HITLAB Announces Finalists for Spring 2022 Breakthrough Alliance Challenge

Today HITLAB announced the five finalists selected for the Spring 2022 Breakthrough Alliance (BTA) Innovator’s challenge. The BTA is a digital health consortium which was created to accelerate a greater number of innovations to improve health outcomes and care delivery through verified emerging technologies.

The finalists, which were selected based on innovation, scalability, sustainability and impact of their solution, include My Health Hatch, Well Brain Inc., Mammha, Rhaeos and Taylannas. There were hundreds of applications from around the world. Each was reviewed and scored by a panel of independent judges and Breakthrough Board Members.

All 5 companies will have a chance to present their digital health solutions on June 30th during the HITLAB 2022 Innovator’s Summit. Three tiers of winners will be selected. All the winning solutions will be evaluated in validation studies conducted by the HITLAB Research and Evaluation team. They will also receive an opportunity to present with other industry leaders at one of HITLAB’s monthly Digital Health Symposia.  The 2nd and 1st place winners will receive published articles.

“We are amazed by the amazing pool of applicants we received as well as how far the standard level of innovation for digital health has risen,” said Stan Kachnowski, Chair of HITLAB and Director Digital Health Program, Columbia Business School. “While the race was very close, the 5 digital health solutions that were selected address current gaps in healthcare and fulfill unmet needs in the marketplace. The applications were all reviewed by a group of highly regarded digital health industry leaders who have considerable experience in the digital health sphere.”

Summary of Finalists/Solutions:

• My Health Hatch (Fayatettville, NY)- Provides a software platform to address the increasing burden on caregivers to manage more of the healthcare activities that don’t require a medical background.  The platform rebuilds patient data so it can be shared selectively amongst caregivers, combined with relevant education and healthcare resources to match those records. This relieves the growing administrative burden placed on caregivers and enables them to find solutions that improve the patient’s health and quality of life, without sacrificing their own.
• Well Brain Inc. (Pleasant Hill, CA) – A mission driven digital health platform that focuses on chronic pain.  It was founded by three chronic pain physicians that saw the impacts of the opioid crisis and wanted to help their patients rely less on pain medications. The solution includes meditation, behavioral health, virtual physical therapy and patient assessments that help improve a patient’s quality of life and save healthcare dollars.  Today the company serves over 100,000 patients and with 400% YOY growth.
• Mammha (Miami, FL) A mobile-and web-based platform that provides seamless, streamlined, in-office and remote screening, referral delivery, specialized care coordination, and coming soon, therapy from Mammha clinicians. They are on a mission to provide a complete maternal mental health care solution.
• Rhaeos – (Evanston, IL) A VC- backed, clinical stage medical device company, which created FlowSense, a patent protected platform technology and a noninvasive wireless, wearable skin patch that can assess and monitor fluid flow subdermally throughout the body. The company is initially targeting hydrocephalus, a life threatening condition caused by an abnormal accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Implantable shunts, the gold standard treatment, often fail, leading to multiple trips to the emergency room and repeat surgeries. There is no technology available today that can easily assess CSF flow in shunts wirelessly, bedside, and without capital equipment until now.
• Taylannas Inc. (Miami, FL)– Their SpeechMED solution makes complicated healthcare instructions understandable to patients and their caregivers regardless of their literacy level or how well they read English. It is the only application that speaks to patients in the language that they understand and is specifically designed for seniors, the visually impaired, and other patients who do not read well regardless of their native language.

To learn more about the current and future state of digital care and see the finalists present their solutions, attend HITLAB’s all-virtual 2022 Innovator’s Symposium on June 30th (9am-9pm ET).

Register here.

About HITLAB Breakthrough Alliance

HITLAB Breakthrough Alliance is an accelerator that helps early-stage startups conduct rapid pilot studies to test their products and move closer to market. Selected startups have their technologies tested in pilot studies with clinical partners and patients, gathering the data needed to accelerate their concepts. To source startups, Breakthrough holds open innovation competitions and networking events that bring together the digital health and investment ecosystem.

Breakthrough is membership-based and board members represent the best organizations in healthcare.