Although many health records have been digitized, medical providers are still wasting precious hours chasing patient records from providers that don’t use the same medical records platform.
Denver-based healthtech veteran Carm Huntress is out to solve that problem and digitize the 15 billion medical records that are faxed each year in the U.S. The retrieval of patient records, sometimes known as “chart chasing,” not only wastes the valuable time of doctors and nurses, Huntress said, but it also causes delays in care. It also causes 30 percent of tests to be reordered because records cannot be found.
On Monday, Huntress announced the launch of Credo, which digitizes and automates the retrieval of medical records through robotic process automation. The startup is launching out of stealth with $3 million in seed funding.
Huntress is best known for launching RxRevu, a tool that allows healthcare providers to see the price of medications before they write a prescription. The startup has raised $35 million in venture capital to date.
Huntress also worked with Aneesh Chopra, the first United States CTO, to develop the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources standard for exchanging healthcare information electronically.
Credo is made possible through the 21st Century Cures Act, which allows patients to access their health data and share it with third parties in a machine-readable format.
“That’s the big change that really has come to be over the last five to 10 years,” Huntress said of the 21st Century Cures Act. “We can now go out through those patient portals and other access points to get this data collected on behalf of our provider clients that need it to take care of their patients.”
When a new patient comes to a health provider, Credo is able to consensually gather that patient’s records, including those on other medical records platforms. In some cases, Credo may have to resort to the traditional process of calling and requesting a faxed copy of a patient record, but Huntress said he hopes to automate and digitize as much of the process as possible.
“This is a B2B2C, where we’re going through providers who need the data to take care of the patient, and then engaging with the patient to do it,” Huntress said. “At the end of the process, we make sure the patient still has access to all their data.”
The $3 million seed funding round was led by FirstMile and included participation from Hannah Grey Ventures, SpringTime Ventures and Headwater Ventures.
Credo currently has six employees, but Huntress expects the team to double in size by the end of the year.
