After three months of training, the startups shared plans for everything from reducing hospital-acquired infections and improving patient education to deciphering confounding lab reports and simulating complicated surgeries.

While all of the companies made a strong case, here are the ones that most caught my attention:

IntelligentM

Want to know the culprit behind $10 million in annual lost revenue for hospitals? It’s not medical errors or billing mistakes (although those can obviously be expensive problems too). It’s something far less technical: dirty hands.

According to startup IntelligentM, one in every twenty patients admitted to the hospital will get an infection while admitted, and 50 percent of those infections are related to poor hand hygiene on the part of health care workers. To keep their hands clean, the company has created a sensor-equipped SmartBand that tracks when, where and how well a doctor or nurse washes her hands. If a doctor washes her hands properly, the bracelet buzzes once; if her hand-washing fails to meet the compliance requirements, it buzzes three times. It also can sense when a health care worker is about to insert an IV and buzzes if’s been too long since she last washed her hands.  In addition to letting hospitals track the aggregate behavior of their workers, it emails each health worker with a weekly hygiene report.

Luminate Health

If you’ve ever received a copy of a lab report, you know they’re nearly impossible to decode. But Luminate Health plans to break into the $75 billion lab testing market with a digital platform that helps patients understand and access their lab results.  Paid for by the lab testing companies, the dashboard displays lab results in colorful, intuitive graphs that give patients clear guidance on how to improve their health. It also enables doctors to add explanations and interpretations of the results. As part of the new health care legislation, labs will be required to provide patients with digital access to their reports. With Luminate’s dashboard, the company said they can not only be compliant with the new law but increase lab volume by strengthening the relationship between physicians and their patients.

Touch Surgery

Like a high-tech version of the board game Operation, Touch Surgery gives surgeons a virtual way to learn and practice medical procedures. Just by swiping their fingers, doctors can simulate any procedure from an appendectomy to cleft palate surgery to a carpal tunnel release. The founders’ pitch is that it gives surgeons a way to practice and learn faster, while collecting data on risk, education and other issues that could be valuable to hospitals, medical device companies and academic institutions. The app is free but the company makes money by charging medical device companies to place content in the app that trains surgeons to use their device. So far, it has signed contracts with two major medical device companies and is used by doctors at Duke, Stanford and other top institutions.

Keona Health

Each year, nurses at the average hospital spend 25,000 hours on the phone answering basic patient questions, said startup Keona Health. But by cutting the average triage call from 15 minutes to 60 seconds, the company said it can not only free up half of a hospitals’ nursing staff to meet with patients in person, it can help hospitals generate an additional $800,000 in revenue.

The key to its efficiency is an online service that guides patients through a set of questions based on standard triage protocol. A patient with a cough can describe his symptoms and ask whether or not he should come in to see a doctor, or a new mother could ask whether she can continue taking a certain medication while breast-feeding. Using natural language processing, machine learning and other algorithms, the platform analyzes the data and then provides nurses with a report. From there, nurses can reply via text message, email or phone call with the appropriate response.

HealthyOut

HealthyOut is still in stealth mode, so there’s not too much I can share now. But if you’re a foodie who wants to stay healthy, this is a startup to keep in mind. It already offers a mobile app for iOS and Android that helps diners find dishes at local restaurants that match their diet and nutrition preferences. And, so far, has attracted investors including 500 Startups’ Dave McClure and former IAC CEO Peter Horan.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• How HR can make the case for workforce analytics

Three months after launching a new program for consumer health tech companies with New York-based Startup Health, the company on Thursday announced its picks for its inaugural class. The 13 selected startups, which were culled from an applicant pool of more than 400, don’t receive funding from the program, as they might from traditional startup incubators. Instead, the program, which is supported by GE’s Healthymagination Fund, chose companies that have already raised some funding and are looking for support taking their businesses to the next level.

In exchange for giving up 2 to 10 percent equity ownership (which is split by GE and Startup Health and varies depending on the needs of the company), the companies receive three years of mentorship, training and other support from the two groups.

Backed by former Time Warner CEO Jerry Levin, Startup Health was launched with a goal of growing 1,000 startups over the next decade. Since 2011, it’s selected two classes of health tech startups targeting consumers, enterprises and other health care stakeholders.

