Hemorai is the developer of an innovative wearable device that monitors vital physiological parameters such as blood flow and volume with exceptional accuracy to extend acute care to the patient’s home to monitor for post-partum hemorrhage. Hemorai was awarded $50,000 to work with researchers at UMass Lowell to generate clinical evidence of the effectiveness of their product’s underlaying Speckle Plethysmography (SPG) technology in detecting post-partum hemorrhage across different skin tones. They will work with UMass Lowell to conduct a comparative study against traditional photoplethysmography (PPG) technology to demonstrate that Hemorai’s technology outperforms traditional PPG technology in providing accurate monitoring for all women, regardless of racial or ethnic background. 

Mae Health is a culturally competent digital health platform to address the specific clinical, social, and cultural needs of Black expectant mothers during pregnancy and postpartum. Mae Health was awarded $50,000 to work with MITRE to co-produce a Technical Exchange Meeting (TEM) on barriers and opportunities in the design and implementation of Medicaid-funded doula-led care models for Black mothers. The TEM seeks to collaboratively identify and develop best practices, share lessons learned, and provide industry and government stakeholders with key elements to create sustainable programming for existing and future doula programs. 

SimpliFed is a virtual breastfeeding and baby feeding support provider that works with Medicaid, commercial, Marketplace, and TRICARE health plans and healthcare systems to provide patients with 24x7, ACA-mandated lactation support services. SimpliFed was awarded $50,000 to work with Carelon’s Digital Data Sandbox to assess baseline metrics, outcomes, and savings for both Commercial and Medicaid lines of business. They aim to analyze the potential impact of SimpliFed’s longitudinal engagement model to drive compliance on key postpartum visits that ultimately improve quality measures and clinical outcomes. As part of this project, the teams will study population disparity to ensure there is a prescriptive focus on health equity and differentiated needs across disparate populations. 

Artifcts is an online and app-based platform that allows members to capture, preserve, and share the history, stories, and memories behind their most cherished objects. Artifcts was awarded $50,000 to work with UMass Chan Medical School to conduct a pilot study to confirm the feasibility of the Artifcting process as a digital screening tool for mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Artifcts hopes to leverage the results of the feasibility study to support a larger scale study of using Artifcting as a new digital cognitive health screening product that is low cost, low touch, and broadly accessible across all ages, races, and sociodemographics. 

Enabled Health was awarded $50,000 to work with the Mass General Brigham Emerging Technologies and Solutions (MGBETS) to perform a study looking at the feasibility and effectiveness of their AI-powered virtual exercise training program in a hospital setting. The study will assess the reduction in deconditioning, need for rehab, hospital length of stay, and staff burden. Enabled will use the results of the study to improve their product and provide evidence to support a larger trial, sales, and investment. 

MiiCare is a platform that combines telehealth devices, remote monitoring technology, acoustic sensing, and an AI-enabled digital therapeutics solution to provide cognitive behavioral therapy for many long-term conditions through their in-house Digital Health Coach, Monica. MiiCare was awarded $50,000 to work with Deaconess Abundant Life Communities to pilot their product with Deaconess residents in Assisted/Independent living to validate how it can optimize care plan assessment and delivery as well as enhance residents’ independence and experience. MiiCare will use the results of the pilot to scale their presence in the U.S. senior living market. 

Onward Health (Onward) is a technology-enabled rideshare service for older adults with door-through-door service with a Companion Driver. Onward was awarded $50,000 to partner with subject matter experts at MITRE to conduct a market scan of door-through-door companion transportation interventions. Their work will assess the impact of those interventions, using data from Onward, on appointment adherence, CMS quality metrics, overall cost of care, and member and patient satisfaction. Onward hopes to use the independent review and research study to validate their product’s impact on health outcomes with future customers and investors. 

Read about Onward’s expansion in 2024 and how their work with MeHI helped the company’s go to market strategy.  

Kinto developed a virtual platform that offers caregiver coaching, a personalized e-learning curriculum, and peer support groups. Kinto was awarded $100,000 to work with subject matter experts at MITRE to develop and test their platform for state Medicaid plans. Kinto leveraged the work they completed with MITRE to develop commercial agreements and to secure NIH grants to further their research. Kinto was acquired by Rippl in April 2024.  

Cherish is a personalized activity subscription service that supports and educates family caregivers and engages people living with dementia through customized activity kits. They were awarded a $50,000 grant to partner with the Mass General Brigham Emerging Technologies and Solutions (MGBETS) to conduct a pilot study on the impact of Cherish’s activity kits on people with dementia and their family caregivers.   

Power of Patients is a patient-led technology company with an AI-driven app that collects data directly from patients with neurological conditions or their caregivers, which can be shared directly with healthcare providers. Power of Patients was awarded $50,000 to work with subject matter experts at  MITRE to test and pilot the bi-directional communication on their platform between healthcare providers and caregivers. Their work with MITRE helped validate their bi-directional communication tool and provided them with a model for developing, testing, and implementing new features in their platform.  

