Avizia, the leading end-to-end telehealth solution provider, announced a strategic channel partnership with Northwell Health, New York state's largest health care provider and private employer, as well as a direct-equity investment from Northwell Ventures, the health system's corporate venture arm.
Within this enterprise-technology-focused partnership, the companies will work to expand the depth and reach of Northwell's telehealth services, helping to effectively and efficiently provide patients with the right care at the right time and place.
The investment and partnership also marks the close of Avizia's funding round, bringing the total number of invested Series A capital to $18 million.
Working with Avizia, Northwell aims to align the telehealth infrastructure for its 21 hospitals and more than 550 outpatient practices throughout the New York metropolitan area.
This alignment will include physician offices, imaging centers, laboratories, same-day surgical centers, skilled nursing facilities, home care, emergency medical and air ambulance services, and marks a critical step for the organization in ensuring it is seamlessly able to meet the medical needs of the community.
"Northwell Health is working diligently to provide the best care to our community as efficiently for patients and providers as we can," said Martin Doerfler, MD, associate chief medical officer and senior vice president of clinical strategy and development at Northwell.
"We believe that our enterprise telehealth partnership with Avizia will allow us to develop a robust, direct-to-consumer telehealth platform that will provide care to the individuals we serve within their homes and businesses for a range of different conditions."
Among the telehealth applications already in place at Northwell is a robust electronic intensive care unit (eICU) program, including subspecialty neuro-critical care coverage that augments its critical care teams in seven hospitals and eight ICUs.
The health system also manages a telestroke program that allows its team of board-certified stroke neurologists to rapidly evaluate and assist its emergency medicine teams in treating stroke patients upon arrival.
As a part of its work with Avizia in 2017 Northwell will look to extend both of those capabilities across all of its existing facilities. In addition, Northwell provides telemonitoring services for home-care patients, using a tablet-based system that pairs with Bluetooth devices to deliver real-time, vital sign and symptom data to clinicians.
"Avizia's mission is to enable Any Provider to care for Any Patient in Any Place. We are honored to be working with Northwell and believe this partnership will help Avizia further innovate our platform to transform patient care," said Avizia CEO and Co-Founder Mike Baird.
"The Avizia ONE platform enables leading healthcare institutions like Northwell to better coordinate care and get the patients the services they need regardless of their location, while dramatically improving the patient experience."
In addition to the partnership Northwell is also leveraging Avizia ONE, Avizia OnePass and myCare by Avizia to provide a full-service technology solution that will enable providers across their growing network to virtually consult with each other.
The enterprise solution will also allow patients served by Northwell clinics and hospitals to receive more convenient virtual care when and where they need it.
"Northwell is increasing the use of telemedicine as part of its ongoing commitment to enhancing the patient experience. This partnership with Avizia will certainly improve Northwell's ability to communicate care plans across the care continuum, as well as appropriately manage care in more cost-effective settings for patients," said Thomas Thornton, senior vice president and executive director of Northwell Ventures.
"Northwell selected Avizia because of its end-to-end telemedicine capabilities and expertise. The company offers wide-use case applicability, along with an open-technology architecture to integrate more seamlessly into the ever-growing Northwell."
Gartner[1] lists Avizia as a sample vendor delivering an Enterprise Virtual Care Platform in its "Hype Cycle for Telemedicine and Virtual Care, 2016" report. Avizia's telehealth solutions are improving the delivery of care for more than 400 healthcare systems throughout 37 countries and eight of the top 10 hospital networks in the United States.