For GE, the program is a way to keep a close watch on new developments in digital health and spot potentially big opportunities early on. And it comes on the heels of another corporation-backed health startup program — Nike’s TechStars-powered accelerator.

Here are the 13 companies:

Arpeggi – Nir Leibovich, Jason Wang, David Mittelman, PhD
Austin, TX

With a background in big data and analytics, Arpeggi’s founders want to make the high-speed analysis of genomic sequencing data easier and more affordable.

Aver Informatics – Kurt Brenkus
Green Bay, WI

As health organizations amass more and more data, Aver aims to provide a web-based platform for gleaning valuable insights from enterprise data.

Care at Hand – Andrey Ostrovsky, MD and Jeffrey Levy
Boston, MA

A graduate of health startup accelerator Rock Health, Care at Hand is a mobile system that helps non-clinical home care workers monitor and communicate the health of elderly patients.

Caremerge – Asif Khan, Michael Davolt and Fahad Aziz
Chicago, IL

Targeting senior living communities, Caremerge offers a set of web and mobile apps for the communication, care coordination and workflow management.

Cerora – Adam Simon
Philadelphia, PA

Cerora delivers diagnostic information related to brain health to patients, physicians and companies with a goal of helping health care workers effectively diagnose and manage concussions and Alzheimer’s disease.

Doctor.com – Andrei Zimiles
New York, NY

Claiming a database of more than 2.5 million healthcare providers, Doctor.com enables patients to discover and compare providers, book appointments and leave and read doctor reviews.

GetHealth – Chris Rooney and Liam Ryan

Dublin, Ireland and New York, NY

GetHealth is a mobile and web-based platform for increasing employee engagement in the workplace through fitness challenges, social support and other engagement features.

GoGoHealth – Natasha Alexeeva and Kwaku Ampromfi
Atlanta, GA

GogoHealth is an online and mobile platform for enabling patients to report minor ailments to care providers and then receive guidance and prescriptions online.

IntelligentM – Seth Freedman
Sarasota, FL and New York, NY

One of the companies in New York-based health accelerator Blueprint Health’s latest class, IntelligentM is a sensor-based monitoring system for making sure healthcare providers wash their hands. By maintaining clinical hygiene standards, the startup aims to drive down infection rates and improve patient outcomes and provider costs.

itMD – Halland Chen, MD
Miami, FL

itMD provides a cloud-based service that enables patients, doctors and imaging facilities more easily exchange medical images.

Oxitone Medical - Leon Eisen, PhD
Ashkelon, Israel

Oxitone says it has developed the first wrist pulse oximeter without a fingertip probe, which enables a more comfortable way to continuously and remotely monitor a patient’s blood oxygen level, pulse rate and other cardiac activity.

TalkSession – Melissa Thompson
New York, NY

TalkSession is an online platform that helps patients find mental health professionals and enables those professionals access tools for improving the quality of care.

WalkJoy – Blain Tomlinson
Long Beach, CA

WalkJoy offers a device worn just below the knee that helps people with peripheral neuropathy and the elderly restore their balance and gait and reduce falls.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• Smart Grid Apps: Six Trends That Will Shape Grid Evolution

Similar to the way the GoodGuide app gives people a quick and easy way to search and comparison shop for sustainable products, LabDoor lets users search for their dietary supplements and view grades reflecting their clinical efficacy and ingredient safety.

“It uses science to tell you what’s real in consumer products,” said founder and CEO Neil Thanedar. Prior to launching LabDoor, he ran his own FDA approval lab. “I knew which products were barely passing the standard to get on shelves and which were really excellent,” he said.

LabDoor brings Thanedar’s previous lab’s product safety testing methods to a new class of consumer products. For now, the site offers grades for dietary supplements and energy drinks, but it plans to expand to other over-the-counter medications, cosmetics and organic products.

The company’s database includes publicly available data from sources like the National Institute of Health and vitamin labels, as well as lab data from its own independent testing. LabDoor’s algorithms then compare products based on safety, efficacy and price to generate grades. Although Thanedar said the database includes information on thousands of products, when it launches in public beta on Thursday, users will only be able to search for hundreds of products that have underdone advanced testing. Over the beta period, the company will test additional products and add them to the site.

Thanedar estimates that the dietary supplement market is worth $36 billion and that, limited though it may be, LabDoor’s subset of the market covers $10 to $20 billion of that market because it focuses on the most popular products first. Last year, Consumer Reports found that supplements can come with risks and are often labeled inconsistently.