Read about how Power of Patients benefitted from their work with MITRE and leveraged the power of the Massachusetts digital health ecosystem to further their product development 

Thriving.ai is an integrated platform that brings together everyone involved in the healthcare, social care, informal family care, and professional care of an individual, or “Thriver.” They were awarded $50,000 to work with the Medical Device Plug-and-Play Interoperability & Cybersecurity (MDPNP) Program at MGH to identify and integrate medical devices into their application to find better, more progressive ways to deliver value to patients and caregivers. Thriving.ai also worked with the MDPnP Program to perform a risk analysis and demonstrate the integrated medical products in a simulated environment.  

Stellar Sleep has developed a highly scalable digital therapeutic for insomnia that patients can use to fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. Stellar Sleep was awarded $100,000 to conduct a study demonstrating the immediate and sustained efficacy of their product and exploring whether the intervention is applicable for a diverse and representative demographic. The study will include self-reported sleep assessments as well as the use of digital biomarkers, such as sleep efficiency, sleep duration, and sleep latency measured through sleep-tracking devices. 

Read about Stellar Sleep’s fundraising success and the impact of their work with MeHI on the growth of their company.

BurnCam is an AI-powered smartphone-based telemedicine platform that improves access to burn unit experts. BurnCam was awarded $50,000 to partner with Carelon's Digital Data Sandbox and subject matter experts to validate the solution’s financial and medical value propositions using claims and outcomes data, and to evaluate and improve the solution’s usability and accessibility. The work with Carelon helped BurnCam put trusted numbers to the cost of burn care and focus their solution on the dominant driver of cost; burn care mistakes.  

HealthJay is a telehealth operating system with a suite of tablet, mobile, and web apps for patients and caregivers that transforms the current problems of connectivity, lack of equipment and complicated literacy requirements that cause low usability in telehealth. HealthJay was awarded $50,000 to work with the Medical Device Plug-and-Play Interoperability & Cybersecurity (MDPNP) Program at MGH to develop medical device integration, cybersecurity and system resilience strategies for their platform to enhance its capability in improving the patients’ access to care and to be better integrated and deployed in current healthcare practices. 

Outcome Referrals has created the first proven referral process in healthcare to connect patients with therapists, solving both the quality and access problems that are leaving a growing number of people without timely treatment. Outcome Referrals was awarded $50,000 to work with MITRE’s subject matter experts and their synthetic patient generator, Synthea, to develop a synthetic model demonstrating the potential financial impact of their work for organizations serving Dual Eligible/High Need-high-cost patient populations. 

REEV was awarded $23,000 to partner with MIT’s Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR) to test their motion sensor technology, REEV SENSE, on stroke patients. REEV’s two-step solution measures patients’ gait signatures and provides personalized, smart robotic orthotics for people affected by neurological gait disorders after strokes, multiple sclerosis or paraplegia. MIT CCTR will work with REEV to collect the gait data of 40 stroke participants and compare the precision of REEV SENSE with the gold standard of the CCTR gait lab. REEV will contribute $29,900 in matching funding to help cover the costs of the study. 

PALM Care is developing a solution to connect seniors aging in place with local senior service providers. PALM Care was awarded $20,000 to work with Deaconess Abundant Life Communities. Initially, PALM Care conducted interviews, co-creation sessions and prototyping sessions with Deaconess residents to get feedback and test the use of a remote patient monitoring device they were developing for people with living with dementia and their caregivers. Based on the outcomes of the initial sessions, PALM Care began developing a new product targeted at seniors aging in place and worked with Deaconess to conduct customer and user surveys and interviews of their new platform.  

Admetsys was awarded $25,000 to help cover the cost of a one-year Silver Membership with PracticePoint at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Admetsys has developed the first fully-automated glucose control device designed for hospital care. They will work with PracticePoint to conduct the first phase of a preclinical research study in adult pigs to complete specific design verification procedures and validate the performance of the multi-analyte biosensor used in their glucose device. Admetsys will work wtih PracticePoint’s staff to submit the required protocol documentation and secure the necessary materials and will then use PracticePoint’s facility to complete their study. Admetsys contributed $26,000 in matching funding to cover the cost of their one-year membership and project materials.  

Cogitas Consulting received a $25,000 award to work with UMass Chan Medical School (UMCMS) to test and validate their Research Catalyzer (RCat) software solution. RCat is a data-supplier agnostic method of tracking and enrolling subjects into clinical studies. Cogitas will work with UMCMS’ subject matter experts in the Research Informatics Core to implement, test and validate a new hybrid HL7 / API version of their software solution. 

X-Sight is developing a digital and programmable 3D x-ray imaging platform initially focused on medical imaging of patients that is high-performance, compact and cost-effective. X-Sight was awarded $43,750 to cover a one-year membership at PracticePoint at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. X-Sight will use their access to PracticePoint’s surgical suite and equipment to test and validate their x-ray imaging platform and compare it against a standard operating room c-arm. They will also have access to PracticePoint’s on-sight machine shop and will use PractiePoint’s facility to showcase their MVP for potential customers. X-Sight contributed an additional $6,250 in matching funding to pay for their one-year membership. 

