Former National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Farzad Mostashari, launched a startup this week, called Aledade, that will partner with independent primary care physicians to help them join or form accountable care organizations.

"For me, health IT was never the 'ends', but a 'means' to better health and better care, and I continue to believe that better data and technology is the key to a successful transformation of health care," Mostashari explained in an Aledade blog post. "And it is why the attempts to do so now can succeed, where they have failed before."

Aledade offers primary care doctors with the tools to create their own ACO. The platform provides physicians with help to understand regulations, support from an on-site medical director, EHR optimization, and performance reports based on data that the platform collects. The platform also offers tools so that physicians can connect with their patients. The company will take a percentage of the money the physician saves when using the platform.

Aledade has raised $4.5 million from Venrock and is testing its platform with physicians in New York, Delaware, Arkansas, and Maryland so far.

Mostashari recently ended a nine-month stint at the Brookings Institute.

In one of his public appearances while at Brookings, in November 2013, Mostashari gave a memorable speech about the importance of data for healthcare providers.

“So I mentioned that data is oxygen, but oxygen doesn’t burn,” he said at the time. “Oxygen has to be combined with fuel, and the fuel for healthcare, the thrust for healthcare is money. In healthcare, it’s never about the money. And it’s always about the money. So what has to happen is the healthcare incentives have to change.”

During his time at Brookings he learned that many healthcare providers felt like they had “one foot on their old business model’s grave and the other foot on their new business model’s banana peel”, he wrote in his recent blog post.

“Empowering doctors on the front lines of medicine with cutting edge technology that helps them understand and improve the health of all of their patients has been the mission that’s animated my career,” Mostashari said in a statement. “That’s Aledade’s mission – and we’ve assembled the best possible team to guide our doctor partners to success in the ACO space.”