Consumers currently interested in researching safety and efficacy information on vitamins can check out Consumer Reports for a subscription fee or view more limited reviews of brands and products online. But LabDoor’s plan is to be a more comprehensive resource that provides much of its information for free. If you search for Kirkland branded Calcium, for example, you can view a grade, reviews and a general assessment of its efficacy and safety without paying anything. The company said it will offer premium subscriptions to consumers and professionals interested in more information, including composition details, recommendations and competitors.

To date, the company has raised $350,000 from investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Mayo Clinic.

Image by foodonwhite via Shutterstock.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013
• How HR can make the case for workforce analytics
• The 2013 task management tools market

Without external support, it can be difficult to stick to resolutions for improving your diet, getting enough sleep, exercising regularly or undertaking any other health-related routine. But a growing set of startups have launched apps to help people modify their behavior by making them more aware of their current routines and connecting them with communities of experts or networks of peers aspiring to achieve similar goals.

And these apps don’t just want to help those who want to lose weight or up their daily activity. They also take a more holistic approach, offering support for people whose goals include things like avoiding caffeine, practicing meditation, improving their posture and more.

Obviously, the apps themselves can only do so much — self-improvement strivers still need to dig in their heels and work on their own sticktoitiveness. But, if you’ve been trying to break a habit for a while, here are five apps that might help you get further in 2013 than you did in 2012.

FITOCRACY 

One of the older apps of the bunch, Fitocracy combines social networking with activity tracking to help people stick to whatever fitness goals they’ve set, from running their first 5k to practicing more yoga to following a paleo diet. As people complete activities or follow routines, they log their progress on the app but the most valuable feature is the ability to join groups of people engaged in similar activities. Newbie fitness nerds, for example, can find support in a group called “Nah, I’ll take the stairs” or regular marathoners can swap tips in a group on long-distance running.  (iOS only)

HEALTHTAP

Since launching last year, HealthTap’s goal has been to help patients connect with a network of 30,000 doctors willing to answer questions online. But, this month, the startup launched a new section focused on new year’s resolutions to support people who are interested in improving their general health but don’t have a pressing medical issue.  Through the app, people can browse information on a range of topics –from diet and exercise to lowering stress and improving relationships. And, for each topic, HealthTap enables people to follow and ask questions of the doctors most familiar with those issues, as well as view videos recorded by those doctors. (iOS and Android)

HEALTHY HABITS

Endorsed by the U.S. Surgeon General, Healthy Habits coaches people along the path to forming healthier behavior patterns by reminding them about the activities they should (and shouldn’t) complete and giving them a place to record their progress.  Users can select from a “Habit Library” or create their own custom habits and then indicate how frequently they want to receive reminders related to each. For motivation, users can include a picture and/or quote related to why they want to change the habit as well as an image or quote related to the reward they’ll give themselves when they succeed. It’s one of the more basic-looking apps – the aesthetic isn’t anything to write home about – but it gets the job done. (iOS only)

BLOOM and JUICE

All the way on other end of the design spectrum, Bloom and Juice (both made by Mindbloom) use inspiring images and sophisticated graphics to motivate people to healthier living. Bloom, which launched last year, lets people select from several “Life Areas,” including health, relationships, lifestyle and creativity, and then create “Blooms” that weave motivational images, music and quotes into reminders about specific activities.  For example, if you need to drink more water, you can choose a picture from their gallery (of beautiful images) and a song (from your music library or iTunes) to remind you at a specific time. Juice launched last month and similarly uses engaging aesthetics to help people track their exercise, sleep and diet to improve their energy level.  Each day, users log their mood, energy and activities and, over time, the app generates custom expert-submitted tips for improvement. (iOS only)

LIFT

Backed by Obvious Corp., the startup incubator-type venture created by Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone, Lift aims to encourage good habits by letting people “check-in” to healthy and positive activities and find motivation in the progress of peers. It supports health-related activities, like taking multivitamins and maintaining good posture, but also includes productivity and general lifestyle habits, like blogging more and waking up early. The app displays all the people following each habit and, as people check in, it shares the activity with the group. Members of each group can share comments about their own progress or give “props” and encouragement to their peers. (iOS only)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013
• How emerging technologies will influence collaboration
• Analyzing the wearable computing market

But as some point out, the adoption of mobile health apps has been uneven, with most consumers gravitating to those for exercise, diet and weight and doctors indicating interest in, but not necessarily widespread adoption of, mobile apps. Given the fact that general fitness and wellness apps can appeal to a broader audience of healthy consumers and don’t require buy-in from doctors, insurance companies or other institutional players, it makes sense that mobile health, to date, has moved faster for fitness applications than clinical ones.

