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From Fly-Over to “Fly-To” Country: BioSTL Attracts Health Care Innovators to St. Louis

Virtual GlobalSTL Health Innovation Summit customizes one-on-one meetings between Midwest health care leaders and high-interest startups

ST. LOUIS – The GlobalSTL Health Innovation Summit brings new digital health technologies to local health care organizations to create competitive advantage and economic impact in St. Louis. The full strength of our region’s $262 billion health care industry will be on display for 16 highly-innovative digital health companies from Israel, Sweden, Germany and the US at the fourth annual Summit, hosted virtually over 12 days beginning October 1, 2020.

GlobalSTL, the international company recruitment initiative of BioSTL, reviewed more than 1,000 digital health companies and invited 16 of the most compelling companies to pitch their cutting-edge technologies to more than 100 senior leaders from St. Louis and Midwest health systems and organizations.

Instead of one large, in-person Summit like years’ past, the 2020 Summit is going virtual to provide the equivalent of 12 individual Summits, each catered specifically to GlobalSTL’s health care member organizations. Over the course of the next three weeks, each organization will meet virtually with the highly-curated and proven digital health companies that can uniquely address their most relevant pain points related to their unique business models and focus areas.

“Global innovation can be a difference maker in St. Louis’ competitive standing,” said Donn Rubin, President & CEO of BioSTL. “Through this Summit, our region is being deliberate and proactive in attracting global innovation to propel our businesses and solve our challenges.”

This very deliberate approach has landed 19 new international companies in St. Louis. Since 2014, GlobalSTL has helped global companies reach $166 million in revenue and local investments, adding 219 new jobs to St. Louis. Thirty of the 44 companies invited to present at the GlobalSTL Health Innovation Summits are pursuing or have secured business development opportunities with GlobalSTL partner health care organizations. Local and international companies spoke about their St. Louis experience at last year’s Summit.

The success demonstrates the three-fold goal of GlobalSTL: (1) provide St. Louis companies access to cutting-edge technology to boost their competitive advantage; (2) secure prized U.S. customers and strategic partners for the international companies; and (3) leverage the first two wins to establish a U.S. presence of high growth international companies in St. Louis, thus enriching St. Louis’ ecosystem with new jobs, new talent and innovation, and new economic activity.

In just three years, the Summit has become the premier health care innovation business development event in the Midwest, bringing together 18 health care organizations across six states with combined revenues of $355 billion, which is 10 percent of U.S. health care spending, all in one place – St. Louis.

“The GlobalSTL Health Innovation Summit drives international innovation and investment directly to St. Louis,” said Vijay Chauhan, GlobalSTL Lead. “With massive buying power, health care is our region’s economic dynamo. The goal of the Summit is to make this engine even stronger. We do this by connecting our health care players with top globally-sourced innovation to not only make them competitive but also to improve the health of our citizens. Bottom line, the Summit is about transforming St. Louis from Fly-Over Country to “Fly-To” Country for top health care innovation.”

Some of the types of digital health technologies GlobalSTL is bringing to St. Louis and Midwest hospitals and corporations include: consumer-centric innovations, telehealth technologies, remote monitoring of patients with chronic conditions, cybersecurity, big data solutions that include predictive and risk stratification technologies, as well as solutions for lowering operations costs, improving behavioral health, preventing physician burnout, and reducing hospital readmissions.

U.S. and international innovative companies offering such solutions at the 2020 GlobalSTL Health Innovation Summit include:

