Meet the inaugural Health Equity Innovation accelerator cohort

With the help of Chicagoland health equity leaders, MATTER and YWCA Metropolitan Chicago welcome ten startups to the accelerator

Earlier this summer, MATTER, the global healthcare innovation hub headquartered in Chicago, and YWCA Metropolitan Chicago, a social enterprise committed to eliminating racism, empowering women and promoting peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all, announced the Health Equity Innovation accelerator program to support entrepreneurs with solutions that advance health equity.

The cohort will receive access to mentorship, exclusive resources and interactive curriculum from subject matter experts, and will graduate with a validated business concept and a clear roadmap to bring their solution to market.

Meet the 2021 Health Equity Innovation accelerator cohort:

Amah Health
Amah Health develops a Learning Experience Platform to train and equip healthcare providers to use evidence-based communication strategies to help diverse patients manage their type 2 diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol for equitable health outcomes.

Amrayco
Amrayco’s product, CertAlert, is a wearable medication adherence device that is disguised as a pendant. The tiny computer manages, tracks and notifies the user’s medication regime. It also compiles data from the individual users as well as wider demographic groups.

ConnectCareHero
ConnectCareHero helps organizations tackle social isolation and loneliness at scale through culturally relevant activity programming for adults over 65 years old.

Grapefruit Health
Grapefruit Health recruits and trains nursing students to interact with at risk seniors remotely while utilizing their unique platform to communicate securely, capture data, make community referrals and escalate as needed.

PainNavigator
PainNavigator is making holistic chronic pain management accessible. The customized program will guide users through daily activities of yoga, exercise therapy, wellness strategies and medical education. PainNavigator is on a mission to be the leading non-opioid solution for those suffering from chronic pain and is already proven in reducing pain, risk of opioid misuse and depression.

Silverberry Genomix Co.
The increased vulnerability of minorities to various health issues can be partially explained by genetics, leading to health disparities. While Black people make up about 13 percent of the population, they account for 35 percent of the people with kidney failure in the United States and they are almost four times as likely as white people to develop kidney failure. Silverberry Genomix is launching the CKD Risk Report, focused on addressing genetic predisposition to chronic kidney disease to address that issue.

SMART Charts
SMART Charts automates clinic workflows by streamlining progress note documentation in rehabilitative and learning settings. The tool standardizes data inputs to efficiently produce quality, value-add outputs for patients, clinicians and insurance.

SpotSum
SpotSum makes it easy to stay engaged with the fitness and wellness content most aligned with your interests. After earning points for sticking with your personal plan, you can redeem them in a curated marketplace filled with products and services from your community.

SWITCH (Sustainable wellness through innovation, technology and community health)
SWITCH leverages technology enabled solutions that increase health equity and measurably improve community health delivery and wellness outcomes in historically underserved communities, through collaborative solution development. SWITCH will enhance and commercialize the OSF CommunityConnect (OCC) platform as its initial solution. OCC is a digital platform that was developed by OSF HealthCare to assist healthcare organizations create better patient care plans, track patient outcomes, assist with social determinants of health and achieve measurable improvements in the health outcomes of a community and is currently in use by OSF HealthCare across its fourteen hospitals.

The Women’s Health Initiative
The Women’s Health Initiative aims to strategically develop a mobile app for Black women on the South Side of Chicago to help bridge gaps between communities and public health system through behavioral health surveillance, direct connection to community and their lived experiences, increase social support and community investment and share resources to help meet basic social and mental health needs.

A special thanks to our program collaborators

A hand-selected group of Chicago health equity leaders carefully reviewed the applications and selected the inaugural cohort. Thank you for your guidance and leadership!

Javier Evelyn
Alerje, MedTech Color

Harmony Harrington
BCBSIL

Aesha Patel, DNP, FNP-BC
Heartland Health Centers

Dr. Derwin Phillip
Franciscan Health Partners

Kate Schellinger
Illinois Medical District

Stephanie Willding
CommunityHealth