In 2013, however, mobile health could make its biggest strides yet in the actual delivery of healthcare services —  from disease management to remote health monitoring and more.

More clinical adoption on the horizon

“I think next year is the year we start to see much more clinical adoption,” said Chris Wasden, managing director in the PwC Healthcare Strategy and Innovation Practice. “I think you’re going to see in this next year a lot of announcements that are just more meaningful than the [those] we’ve seen.”

At next month’s Consumer Electronics Show, 25 percent more digital health and fitness gadgets are expected to be on display, with a solid showing from companies behind apps powering medical history management and telemedicine.  But the products themselves are just the beginning — in the last year, the regulatory and institutional landscapes have adjusted in favor of mobile health.

While the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is still expected to provide further clarity on the kinds of health apps it will regulate, it’s already approved a range of apps (at least 75 according to an analysis by MobiHealthNews). Developers still want more information on the scope of health apps the FDA plans to oversee, as well as details on the approval process and its timeframe, but Wasden said its track record on approved apps thus far removes some apprehension as it shows that there’s a somewhat standardized and reliable process. The FDA’s decision earlier this month to approve remote monitoring in a clinical trial was another major milestone and paves the way for increased mobile health adoption in the medical community.

Aside from that, the continued support of the Affordable Care Act and other health IT-related legislation passed under President Obama could give hospitals and doctors new incentives for mobile health apps related to issues like accountability and electronic health records.

Insurance companies go mobile

Insurance companies are also stepping up their games, with mobile platforms that combine their own mobile apps with third-party, consumer-facing apps. For example, earlier this month, Aetna’s CEO said his company’s health data syncing platform CarePass would go mobile in March, 2013 to connect its own full-service symptom checking app iTriage with fitness apps like Fitbit and MapMyFitness.

As app options proliferate, healthcare providers and patients need a way to distinguish the good from the bad – especially given reports that many apps overstate their effectiveness or are just thinly based on science. But companies like Happtique are emerging to provide healthcare providers with private app marketplaces that curate and certify top-quality health and fitness apps. Those kinds of platforms could further drive up the role of mobile apps in the medical arena.

An additional obstacle for health app developers, some say, has been the mismatch between the values of the medical community and those of launching a startup. Healthcare providers want documented proven outcomes and startup founders want to iterate fast and get early validation for their ideas. But the rise of health startup incubators, like Rock Health, Startup Health and Blueprint Health is helping to bridge those cultural divides and encourage innovation that satisfies both groups.

There are other challenges to broader adoption of mobile health technologies: patients often download apps only to later ignore them and doctors want more training around liability concerns, workflow changes and how to handle new data. Beyond that, some argue that the people who cost the health system the most are least likely to use new technology. Still, even though a mass shift to mobile health won’t happen overnight, 2012 set the stage for a new wave of mobile adoption by the medical community. Let’s see how much progress it can make in 2013.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013
• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro

With twelve years as a health tech entrepreneur under his belt, he’s been around the block, so to speak, when it comes to raising capital ($100 million in total), working with venture capitalists and building a company. This week during Morgenthaler Ventures’ DC to VC health tech startup showcase at the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco, he spoke about his experience to a crowd of entrepreneurs, investors and health IT professionals.

Even though the complicated and regulation-heavy nature of the field has traditionally kept more investors and entrepreneurs out of health, he said, he’s starting to see that change.

More investors paying attention to health

Not only is the bloom coming off the rose a bit for consumer internet companies that produce a few hits but may not generate overall positive returns, he said, more investors are realizing that health is ripe for technological disruption.  Public offerings from companies like Epocrates, Vocera and Athena Health give investors additional reasons to pay attention to health, he said.

He acknowledged that interest in health from traditionally consumer-focused investors tends to peak every five years or so, but said it still seems as though interest is higher than it’s ever been.

