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We’re blown away by the quality of the more than 150 applicants to the HealthBeat 2013 “Grand Rounds Innovation Showdown,” one of the highlights of VentureBeat’s inaugural health tech conference (May 20-21 in San Francisco).

We asked startups throughout the health care industry to apply and stipulated that founders must only have raised a seed or series A round of funding. In each category, our expert judges selected five finalists who will pitch their products and services live in front of more than 400 health care executives, leaders, IT decision makers, venture capitalists, and press.

The judges include representatives from Norwest Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, Venrock, Qualcomm Life, Burill & Company, AARP, and one patient advocate. During the competition, they will look for digital health and health IT startups that are developing innovative solutions that serve the smart hospital, patient, and provider and has early signs of industry traction and user engagement.

The finalists have the opportunity to win editorial coverage in VentureBeat, four hours of partner meetings and mentorship from Morgenthaler Ventures, a $250,000 convertible bridge loan from Venrock Quarry (only in the seed category), and more. Read the full list of prizes here. 

It wasn’t easy to narrow down our finalists, so we included an honorary mention for promising startups that just missed the cut.

Here are the finalists for HealthBeat 2013 Grand Rounds Innovation Showdown.

Seed Stage

Smart PatientsSmart Patients is an online community where cancer patients and caregivers learn from each other about treatments, the latest science, and how it all fits into the context of their experience. A built-in clinical trial search engine helps patients find relevant trials and discuss them with the community.

clinicastClinicast builds risk scores, cost scores, and workflow tools that identify high risk patients, match patients to appropriate interventions, and streamline workflow. By mining actionable insights from health data, CliniCast enables providers to optimize outcomes and minimize unnecessary costs.

referralMDReferralMD is an enterprise business relationship management health care service that helps primary care and specialist providers bridge the communication gap by providing real-time status updates, business intelligence, and performance measurement for referrals, insurance authorizations, and progress updates. ReferralMD complements all electronic medical record software.

LiviamLiviam is a personal sharing site that give you a simple way to bring together your team of supporters when you need them most. Anyone who has ever been hospitalized knows, care for a sick or injured loved one, coordinating family members seeing the new baby, or asking for help from friends during a tough time knows that it can be really hard to find the right way to say, “I need you.” Your friends and family want to help, Liviam makes it easy.

mHealthmHealth Technologies makes any compiled application (.ipa, .exe, .apk, etc.) on any platform HIPAA compliant with proximity-based security. The patented three-part solution consists of the Token, an application or container, and a dashboard. MHT embedded security enables any application to defend itself or self-destruct without a network connection, making breach impossible.

Honorable Mentions: 

SocialbloodSocialblood is a social network that connects blood donors and recipients of the same blood type through Facebook. They are on a mission to connect the entire Facebook population of over a billion users to their blood types. So when in need users could help each other and potentially save lives.

JumpercutJumpercut engages patients through personalized video. It’s increasingly difficult to reach patients in a busy media environment. By using JumperCut to engage patients with instantly personalized videos based on their immediate needs, you’re reinforcing the personal nature of your relationship with them, increasing their loyalty, and driving them towards positive action.

Series A+

procured healthProcured Health helps hospitals tackle their fastest growing cost item, medical products, with a web-based device analysis platform and an evaluation workflow solution. Procured also proactively highlights savings opportunities based on purchasing tendencies and market insights. In the face of multiple revenue pressures, hospitals can take control of their input costs with Procured.

empowerEmpower Interactive brings scale to behavioral health by transforming evidence-based psychotherapy into interactive e-learning programs, teaching structured coping techniques in a cost-effective, highly accessible way. The underlying platform is structured to ensure that end users will benefit from data-driven, proven methods that help them improve their psychological well-being.

beyond lucid160Beyond Lucid is an award-winning company that makes software to connect Fire, EMS, and Industrial Emergency Response Teams in the field with the care facilities they serve. BLT’s MEDIVIEW platform incorporates industry-leading, mission-critical features to make emergency response safer, more efficient, and cost-effective, with zero integration engineering required.

ringadoc160Ringadoc simplifies communication between doctors and patients. Ringadoc empowers doctors, giving them the capability to triage patients, centralize communications, and manage their after-hours calls on any device. Based in San Francisco, Ringadoc is backed by top Silicon Valley investors, including FF Angel.

Better DoctorBetter Doctor helps people find the doctor that’s right for them. Each year over 70 million Americans struggle to find the right doctor. BetterDoctor seeks to solve this by offering web and mobile apps that make doctor discovery simple and transparent. Since the launch in October, BetterDoctor’s health marketplace has helped a million patients find the right doctor

Honorable mentions:

tiatrosTiatros Inc. is a cloud computing company that dramatically improves coordination across the healthcare sector to make clinical services, telemedicine services, and clinical research more efficient. Pioneered in alliance with experts across the University of California Health System, the Tiatros solution is a private, secure mobile solution that connects healthcare providers to each other, to their patients, and to family members and other caretakers using social-network styled tools and interfaces that are already familiar to 1.5 billion people.

Zeel Zeel is a revolutionary way to book same-day, in-home massages with the best licensed massage therapists in New York City.


Check out the full HealthBeat 2013 program here, which is packed with over 70 industry leading speakers and two days of high-level chats, breakout sessions, and networking initiatives. And make sure to register today. There are only a few seats remaining!

Thanks to the following industry leaders for supporting HealthBeat 2013: AARP and ArchPoint Partners as Silver Sponsors and Allayo, athenahealth, California Healthcare Foundation, Morgenthaler Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Practice Fusion, Venrock, and Voalte as Event Sponsors.

Top image via Shutterstock