Cedars-Sinai partners with startups Well and Grace on secure text messaging, end-of-life care
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center announced two partnerships with emerging companies that came out of its Techstars Healthcare Accelerator program. The health system will be implementing Well text messaging to communicate with patients and Grace’s end-of-life and funeral planning services.
Cedars-Sinai said on Tuesday that it will deploy Well’s software to enable its staff to connect directly with patients via text messages. The technology will also help the hospital streamline triage and resolution by routing messages to the most appropriate person while software bots will interact with patients about appointment times and location, directives and paperwork, the companies said. Patients will also be able to conduct administrative tasks by texting, including bill pay, checking insurance eligibility and completing paperwork.
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Joan August, vice president of service line operations at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said that the second startup it partnered with, Grace, "is on the cutting edge of linking technology with the sensitive moments in life."
The startup will work with families of dying or deceased Cedars-Sinai patients to work through steps they need to take including understanding hospice, funeral costs, paperwork, closing out accounts, arranging care for dependents, determining who is in charge of an estate, securing property and arranging organ donation, among other tasks.
Both Well and Grace participated in Cedars-Sinai Techstars Healthcare Accelerator.
The three-month residential program brought innovators from around the country, and surrounded them with mentors, Cedars-Sinai clinicians, executives and physicians, as well as other healthcare leaders in the Los Angeles area and investment specialists.
The next accelerator class is slated to begin in early 2017, according to Omkar Kulkarni, director of the Healthcare Innovation Accelerator at Cedars-Sinai.
Twitter: @SullyHIT
Email the writer: tom.sullivan@himssmedia.com