Thriving.ai was awarded $50,000 to work with the UMass Amherst Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS) to further develop their independent living solution. Thriving.ai offers an integrated platform that brings together everyone involved in the healthcare, social care, informal family care and professional care of an individual, or “Thriver.” Their partnership with IALS helped Thriving.ai identify, evaluate and integrate smart sensors with their platform. The sensors will collect data that will be analyzed to identify patterns and flag irregularities to generate alerts for caregivers. The grant provided access for Thriving.ai to UMass Amherst’s mock smart home environment to conduct a trial of the sensor integration and collect activity data. The IALS team also served as a sounding board and advisor on user interface parameters. 

BlocHealth is building a health care professional credential sharing network leveraging a public blockchain and smart application technology. In 2019, they were awarded $25,000 to work with TechSpring to evaluate and improve their platform. The funding enabled BlocHealth to work with TechSpring’s Innovation Strategists to gain access to Baystate Health stakeholders and to hold facilitated observations, interviews and workshops with Baystate employees. Through this collaboration, BlocHealth was able to understand the current workflow for initial and ongoing credentialing and privileging at Baystate. They used this information and feedback to validate their use case, understand the requirements to integrate their product within complex health systems and guide future enhancements of their product. BlocHealth was acquired by SteadyMD in June 2022.  

Dynocardia was awarded $43,750 to cover a one-year Startup Membership at PracticePoint at WPI. Dynocardia is working to develop the first stand alone, continuous and non-invasive blood pressure monitor. Through their membership, Dynocardia used PracticePoint’s testing and machine-shop facilities and worked with their expert faculty and staff. They tested and optimized the design of their prototype, developed a motion capture system and performed systems integration and testing. Dynocardia contributed an additional $6,250 in matching funding to pay for their one-year membership. 

Health Together offers a peer health community that connects patients who have experience with a particular illness with those who may be newly diagnosed. They were awarded $25,000 to work with TechSpring to evaluate and validate their platform. The funding provided Health Together with access to a TechSpring Innovation Strategist and Program Manager to conduct a design audit and usability testing for their platform. Through the project, Health Together was able to develop a future state design brief, which included opportunities for innovation and differentiation, prioritization and specific recommendations based on stakeholder and end-user input.  

Keva Health is developing a SaaS platform to remotely monitor patients with chronic respiratory illnesses. Through two rounds of funding, Keva Health was awarded $50,000 to cover TechSpring’s fees to complete the discovery, planning and execution of a pilot of Keva’s platform with asthma patients at Baystate Health. The pilot recruited asthma patients to use the Keva Health platform in between their regularly scheduled visits. Through the pilot, Keva Health tracked patient and physician engagement with their platform and assessed the value to both patients and providers in using their remote patient monitoring tool. TechSpring provided oversight of the project, tracking the progress and milestones, helping address any challenges and providing feedback to Keva on the pilot experience. Keva Health provided a matching investment of $6,250 in spirometer devices to use during the pilot.  

Leuko Labs was awarded $60,000 to work with MIT’s Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR) to perform usability testing on their PointCheck device. Leuko is developing the world’s first portable, non-invasive white blood cell monitoring device to screen for severe neutropenia. The grant covered the fees for MIT’S CCTR staff to work with Leuko to test that their PointCheck device can be safely and effectively operated by untrained operators. This work prepared Leuko for a clinical trial and FDA certification. MIT CCTR provided a replicated home and clinical setting, assistance with subject recruitment, oversight and assistance with research visits, in house analysis of blood samples and secure electronic research data capture and transmission. 

Read about how Leuko’s project with MIT CCTR helped improve their product design 

Through two phases of funding, Nutrimedy was awarded $70,000 to cover TechSpring’s fees to plan and execute a pilot of Nutrimedy’s patient-facing nutritional support platform. Nutrimedy’s mission is to improve health and reduce the epidemic burden of chronic disease by improving access to convenient, expert, personalized, and affordable nutritional counseling. Nutrimedy worked with TechSpring and Baystate Health to pilot their platform with oncology patients pre- and post-surgery. They gathered user feedback from patients and clinicians and assessed the effectiveness of the platform in increasing patients’ access to clinical nutrition care and in reaching their pre-surgical nutritional goals. Nutrimedy was acquired by FemTec Health in 2022.    

Read about what Nutrimedy learned from their Sandbox project with TechSpring.

Stability Health was awarded a $25,000 grant to cover a one-year Silver Membership at PracticePoint at WPI. Stability Health is a complex chronic care management company focused on improving diabetes care. Through their membership, Stability Health partnered with WPI faculty and students to test and further develop their mobile application, MyStablePath (MSP). Stability worked with WPI faculty and students to determine appropriate user personas for MSP, recruit personas for interviews and surveys and analyze the data to determine future MSP design specifications.

Hear from Stability about how working with PracticePoint helped accelerate their product development.

Tranquil Data was awarded $47,200 to partner with MITRE to engage with standards bodies and open-source communities to evolve the nascent consent management standards and develop a draft implementation guide for FHIR-based consent portability. Through its automated process, Tranquil Data aims to unlock the value of existing data by connecting that data to its context, simplifying compliance and empowering agile analysis, innovation and transformation. The Tranquil Data team was also able to leverage their work with MITRE to open interesting conversations with prospective partners.