“Because it’s complicated, fewer people want to make the investment in really learning it, but if you do as an entrepreneur or investor, it’s a good place to be,” Tangney told me. “[In my experience], there are more investors than there has been, and more money, because people realize the delivery of health services is a big problem and needs better technology. Software may be eating the world, but it hasn’t even taken a nibble yet out of healthcare.”

In addition to sharing a broad view of health tech at the conference this week, he offered health tech entrepreneurs a few pointers. Different companies might find success with different approaches, but here are four tips to consider.

If you want money, ask for advice. If you want advice, ask for money.

As students at Stanford Business School, Tangney and his co-founders started Epocrates as a class project and benefited from the guidance of advisors. But when the project became a company, those advisors became investors.

Asking for advice, he said, lets people feel like they’re contributing in a meaningful way and doesn’t put their guard up.  If they already feel personally invested, they might be more likely to contribute financially, too. But if what you want is real advice and not “soft pandering,” he said, ask for money, as it’s the best way to get real candor.

As you talk to investors, focus on the people, not the money.

When founders start fundraising, it might be easy to focus on the number, Tangney said, but you’re better off in the long run by focusing on the people. As people often say, taking money from investors is like entering into a marriage and, since you could be dealing with them for the better part of a decade, he said trusting and valuing their input is important.

Be aware that the market right now seems to favor monetization.

At Epocrates, Tangney and his co-founders focused on making money right off the bat, but realized that their network needed to reach a critical mass of doctors before they could really advertise against it. With Doximity, he said, he took that realization to heart and focused on building the network first. But, possibly in reaction to Facebook and the recognition that engagement doesn’t necessarily translate into dollars, he said, engagement metrics seem to count less for venture capitalists these days. While the right time to start monetizing varies on the kind of company, he said, the market is pushing for monetization more than it has before.

If you’re targeting doctors, focus on these three things.

Given the changing health landscape, he said, it’s a tough time to be a physician. There are more demands on their time and more technology thrown at them that doesn’t necessarily help doctors but executives in the C-suite.  So, if you’re a startup focusing on doctors, Tangney said, offer them something that saves them time, makes them money and improves the quality of care (in that order).

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013
• The quantified self: hacking the body for better health
• A near-term outlook for big data

Startup Health differs from traditional startup accelerators in that it doesn’t select early-stage companies with little or no funding but companies that often already have some funding and momentum. And instead of running for an intense three-month period, the program lasts for three years. Startup Health connects its companies with the right people, partners and strategic resources to grow over the long-term,  and takes an equity stake of between 2-and-10 percent, depending on the startup it is helping.  The newest class of companies, which were culled from 700 applicants, include six companies from the East Coast and six from the West Coast, four women entrepreneurs and five physicians. Here are 12 companies that are members of the newest class (descriptions from Startup Health).

Dave Chase and Bassam Saliba (Avado)

Dave and Bassam are entrepreneurs on a mission to make it easier for patients and providers to communicate. Together, Dave and Bassam co-founded Avado (@avado), a Patient Relationship Management system dubbed “GPS for Healthcare” that is the next generation, EHR-neutral patient portal built for the new requirements facing healthcare providers such as medical homes and Accountable Care Organizations. In addition to his role as CEO of Avado, which is headquartered in Seattle, Dave is co-editing and writing a book for HIMSS on patient engagement and is a regular contributor to Reuters, Forbes, and TechCrunch. Previously, Dave founded Microsoft’s healthcare platform business leading it to be the underlying technology for the majority of healthIT systems. Bassam, CTO of Avado, has held leadership roles in companies such as Microsoft, Scalix Corporation, and Fidesic including selling one business to CheckFree for $1 billion.

Jonathon Feit and Christian Witt (Beyond Lucid Technologies)

Jonathon and Christian are entrepreneurs on a mission to improve emergency care by putting digital innovations in the hands of EMTs and Firefighters. Jonathon (CEO) and Christian (President & CTO) co-founded Beyond Lucid Technologies (@jonathonfeit / @beyondlucid). The company’s MEDIVIEWTM Platform is designed to connect First Responders with care facilities, including Accountable Care Organizations. It is the first electronic patient care record system built specifically for disaster management, including integrated satellite-based GPS that works both online and offline (i.e., when the network shuts down), and telehealth capabilities that let care providers access prehospital data within 30 seconds, making patient pre-registrations possible at last. Jonathon and Christian co-founded Beyond Lucid Technologies in 2009, while completing their MBAs at Carnegie Mellon University, which is an early investor in the company. Dell and Microsoft are partners, and the company received an NIH grant in 2010 and participated in Rock Health.

