Bright.md announced that it closed $16.7 million in Series C funding
Healthcare automation company Bright.md announced that it closed $16.7 million in Series C funding. This round of funding brought in strategic investors like Philips Health Technology Ventures, UnityPoint Health Ventures, and Concord Health Partners — which is a healthcare-focused investment firm that has partnered with the American Hospital Association (AHA) on its AHA Innovation Development Fund.
With this round of funding, Bright.md will accelerate its market and technology expansion of its suite of care-automation solutions, including their flagship product called SmartExam, an AI-powered asynchronous telehealth platform already deployed in leading hospitals and healthcare systems across the U.S. and Canada.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has been shining a spotlight on the need for vibrant telehealth offerings, it has also exposed the limitations associated with video-only solutions. And even though video has enabled patients and providers to continue care, video visits still require a scheduled appointment with a doctor, take weeks of provider training to become proficient, and take the same amount of physician time as in-person visits. Plus providers need to offer a virtual entrypoint to care like Bright.md’s SmartExam — which streamlines care delivery across the entire care continuum.
SmartExam is the first step along the care pathway. And Bright.md’s AI-powered asynchronous virtual care platform enables patients to quickly share their concerns and symptoms with providers, get a diagnosis and treatment, or be fast-tracked for video, in-person, or specialty care.
Essentially, SmartExam is like a virtual physician’s assistant, which automates 90% of a primary, urgent care, or video visit, and reduces average visit time from 20 minutes to under 90 seconds. By intelligently and automatically combining patient-intake data, interview information, electronic health records, and clinical-workflow integration. Then it creates and enters SOAP notes and structured data into the patient’s health record, SmartExam boosts provider efficiency 15x and increases provider capacity to treat hundreds of patients in a single provider shift.
Key Quotes:
“Our new strategic investors share Bright.md’s vision to reimagine the way we deliver healthcare, especially in light of COVID-19. The pandemic has provoked a monumental shift in the care delivery and patient-provider experience. There’s no turning back. Healthcare will begin at the virtual front door, making healthcare delivery more efficient and allowing patients to get better care and providers to deliver it virtually and expeditiously. The capital and insight from our partners will enable us to achieve greater scale more rapidly in this next phase of our growth. We will be able to support more hospital systems in delivering patient navigation, triage, and treatment of low-acuity conditions, while seamlessly escalating those with more serious conditions to a higher level of care. We’ve worked toward this for six years, and I am extremely proud of what the team has accomplished and the high-value strategic partners our progress has attracted.”
“Providers across the country have witnessed a decline in ambulatory visits as a result of shelter-in-place orders. At the same time other systems are overrun with COVID-19 patients. In one region, clinicians are being furloughed and in other systems they are being pushed beyond capacity. SmartExam gives providers the necessary support they will need to help triage and treat, and offers patients a digital entrypoint to help them efficiently navigate the system in an environment where many fear doctor visits because of exposure to COVID-19. The coronavirus has only expedited a trend in care delivery that has been underway for nearly a decade.”
– Ray Costantini, M.D., co-founder and CEO of Bright.md
“We strive to identify and support best-in-class healthcare companies with innovative solutions that address affordability, quality and access to care with meaningful strategic benefits for health systems. Bright.md aligns with our strategy with a proven platform that enables health systems to leverage their existing physicians to meaningfully increase capacity and streamline care delivery through AI powered automation. With Bright.md, health care providers can significantly improve access and efficiency, enabling them to deliver better care, more quickly and in the lowest-cost setting.”
– James T. Olsen, Founder & Managing Partner, Concord Health Partners
Bright.md delivers solutions that help address the challenges that overwhelm busy healthcare professionals. The team has proven that they are nimble, and can quickly adapt to fast-changing market conditions. We are teaming up with Bright.md, because their platform is not only valuable during the current pandemic; we believe that its technology promises to enable new care models and help healthcare providers long into the future.”
– Rich Wilmot, Head of Philips Health Technology Ventures
“Long before anyone knew the impact COVID-19 would have on healthcare systems, the innovations Bright.md brought to market were creating enormous value for both patients and providers. Our investment in Bright.md is an important piece of how we’re striving to provide more convenient, personalized care. We’re certain our partnership with Bright.md will continue to find ways to drive care transformation that benefits everyone in the communities we serve.”
– Matthew Warrens, Director of Innovation, UnityPoint Health