Carrot Health (US) leverages its consumer database (every adult in the US at identifiable level) and experience to quantify, evaluate, measure, and predict social determinants of health. Currently managing 24M members/patients on daily basis.
Diagnostic Robotics (Israel) help population health providers and payers provide better care at lower costs by predicting avoidable and preventable emergency department visits and hospitalizations and reducing unnecessary specialist visits, thus increasing specialist access, care quality, patient satisfaction and outcomes.
Eleos Health (Israel) is the first augmented therapeutic platform for mental health: therapists spend less time on data collection and documentation, patients receive better, more personalized treatment, and providers increase revenue per session by leveraging new reimbursement codes.
GYANT (US) creates Digital Front Door software for health systems. The GYANT interface is a conversational-AI that integrates with the customer’s website or mobile app to engage patients about symptoms or non-clinical intents (e.g. clinic search, bill pay).
Kaia Health (Germany) provides a high-scale, virtual program for employees/patients suffering from musculoskeletal conditions: deep evidence-based programs for at home physical therapy using only a smart phone or tablet.
Kaizen Health (US) brings together disparate non-emergency transportation partners (everything from Uber/Lyft/taxis all the way up to stretcher/non-emergency ambulance transportation), creating value for patient/member, care coordinator, and transportation partner.
MedZed (US) is a telehealth-enabled care delivery service meeting the physical and social needs of the most vulnerable, highest-cost populations and lowering health plan partners’ cost per member per month (PMPM costs) for caring for the high-risk, high-cost population, principally through reductions in inpatient costs and prevention of emergency department visits.
NuvoAir (Sweden) is a vertically-integrated digital Rx company for remote monitoring of severe lung conditions like Cystic Fibrosis, IPF, severe asthma, and COPD.
Qventus (US) provides a proven solution for patient flow automation: reductions in length of stay, elimination of excess days, reductions in emergency department visits and in patients who left without being seen.
RxRevu (US) offers a Real-Time Prescription Benefit solution that provides accurate pricing and therapy alternatives within the electronic health record workflow that are specific to individual patients and their plan coverage options.
Stellar Health (US) activates primary care providers to achieve value-based goals that improve patient outcomes, such as improving quality scores and optimizing the patient care journey through transitions of care and site of service referrals.
TailorMed (Israel) enables hospitals to assist patients in finding financial opportunities to help offset the financial burden associated with treatment, improving access to care for patients while improving hospitals’ revenue collection.
Unite Us (US) is a social determinants of health (SDoH)-focused care coordination platform and includes services for screening with decision support, secure electronic referral management, assessment and care plan management, bi-directional communication and alerts, and data/outcome tracking.
Verinovum (US) aggregates, cleanses, and curates disparate clinical data, improving clinical data stores from under 15% to nearly 90% usability.
Veta Health (US) focuses on personalizing care for patients outside of traditional care settings. Veta captures and analyzes patient-reported data and objective data to automate educational feedback and clinical guidance to intelligently provide patients with the right support at the right time.
Wellth (US) is a digital behavior change company that creates de novo motivation in the highest-risk, least engaged segment of the chronic disease population. Currently at 89% average daily adherence across all implementations, including previously non-adherent, comorbid, and underserved populations.

The GlobalSTL Health Innovation Summit kicks off September 30, 2020, with virtual panels for the attending startups to learn more about the St. Louis innovation ecosystem and to set the stage for productive meetings over the next three weeks. Startups will hear from clinical and innovation leaders on the strategic and innovation priorities of their organizations that COVID-19 has catalyzed and their expectations for potential innovation partners that they will be meeting with during the Summit.

The following companies and health care systems are attending:

Follow the Summit on Twitter using #GlobalSTLhealth

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About GlobalSTL & BioSTL
BioSTL’s international initiative recruits high-growth companies from around the world that enrich and expand St. Louis’ innovation economy and bring competitive advantage to local corporations and health systems. GlobalSTL focuses on companies that match St. Louis’ strengths in food/agriculture, health care, and cybersecurity, financial, and industrial technologies. GlobalSTL serves as a navigator to St. Louis’ world-class corporate and innovation ecosystem and introduces international companies to major customers and strategic partners to drive business growth in North America from a growing St. Louis base. Find us online at globalstl.org and follow us on twitter @global_stl.

Since 2001, BioSTL has laid the foundation for St. Louis' innovation economy with a comprehensive set of transformational programs that advance St. Louis’ leadership in solving important world challenges in agriculture, medicine, health care, and other fields. BioSTL has introduced nationally-acclaimed initiatives in startup creation and investment (BioGenerator), strategic business attraction (GlobalSTL), physical environment (including the Cortex Innovation District and BioGenerator Labs), entrepreneur support (BioSTL Fundamentals), seed and venture capital, a diverse and inclusive workforce, and public policy. Find us online at biostl.org and follow us on twitter @BioSTL.