A nonprofit dedicated to making healthcare more economically sustainable and more focused on individual care is putting its money where its mouth is. Cambia Health Solutions, a Portland, OR-based nonprofit, has led a $17.5 million financing for medical image network LifeImage--which claims to be the largest, most utilized network for exchanging medical images.
The startup, founded in 2009, sees its mission as fundamentally improving healthcare by eliminating duplicative imaging, preventing excessive patient radiation and promoting faster, better healthcare.
As of April, LifeImage had been used to connect more than 530 hospitals and accessed by about 54,000 unique users. LifeImage has been used to exchange more than 1.1 billion images in all 50 U.S. states and more than 90 countries. It had roughly 16,000 active users at that time.
Its network consists of more than 120 multisite health systems including academic medical centers, pediatric facilities, certified trauma centers, oncology centers of excellence and imaging providers.
Among the recent additions are Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the Children's Hospital of Orange County. They join existing clients such as the Yale New Haven Health System, Kaiser Permanente, the UCSF Medical Center, the MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Mount Sinai Medical Center.
LifeImage is a secure medical image exchange platform. It makes patients' medical images available to unaffiliated hospitals, physicians and patients worldwide. It works with electronic medical records systems from Cerner and Epic Systems.
"Cambia is committed to investing in companies that transform the health care system into one that is person-focused and economically sustainable," said Rob Coppedge, SVP of Strategic Investments and Corporate Development at Cambia Health Solutions, in a statement. "We are excited to partner with LifeImage as they work towards their goal of providing universal and seamless access to medical images for both clinicians and patients."
The financing is expected to help LifeImage expand its customer base, grow its network capabilities and implement the next phase of its marketing strategy. It included existing investors Cardinal Partners, Galen Partners, Long River Ventures, Mass Ventures and Partners Innovation Fund. Oppenheimer was the placement agent for the round.
"Image sharing has reached a critical inflection point," said LifeImage co-founder and CEO Hamid Tabatabaie in a statement. "Our customers have validated its correlation to quality and cost of care, and it's now considered part of the standard of care. We're excited to work with Cambia to increase the mainstream focus and adoption of medical imaging interoperability."
"With the added capital and Cambia's support, LifeImage will scale up and demonstrate how innovative health plans can take advantage of our network to bring value to their providers as they adopt a value-based approach to managing the health of their patient populations," he added.
- here is the release