Rebecca Woodcock (CakeHealth)

Rebecca is an entrepreneur on a mission to help people save money on healthcare by
bringing transparency to health expenses. Rebecca is the founder and CEO of CakeHealth (@cakehealth), a free web service that makes it easy for people to understand and manage all their health expenses. Rebecca was recently named as one of “15 Women in Tech to Watch in 2012″ by Inc. Magazine. CakeHealth, based in San Francisco, is a Rock Health graduate and has raised seed funding from prominent investors such as 500 Startups, George Zachary and Kirill Sheynkman.

Alan Blaustein and Nancy Snyderman, MD (CarePlanners)

Alan’s passion for healthcare solutions began with his thymic cancer diagnosis in 2005. Frustrated with the limited resources available to effectively navigate the healthcare system, he leaned on his longtime friend Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC’s Chief Medical Editor, for support. After Alan’s recovery, the friends realized there was a need for a service to help patients and caregivers make better decisions amid the healthcare system’s many complexities. In June
2012, they launched CarePlanners (@careplanners) to provide patient and caregiver navigation, coordination and organization solutions through a nationwide team of healthcare experts (e.g.
- registered nurses, social workers, Medicare experts, insurance and billing specialists, and
other healthcare advocates) and a sophisticated set of online decision-making support tools. CarePlanners is headquartered in New York City. Alan, an attorney to the burgeoning Internet marketplace in the late 1990s, was also one of the Internet’s earliest entrepreneurs, holding senior leadership positions at About, Flexplay, and OpenSky. Dr. Nancy Snyderman is a surgeon, a caregiver, and a journalist.

Sherwin Sheik (CareLinx)

Sherwin is an entrepreneur on a mission to leverage technology to disrupt, disintermediate and improve the entire in-home caregiving service delivery industry. Sherwin is the founder and CEO of CareLinx (@carelinx), an online professional caregiver network that provides solutions to help consumers & institutions easily find, screen, manage and pay caregivers who match their specific needs and budget. CareLinx is well positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for caregivers with the aging of our population. CareLinx, headquartered in San Francisco, has raised $1.5 million to date and has several thousand caregivers in its network across the United States. Prior to founding CareLinx, Sherwin was a successful healthcare analyst and trader at a hedge fund.

Steven Eisenberg, MD (Chemotopia)

Steven (@drseisenberg) is a serial entrepreneur and physician on a mission to make cancer suck less. Chemotopia (@chemotopia), headquartered in San Diego, CA, is the first application that prepares patients for every aspect of the journey through chemotherapy treatment. Chemotopia offers a supportive community of real patients helping and learning from one another and timely and pertinent information for cancer patients as they go through the different stages of chemotherapy. Steven is also a co-founder of California Cancer Associates for Research and Excellence (cCARE), California’s first statewide private practice of medical oncology, and Lyrical Life which is dedicated to using personal connections and music as a part of a patient’s healing process. Steven’s unique approach to cancer therapy has been featured on the Today Show.

Mitesh Patel, MD, MBA, Sachin Nanavati, and Derek Juang, MD (Docphin)

Mitesh, Sachin, and Derek are a team of physicians and entrepreneurs on a mission to transform the way we practice medicine. They co-founded Docphin (@docphin), a platform for healthcare providers to personalize, share, and connect through medical research, while enabling hospitals to meet new accreditation and funding requirements. Mitesh (CEO), Sachin (COO), and Derek (CTO) launched Docphin nationally in May 2012 at three medical centers and by August it had spread to over 35 of the top health systems in the country including Harvard, Penn, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and UCSF. Docphin has partnered with several national organizations including the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Docphin is a graduate of Rock Health, is a 2012 DCtoVC finalist, and is based in New York City.

Eve Phillips (Empower Interactive)

Eve is an entrepreneur on a mission to reduce the cost and accessibility of behavioral health solutions and transform evidence-based psychotherapy. Eve is the co-founder and CEO
of Empower Interactive (@empowerco), a telehealth and e-learning company, which is headquartered in San Francisco. Eve has held product, strategy, and business development roles in companies such as Microsoft, Zazzle, and eCert, and has also been a member of the investment teams at Amadeus Capital Partners, Vector Capital, and Greylock Partners.

