Together, moving mountains!

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure, along with several esteemed colleagues, to host the first ever Healthways Innovation Living Lab’s PitchFest. Ten dynamic entrepreneurs were given four minutes to share their most innovative ideas around transforming health and well-being. What transpired far exceeded our expectations. At the end of the four hours, we had been introduced to ten passionate, innovative, thought-provoking ideas, all addressing healthcare challenges from heart to toe – literally.

Each company was given three key tenants for their presentations: Know me. Surprise Me. Make It Easy. The ultimate goal was to learn who they were, the focus of their work and their transformative solutions. Next, the judging panel looked for the fresh, innovative and unexpected ideas and solutions to some of the biggest issues in health care. The winning solution needed to be easy to implement and be purpose driven– allowing for a high probability of consumer engagement.  Lastly, the solutions had to

The Judges: Eric Statz, TN Community Venture Fund, Tammy Stephens, Senior Vice-President of Operational Finance, Healthways, Shawn Nason, COO Population Health & the HILL, Healthways, and Marcus Whitney, Founder of Jumpstart

be comprehensive, and value-driven, adequately addressing the problem they presented – across the enterprise, provider, and patient platforms.

It was an enlightening four hours of passionate delivery by companies from all over the US and Finland: Yes Health, CareIt, Firstbeat, Twine Health, PeachDish, EverMind, Autonomous_ID, Dose Healthcare, Rimidi Health, and Wellthy. The PitchFest was held in the new Healthways Innovation Living Lab, aka the HILL – located the Healthways headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee. This supercharged event also attracted a collection of active community influencers to include Jumpstart Foundry, the founder of HackTN, IdeaShares, HCA and Tennessee Community Ventures.

As a sum, the presentations addressed not only the physical challenges of the healthcare consumer but their emotional and mental connectivity to their well-being journey. In the end, the sweet spot for transformational change lies in successfully connecting the health care consumer to their well-being journey and providing the enterprise, providers, payors and investors with cost effective results.

Rimidi Health! Winner of Healthways HILL PitchFest 2016

At the end of the pitch, Rimidi Health came out the winner!

Rimidi Health has made their focus on Diabetes medication and treatment management. The problem they specifically address is the lack of effective monitoring of both glucose and behavior management in patients – resulting in higher costs for both the enterprise, provider, and patient. Through their solution, patient data is aggregated and used to predict a patient’s glucose profile – allowing healthcare providers to drive blood glucose levels into the target through stronger medication management and behavior modifications. This solution offers health systems a path to delivering both quality and cost-effective treatment plans. Healthways is very excited to partner with Rimidi Health and bring this exciting technology to the fight against Diabetes in this country. Well done!

Healthways believes firmly in the value of partnering with the healthcare community, building relationships with entrepreneurs and collaborating to merge their 1.6 terabytes of consumer health outcomes and well-being with thought leaders and industry experts –  keeping innovation at the core of their endeavors.

At the end of the day, cultivating new relationships within the healthcare startup space is critical to growth. The success of the Healthways HILL PitchFest was proof that together, as visionaries focused on innovating the health and well-being space, we can move mountains!