The Global Innovation Center Brings Patient Experience into Focus at Venture Atlanta Conference

VSP Vision's Global Innovation Center brought its expertise in patient experience (PX) to Venture Atlanta, a leading southeast venture conference held on October 19 and 20, as the official PX screener of the event’s Recruiting and Screening Committee. 

The Global Innovation Center’s role as the official PX screener was designed to ensure that innovative patient experience startups were considered and selected for the conference’s official showcase. This involved reviewing applications submitted by the companies and voting in the selection process. 

According to M. Cole Jones, the Global Innovation Center’s Sr. Ecosystem Principal, attending and participating in Venture Atlanta was a natural fit since patient experience is one of the Global Innovation Center’s three new focus areas. 

"Venture Atlanta has created the ideal environment for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and industry experts alike to collide. We saw an opportunity to make sure that cutting-edge startups that are impacting areas and industries important to healthcare and VSP are included in that sandbox," said Jones.

Of the 88 companies that submitted applications to pitch at Venture Atlanta, the Global Innovation Center chose nine companies with a focus on patient experience to present to attendees:

• 1 True Health - Care Management, Inc. A technology-enabled clinical services company based in Austin, TX, that offers “virtual first” preventative care through services and intelligent software to help patients better manage chronic and acute conditions.
   
• Mitivate. An Atlanta-based company that gives healthcare and healthcare plan providers access to real-time, clinically generated data to help them identify financial inefficiencies so that they can normalize and increase revenue for their services using high-quality healthcare data analysis.
   
• Physician 360. A telemedicine and diagnostic testing company based in Southlake, TX, that helps independent pharmacies transform their neighborhood businesses into urgent care clinics by delivering patient-focused care for common conditions.
   
• Patientory. The Atlanta-based company’s virtual monitoring enhances patients’ and providers’ knowledge of preventative care and the holistic, consistent review needed to treat chronic conditions and recruit for clinical trials.
   
• Medigi. Based in Orlando, FL, Medigi’s ecommerce marketplace allows healthcare providers to easily source treatments directly from pharmaceutical manufacturers nationwide.
   
• Quinsite. The Chapel Hill, NC-based company’s Comprehensive Healthcare Analytics Platform™ offers real-time, robust dashboards and reports that help healthcare practice leaders gain visibility across their entire organization.
   
• Intellidoc (Showcase Company). Based in Tampa, FL, Intellidoc’s AI SaaS platform aims to simplify the purchasing process of over-the-counter (OTC) solutions suggested during telemedicine visits.
   
• EyeGage (Showcase Company). Atlanta-based EyeGage offers intelligent drug and alcohol screening technology to increase workplace safety through mobile eye scans. 
   
• CareWork (Showcase Company). An Orlando, FL-based company that provides a holistic operational platform for long-term and post-acute care providers that unifies and streamlines operations. 

Among the healthcare and health IT companies that the team engaged during the conference, Jones said he found one common denominator. 

“At most innovation events with a healthcare component, no one is thinking about the future of eyecare or eyewear,” he said. “And when we bring it up, they’re like ‘Oh, yeah.’ The idea is still new to them, even with vision care as a lynchpin to overall health. That presents a real opportunity for us to bring vision innovation to events like Venture Atlanta that are already so well established in the tech and startup ecosystems.”

For more news and updates on vision innovation, check out the Global Innovation Center's LinkedIn page.