Following new health systems partnership, Avhana Health plans hiring in 2020

As it gears up for expansion in 2020, Baltimore-based Avhana Health is kicking off a partnership with one of Florida’s largest health system, cofounder Noah Weiner said.

The downtown Baltimore-based company is working with AdventHealth to launch its platform that improves electronic health records throughout the system’s network of doctor’s offices.

Avhana’s technology employs applications that aim for benefits such as increasing providers’ face-to-face time with patients, improving safety and reducing costs. The company’s three apps seek to improve three key areas for medical pros: planning before a patient’s visit, following medical guidelines and measuring the performance of a care team using analytics. In addition to improving care, these can also help patients and providers become eligible for bonuses from insurance.

Avhana initially began working with AdventHealth in 2018. Avhana’s app for the pre-planning process gathered and organized key info ahead of a visit and was designed to streamline that prep, and create a system where the providers using the platform would follow the same workflow.

“Using Avhana’s applications in 21 of our employed providers’ offices allowed us to promote a pre-visit planning process so our care team could close outstanding care gaps and focus more on patients,” said Amy Schnebel, executive director of provider quality and performance improvement for AdventHealth Medical Group, in a statement.

Now Avhana will expand its work with AdventHealth with this new partnership. It represents a large health system adopting a local startup’s technology, which is significant for Avhana as it steps back out into the light:

Founded by brothers Noah and Nate Weiner, Avhana is among a cluster of digital health companies that grew out of Dreamit Health Baltimore in the middle part of the last decade. The company is reemerging from about three-and-a-half years of developing and testing the technology and business model. While they learned a lot about healthcare, Noah Weiner said, there were also plenty of insights gained about building a product.

That brought a goal to become profitable, rather than going out and raising new venture dollars.

“Additional capital quickens things, but you have to do the hard work and you have to have a relentless focus on doing a good job and on customer service,” he said, adding that the end result of helping patients get better care is worth not pursuing VC.

As it puts more of a focus on gaining new customers, the company is also seeking to grow its team in 2020, with the goal of bringing on additional engineering talent as well as sales and marketing expertise to add to the team of five people.