San Francisco-based Augmedix, which makes a smartglass-based remote scribe platform to reduce the amount of time physicians spend on EHR charting, has raised $23 million in a round led by new investors McKesson Ventures and OrbiMed. Previously, the company raised $17 million, and this latest round brings the company’s total funding to over $60 million.
The funds will be used to build out Augmedix’s platform with more tools and services. The company is focused on service and software, not hardware, and they are regularly experimenting with Glass alternatives.
Augmedix, which was founded in 2012, aims to make the doctor-patient relationship more personalized by eliminating the time physicians spend on their required EHR documentation. The core offering is a Google Glass headset that the doctor wears during a visit, so the remote scribe can watch via the Glass and enter necessary information on the chart as they go. The doctor then approves and signs off on the information at the end of the visit, rather than accumulating a backlog throughout that day that often means later working at the office, less time spent with patients, and fewer patients over all.
While more meaningful one-on-one time is the primary goal with Augmedix, it also allows doctors to see more patients each week, as well as to have an easier day-to-day life. “Augmedix is uniquely able to improve doctors' quality of life by allowing them to concentrate on their patients rather than on data entry,” McKesson Ventures Managing Director and SVP Tom Rodgers said in a statement. “This makes their technology invaluable for settings like our U.S. Oncology clinics. We are excited to bring McKesson's experience and ubiquitous market presence to help them scale to doctors across the country in the coming few years.”
Augmedix has grown steadily in the past few years, and lists hundreds of primary care doctors, specialists and surgeons who use its services across most of the United States. The company stated that it expects adoption of its platform to accelerate in the coming years as the company’s health system customers begin to mainstream its use across certain regions. Augmedix currently works with several large health plans including Sutter Health, Dignity Health, Catholic Health Initiatives and TriHealth Inc. It currently employees nearly 1,000 people around the world.
"Augmedix has brought together an impressive coalition of the nation's leading health systems as its customers, and their physicians and health system executives have a strong passion for Augmedix,” OrbiMed Venture Partner Steven Yecies said in a statement. “We look forward to supporting their continued growth with our deep healthcare relationships, international presence and extensive experience scaling operationally complex companies to IPO and beyond.”