Derek Flanzraich (Greatist)

Derek is an entrepreneur on a mission to make everyone a “Greatist,” someone who simply makes better choices for their fitness, health, and happiness. Derek is the founder and CEO of Greatist (@greatist), the fastest-growing site in the health and fitness space with nearly 2 million unique users per month. Greatist, launched in 2011 in New York City, is the first brand to focus on creating a new type of high quality social content consumers can trust. Greatist has been seen on TIME, Fortune, Forbes, Mashable, Men’s Fitness, TechCrunch, The Wall Street Journal, and Health Magazine. Prior to Greatist, Derek was at Clicker.com (acquired by CBS) and NBC Universal’s Digital Entertainment Strategy & Operations.

Venkat Gullapalli, MD (Medikly)

Venkat is a physician, pharmaceutical marketer, and serial entrepreneur on a mission to reinvent how pharmaceutical brands communicate with healthcare professionals (HCPs). Venkat is the founder and CEO of Medikly (@medikly), a turnkey enterprise platform provider that helps bridge the digital gap between pharma and HCPs. Medikly is headquartered in New York City and its customers include top-10 pharmaceutical companies and healthcare marketing agencies. The company is growing quickly and is backed by Strategic America and the digital health accelerator Blueprint Health, among others.

Eric Leven and Aditya Verma (Rip Road)

Eric and Aditya are entrepreneurs on a mission to make patients better by making them better patients. Eric is the President and CEO of Rip Road (@riproad), Aditya is the COO. Based in New York City, Rip Road develops personalized patient health management programs enabling providers and health plans to engage patients on their mobile devices so that patients learn to communicate with their providers, actively manage their health conditions, and adhere to
their treatments and health regimens. Prior to Rip Road, Eric co-founded the Common Short Code Industry in the US for text messaging. He has also worked for multiple startups including Mainspring, which was sold to IBM, and Europe Online Networks, which raised over $100 million. Aditya has led the development of mobile communications efforts for several major brands. Before launching Rip Road, Aditya helped AT&T Wireless launch text messaging and mobile web in the U.S.

Rosina Samadani, PhD (Truth On Call)

Rosina is a serial entrepreneur on a mission to improve communications in healthcare between physicians, industry, media and the government. Rosina is the founder and president of Truth On Call (@truthoncall), a mobile market research service that engages with verified physicians in real-time via text. Rosina is also the founder of Capella Advisors, a strategic consulting firm to the healthcare industry providing support of product commercialization, portfolio strategy, market entry, and business development. Prior to her current roles, Rosina worked at McKinsey & Co. serving in the healthcare practice supporting efforts ranging from clinical development to product marketing. Truth On Call is based in New York City.

(Image by Stepan Kapl via Shutterstock.)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013
• The quantified self: hacking the body for better health
• A near-term outlook for big data

The six-person company, which is launching Wednesday, is led by Jason Oberfest and Gerald Cheong, both former executives of mobile gaming company ngmoco. Mango is backed by Floodgate Fund, First Round Capital, Steve Anderson with Baseline Ventures, Zynga co-founder and CEO Mark Pincus and Square COO Keith Rabois.

The founders say they plan to create a range of consumer health apps, which will employ the game design principles developed during their years in social gaming. But its first app, which it will start beta testing this month, aims to help people stick to their medication, as well as monitor information related to their meds.

“Our main focus is helping consumers better manage and improve their health, and helping consumers get better about taking supplements and medications is a big part of that given how many Americans (four out of five) take either a nutritional supplement, a prescription medication or an over the counter drug each week,” Oberfest said in an email.

As we’ve reported before, mobile health is exploding, with more than 13,000 health apps available for consumer consumption. The U.S. mHealth (or mobile health) market earned $230 million in 2010 and is estimated to reach $392 million in 2015, according to research and consulting firm Frost and Sullivan.

But, researchers and experts in the field say very few mobile apps are actually gaining adoption and proving valuable to consumers. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Center, only ten percent of adult cell phone users in the U.S. have downloaded a health app, with some never using it or only using it once.

