2021 Prime Health Innovation Challenge Winners Announced
2021 Prime Health Innovation Challenge Winners Announced
Three entrepreneurs determined to offer the most innovative & relevant solutions awarded with funding and a chance at a pilot partnership with a Colorado safety net healthcare organization.
Leah Spielberg | leah@primehealthco.com
DENVER, COLORADO (December 7, 2021) – Since 2014, the Prime Health Innovation Challenge has become a nationally-leading health innovation challenge by vetting and validating over 350 health innovation solutions and launching more than 45 health innovation pilots and partnerships. Since 2018, the focus has been exclusively on pilot programs that support healthcare innovation for communities that have historically had less power or privilege, been underserved, marginalized, and/or are Medicaid, CHP+, and uninsured beneficiaries.
This year, over 30 companies submitted applications. After completing a six month program, in-depth review by nearly 100 health and hospital, community, and business leaders, and an intense final pitch event for the six finalists, the winners of the 2021 Prime Health Innovation Challenge have been identified. 2021 was a challenge for everyone, especially for healthcare across the board - the response to this year’s Prime Health Challenge showed that community-driven innovation in healthcare is more important than ever.
Powered by the Colorado Health Foundation, the Prime Health Innovation Challenge accelerates healthcare improvement in Colorado through technological innovation that centers health equity, access, quality and cost for underserved communities.
In this 8th annual Challenge, we continue to build upon a foundation of success, thanks in part to support by a broad slate of organizations across the public, private and non-profit sectors, invested in safety-net strength, health equity, health care access, and community health and well-being. Working with this collaborative health innovation ecosystem, we can clarify common barriers, problems, needs, and shared priorities within the healthcare industry; identify companies and healthcare that are pursuing ways to solve those problems; validate solutions impactful to Colorado healthcare; and accelerate the adoption of these solutions within safety net health organizations.
“Prime plays an integral role in addressing systemic inequities by ensuring that safety net providers serving communities of color in Colorado have equal access to innovations as their counterparts that serve commercially insured patients,” stated Ben L. Bynum, M.D., portfolio director of impact investing at The Colorado Health Foundation. “Further, through their annual challenge, Prime intentionally creates wealth-building opportunities by scaling innovative technologies founded and led by entrepreneurs of color.”
In order to compete, companies had to have a market-ready innovation solution and be able to complete a pilot in Colorado, with judges looking for solutions that are impactful to vulnerable and underserved populations, are compatible with Medicaid healthcare environments, and with founders and leadership teams that demonstrate diversity and inclusion in action.
As judge and potential pilot host Brandon Ward, Chief Innovation Officer and VP of Information Systems for the Jefferson Center opined, “The Prime Health Challenge makes available some of the most innovative health technology solutions in the world to healthcare companies like ours looking to solve the most challenging problems in healthcare. It means access to solutions that make a monumental difference to the community we serve that would not have been available otherwise.”
Companies had the potential to win up to five awards: People’s Choice Award, the Governor’s Office of eHealth Innovation Choice Award, and funded awards of $75,000, $50,000, or $25,000. Awards, funded by the Colorado Health Foundation, will go towards supporting pilot partnerships between the winning solutions and Colorado safety net provider organizations to determine and demonstrate whether these solutions are impactful and sustainable in supporting historically underserved or marginalized populations.
The winners of the nationally leading 2021 Prime Health Innovation Challenge are:
1st Place Award, $75,000 | Open Source Wellness is a community and “Behavioral Pharmacy” facilitating four best practices (Move, Nourish, Connect, Be) underlying physical and psychological health. Open Source Wellness uses three models of delivery - clinical integration, community-based, and housing communities - to help ensure actual experiential fulfillment of behavioral prescriptions. https://www.opensourcewellness.org/
"We are thrilled, and grateful to the judges, hosts, and the Prime Health team for all the support and guidance along the way. We are eager to get started designing pilots with our new Colorado partners, and look forward to learning and building together. Let's bring Community As Medicine to Colorado!" said Elizabeth Markle, Executive Director of Open Source Wellness.
2nd Place Award, $50,000 | MedTransGo helps practices reduce patient cancellation, increase revenue and efficiently deliver care. MedTrans Go is a B2B technology platform that provides medical practices, hospitals, and facilities with reliable medical transportation, interpretation, telemedicine, and RX delivery to help increase access to care for Coloradans while reducing cancellations for providers. https://www.medtransgo.com/
3rd Place Award, $25,000 | Hazel Health’s telehealth services are purpose-built for schools and students. Hazel provides fast access to equitable physical and mental health care via telehealth at school or home, helping further whole child health for all children and empowering schools to help meet health needs. https://www.hazel.co/
OeHI & People’s Choice Awards | Stel Life is focused on simplifying vitals monitoring for patients and care teams. Using a proprietary vitals hub that simply, seamlessly and securely connects Bluetooth vitals to health records without complex setup, WiFI, or mobile applications, they expand patient access and help care teams better monitor patient trends and alerts within their preferred workflow. https://www.stel.life/
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About Prime Health
Prime Health exists to improve the health and well-being of all Coloradans. Through partnership and collaboration with Colorado communities, we deliver value-based, technology-driven health reform. We focus on eliminating health disparities and inequities through innovation so that all Coloradans have the opportunity to thrive and reach their fullest potential. We improve the equity, access, quality and cost of health care by accelerating the adoption of sustainable solutions, technologies, clinical models and partnerships. Our programs are developed with, by and for the communities we serve and the organizations that care for them. For more information, please visit www.primehealthco.com.
About the Colorado Health Foundation
The Colorado Health Foundation is bringing health in reach for all Coloradans by engaging closely with communities across the state through investing, policy and advocacy, learning and capacity building. For more information, please visit www.coloradohealth.org.
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