Story Health brings the specialty clinic to the home, bridging the gap between patients and providers using connected home devices, virtual patient engagement, health coaches and AI-powered clinical decision support.
Platform proven to help providers reach optimal medication doses in significantly more patients
SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Story Health, a health technology and services company that extends specialty care into patient’s homes, today announced a $22.6 million series A funding round co-led by Northpond Ventures and B Capital Group. The round also included participation from new investor LRVHealth and existing investors Define Ventures and General Catalyst, bringing the company’s total funding to approximately $27 million.
Launched in 2020 by CEO Tom Stanis, who was a co-founder for Google’s Verily, his Verily colleague Nikhil Roy, and cardiologist Ashul Govil MD MBA, Story Health works with health systems to improve the quality of specialty care and lower the costs for patients. The company primarily works with health systems to help manage heart-failure patients and now will expand to support other areas of cardiology this year.
“Conditions like heart disease that require specialist care are extremely complex, debilitating, and costly, yet our health system doesn’t have enough clinicians to handle patient demand. That’s why specialty care is the next frontier for digital health,” said Karen Page, General Partner of B Capital Group. “Digital health platforms like Story Health give specialists unprecedented scale, allowing them to continuously monitor their patients’ progress, make faster adjustments in treatment regimens, and ultimately improve the lives of patients themselves.”
Cardiology is one of the biggest U.S. healthcare expenditures, accounting for more than $200 billion each year. However, like other specialty disciplines, many problems stand in the way of reducing costs, including underutilized preventive care, patient issues accessing follow-up care and a significant shortage of cardiologists.
Story Health bridges the gap between infrequent office visits and the day-to-day lives of patients, extending the specialist clinic into the home. Integrated directly into EHRs with AI-powered clinical-decision support, the adaptive platform helps clinicians optimize medication treatment and reduce their workload.
“Even with billions pouring into digital health over the past few years, there’s still a tremendous opportunity to revolutionize specialty care, which is why Story Health’s early momentum and demonstrated outcomes show that it’s going to be a leader in digital health,” said Tripp Peake, Managing Partner, LRVHealth. “Story Health has the leadership team, the vision and the platform to fill one of the largest gaps in our healthcare system.”
The Story Health platform includes an ecosystem of smart connected devices for patients that feed data back to providers; virtual engagement for enhancing the patient experience; AI-powered clinical-decision support that advises clinicians on medication titration as a patient’s condition evolves; and health coaches who help patients overcome social barriers to care like transportation, affordability and mobility challenges.
“Building a comprehensive, highly engaging virtual specialty care solution for providers was already a huge achievement, but addressing those social barriers to care for patients was also incredibly important,” said Tom Stanis, Co-founder and CEO of Story Health. “Vulnerable populations like those on Medicaid and Medicare consistently see poorer health outcomes compared to other groups, but at the same time are the same people that face the most challenges accessing care. As more health systems look to incorporate support for social determinants of health, we want to be their partners in specialty care.”
Story Health already is producing solid outcomes across its customers. A recent analysis found that clinicians using the Story Health platform accepted 87 percent of AI-driven treatment recommendations. Other outcomes included:
- Nearly all of patients who receive enrollment outreach ultimately engage with Story Health;
- 85 percent engage daily with the platform over the first three months.
- Continuous data-sharing between patients and their specialists is leading to more and faster medication adjustments;
- Patients complete more labs compared to the national average; and
- Cardiologists achieve target doses of guideline-directed medical therapy in significantly more patients in three months compared to national averages.
ChristianaCare, Delaware’s largest health system, uses Story Health in its award-winning heart failure program and has experienced many positive outcomes in its initial pilot.
“Our commitment is to provide the best cardiac care possible, and we understand that care cannot be limited to just the times when patients are in the office. Story Health allows us to extend our award-winning cardiology care into patients’ homes, giving our team of compassionate, dedicated cardiologists and clinical support staff the information they need to personalize care to each patient,” said Mark Schneider, M.D., MBA, Health Innovation Advisor at ChristianaCare. “By leveraging the Story Health platform, we can get patients on the right medications and dosages more quickly, which ultimately increases survival while also reducing heart-failure hospitalizations.”
Moving forward, Story Health plans to use the new funding to continue innovating its platform and expects to grow its team significantly this year in support of more health system customers.
About Story Health
Story Health is a healthcare technology firm that builds adaptive virtualized care systems for specialists. The Story Health platform empowers specialists through intelligent embedded clinical software tools, virtual patient programs, and analytics that adapt therapy to the individual needs of specific patients. Story Health is led by CEO Tom Stanis, co-founder of Verily and former Google engineer, product manager Nikhil Roy, and cardiologist Ashul Govil, MD MBA. For more information, please visit www.storyhealth.ai