Several apps already help consumers adhere to their prescriptions, but Oberfest said Mango Health’s first app is distinct in that it allows consumers to maintain a complete log of their personal health activity, compare themselves to others taking the same medication or who have similar conditions and informs consumers about potential interactions between their medications, food and supplements. The app incents people to maintain their health and (engage with the app) by giving them discounts and rewards for sticking to their schedule.

Like other developers tackling the mobile health market, Oberfest said Mango Health anxiously awaits the FDA’s next draft guidance on the regulation of mobile health apps (the agency issued its first draft last July) and will follow any guidelines that their app is subject to, from the FDA or another regulatory agency.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• CES 2012: a recap and analysis
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• The future of mobile: a segment analysis by GigaOM Pro

Healthy Dose of Imagination, a microsite launched Tuesday by the values-focused New York investment group Collaborative Fund, pairs stats about medical conditions, healthcare spending and other health trends with whimsical animations and inspiring future scenarios based on the work of innovative startups and non-profits.

For example, it might offer a sobering statistic about the upcoming shortage of physicians:

But then it follows up with the more hopeful recognition that new startups, such as Sherpaa, iCouch and others, are starting to make primary care as painless as online shopping.

“The project came out of the idea that we might be able to inspire people and younger entrepreneurs to find creative solutions to problems that are facing healthcare,” said Collaborative Fund investor Karyn Campbell. “We were faced with a wealth of information about the problems and a wealth of information about the solutions. Trying to find way to mash all that together in a fun and creative way was the challenge.” It gives the Collaborative Fund a way to get more exposure while also recognizing the work of emerging startups in the healthcare space.

Launched in 2010, the Collaborative Fund invests in collaborative consumption-oriented startups, as well as those that are values-based, including Kickstarter, Skillshare and TaskRabbit.

Campbell said the new site, which was created in partnership with a designer, developer and animator, references about 50 startups culled from a partnership with Startup America. Now that the microsite is live, visitors can recommend startups to add.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013
• Crowdfunding’s rapid growth and future opportunity
• Analyzing the wearable computing market

According to a Pew Internet & American Life Project report released Thursday, caregivers are more likely than other Internet users to look for health information online and take advantage of social tools related to health.

Borrowing tech guru Tim O’Reilly’s phrase, Susannah Fox, associate director of digital strategy for Pew, calls caregivers the “alpha geeks” of social tech in health.

“They are very much in need of help and in need of up-to-the-minute, good quality health information. They are using all the tools at their disposal in new ways to gather and share health information on behalf of themselves and on behalf of the people they love and care for,” she said. “[Caregivers] are creating the tools that they need, just as hackers create the tools that they need.”

While 80 percent of Internet users in the U.S. search for health information online, the report said 88 percent of caregivers conduct those types of searches. For certain kinds of information and activities, the differences between online caregivers and non-caregivers are even more significant.

According to the study:

• 38 percent of online caregivers have looked at drug reviews online, compared with 18 percent of non-caregivers
• 26 percent of caregivers online have searched the Web for someone with similar health concerns, compared with 15 percent of non-caregivers
• 21 percent of online caregivers have looked at online reviews and rankings of doctors or other providers, compared with 13 percent of non-caregivers
• 28 percent of caregivers said they turned to others with a similar health condition, compared with 17 percent of non-caregivers who did so, on or offline
• 24 percent of online caregivers said they tracked non-weight/fitness health indicators and symptoms online, compared to 13 percent of non-caregivers

While the study confirmed some of what Pew already suspected — that caregivers use the Internet more intensely than others — Fox said that statistical analysis showed that they’re not just more likely to be middle-aged or more educated, but that there’s something about being a caregiver that makes their online behavior different.

The findings are significant for policymakers, hospital administrators, clinicians and patients themselves, as well as those working on health tech startups. In the past year, a couple of new startups have launched directly targeting caregivers, including CareZone, launched by former Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, and CareLinx. But caregivers are also clearly a key audience for general health tech startups. These are the ones who will most actively embrace the apps and services that help them find doctors, track symptoms, research medical facilities and more — for themselves and those they love. As more people turn to the Web for health information and more people rely on loved ones to help conduct that research, that will become increasingly true, Fox said.

“This report is a window into the future,” she added. “We now have the data to show that caregivers are a viable target market for anyone who’s interested in reaching health care consumers, especially older adults who are less likely to be wired than younger adults.”

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013
• The quantified self: hacking the body for better health
• A near-term outlook for big data