Cardinal Analytx, a Palo Alto, CA-based digital health startup using machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve care and reduce healthcare costs for patients has raised $6.1 million in Series A funding. Spun out of Stanford University, Cardinal Analtyx Solutions was founded by Stanford professors Drs. Arnie Milstein and Nigam Shah, who created the company with lead investor Cardinal Partners. Other investors include the Stanford-StartX Fund and Premera Blue Cross, which also participated in the company’s pilot program to validate its technology.
The company plans to utilize the funding to enable Cardinal Analytx to continue advancing its technology with the addition of data science, engineering and clinical capabilities.
Across the U.S. healthcare system, 10 percent of health insurance enrollees account for approximately 70 percent of healthcare spending. Dr. Shah’s research found that 60 percent of highest cost members are new and were not high-cost in the previous year, while 40 percent are persistent high-cost members.
The company’s solution for health plans, at-risk providers and self-insured employers combines predictive modeling and targeted intervention using artificial intelligence to identify potential new “high-cost” plan members as well as to provide medical intervention recommendations to help prevent health issues from occurring.
Premea Blue Cross Pilot Project
To demonstrate the value of its solution, Cardinal Analytx entered into a pilot program with Premera Blue Cross, analyzing data from 1.4 million members to predict new high-cost members in the subsequent year.
Sixty-seven percent of the members identified by Cardinal Analytx’s solution as people whose costs would increase in the subsequent plan year – most of whom did in fact become high-cost members – were not singled out by existing approaches used to find individuals whose costs would rise.
“Cardinal Analytx enabled us to better predict which members could benefit from early interventions and provide effective recommendations to engage them in healthier behaviors,” said Dr. John Espinola, Premera Blue Cross’s executive vice president of healthcare services in a statement. “The pilot results were outstanding, compelling us to invest in a team and company that is on the cusp of transforming how we help patients who need it the most.”
