eWeek reports on recent data from a PwC report on health services and health information technology investments by US VC’s. 2004 numbers were up dramatically over 2003 (admittedly a very down year), with the biggest deals going to Genomic Health, a medical diagnostic genomic information company that
received a total of $50 million in two rounds, and ChartOne, an
electronic medical records firm that got $26 million. Quotes:
The report concludes that health care technology firms that provide "software for electronic medical records, physician and hospital management, billing and claims processing software received a large share of healthcare venture capital dollars."
Other companies providing "ehealth information, consumer-directed programs, and offering or developing clinical products" also managed to attract VC dollars.
The e-health record industry is presumably going to see this given the current administration’s emphasis on this issue. And that’s a good thing. I had the annual hearing test recently and watched in amazement as the tech scratched out a diagram of my results on notepaper – "It will take about 2 weeks to get these to your doctor" she said. Given the pace of development in just about every other industry there is, that felt very, well, 19th century. A tablet PC wirelessly connected the lab network, with e-record software that would send a copy of the test results immediately upon conclusion of the test … now, that would be something.