NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans-based technology company Watershed Health has announced the completion of a $13.6 million funding round led by an investment from First Trust Capital Partners with participation from FCA Venture Partners, Create Health Ventures, Impact Engine, 450 Ventures, LDH Ventures II/Launchpad Digital Health, MassMutual Ventures, Capstar Partners and Wanxiang Healthcare Investments.
The company said the infusion of capital will be used to expand the implementation of its real-time care coordination Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform and to grow the engineering, development, customer success and sales teams.
Watershed works to solve uncoordinated care by becoming the single point of connection among a patient’s clinical and non-clinical providers. A shared patient record enables the exchange of information in real-time, including clinical documents, current health status, social determinants of health and contact information.
“Recent estimates show uncoordinated care costs the US roughly $340 billion annually in wasted resources, surpassing the costs associated with heart disease or cancer,” said a Watershed spokesperson. “Uncoordinated care is a significant contributor to morbidity and mortality, and can result in duplication of tests and services, medication errors, delayed or missed diagnoses, patient confusion and frustration, and poor patient outcomes. According to the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst, almost 70% of avoidable adverse patient outcomes in the US by cost can be attributed to provider behavior.”
“My work as a physician has shown me the consequences of uncoordinated care – the missed connections and the inefficiencies,” said Dr. Chip Grant, an interventional cardiologist and Watershed founder and CEO. “It’s frustrating for providers and it’s harmful to patients. I started Watershed because I knew a better healthcare system was possible, and I wanted to solve the problems I was seeing in my community.”
Grant founded Watershed Health in 2013 with a focus on the Alabama Gulf Coast. He said demand has expanded and he hopes to scale Watershed across the country. He said the company’s current customers include four out of six major U.S. health plans, as well as “thousands of clinical and non-clinical providers that are delivering care to more than five million patients.”
