Elaborate Announces $10M in Funding to Modernize Lab Results
Elaborate, the tool that doctors and their staff use to deliver contextualized, action-oriented lab results to patients, announced it has raised $10 million in Seed funding. The funding round was led by Tusk Venture Partners, with participation from Founder Collective, Company Ventures, Bling Ventures, and Arkitekt Ventures, as well as renown investors such as Elliot Cohen (Pillpack, Amazon), Sara Wajnberg (Oscar), Scott Belsky (Behance, Adobe), and Sean and Peter Glass, MD (Advantia).
Today, over 44% of patients getting routine bloodwork will receive at least one out-of-range value that is not clinically relevant or an immediate cause for concern, but causes the patient to call or message their practitioner for clarification. In the past, clinical practices have withheld results from patients to ease the burden of panicked patient calls and messages. However, the recent 21st Century Cures Act mandates the electronic release of all medical records to patients, including test results, without delay. While this mandate ensures patients have access to their own health data, it has unintended consequences for a doctor’s workload, skyrocketing the number of questions patients have about their lab results.
Launched in 2021, Elaborate seamlessly integrates with a doctor’s existing electronic medical records (EMRs) to deliver patients personalized and contextualized lab results that offer insights about their health and action items in real-time. By providing contextualized health data, Elaborate reduces unnecessary back-and-forth between patient and doctor, while giving patients greater agency over their health.
“When patients receive lab results without context, they consistently do 2 things: start Googling and then reach out to their doctor in panic after they’ve diagnosed themselves with something new,” said Nicole Bocskocksy, CEO and Founder of Elaborate. “Regulation requiring the direct release of health data has the right intent, but fails to consider the extra work it creates for doctors and the poor patient experience. I’ve witnessed firsthand how doctors are bombarded by unnecessary patient questions following routine bloodwork. They spend hours of their personal time answering the same basic questions over and over again, knowing they’ll be doing it again the next time the patient gets their results. I created Elaborate with the vision of our software acting as the doctor’s trusted assistant, offering a credible, clinically-backed explanation to the patient to give doctors desperately needed relief from these administrative tasks.”
To deliver this new patient experience, Elaborate’s technology leverages underlying clinical guidelines sourced from reputable sources such as UptoDate and PubMed, as well as a medical advisory board of clinicians with years of experience at institutions like Mt. Sinai and John Hopkins. Additionally, it offers clients the option to incorporate custom protocols to fit their clinical approach. Using Elaborate’s bespoke technology, doctors reduce their administrative workload by an average of 32 mins every day, freeing up more time for in-person patient care, education, and diagnosis.
“When Nicole first came to me with the concept, I thought it would be impossible to capture the clinical nuance when interpreting these reports,” shares Amy Esposito, MD, member of Elaborate’s medical advisory board and Medical Director at Reside Health. “But what the team at Elaborate has been able to do for their clients, including my practice, is nothing short of remarkable. Because they’re plugged into the EMR, they use all of the information in the patient’s chart to summarize the key findings and help them schedule a billable followup visit if necessary. Plus they customize everything our clinical protocols for us. Our team has saved a ton of time and frustration, but even more importantly, our patients love the ease and clarity of the results.”
Acting as the doctor’s trusted assistant in delivering health data to patients is a novel concept in addressing growing practitioner burnout. “Given how strained our healthcare system already is, we can’t continue to rely on doctors to manage inboxes when they should be spending time with patients. Elaborate allows doctors to comply with new regulatory requirements around health data sharing and gives patients control of their health quickly and seamlessly” said Jordan Nof, co-founder and managing partner of Tusk Venture Partners.
Elaborate was founded in 2021 by former Oscar and Parsley Health executive, Nicole Bocskocsky. The company plans to use the funding to grow their team and deliver a more deeply embedded practitioner experience for select EMRs. Jordan Nof, Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Tusk Venture Partners, will join the Board of Directors.