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New York Digital Health Accelerator (NYDHA)

The New York Digital Health Accelerator (NYDHA) was a collaborative effort orchestrated by the Partnership Fund for New York City and the NY eHealth Collaborative. Its principal mission was to bolster growth-stage digital health companies that were on the cutting edge of technology, with special focus on areas such as care coordination, patient engagement, behavioral health technology, population health, and telehealth.

Origin and focus

The Partnership Fund, established by Henry Kravis from Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in 1996, was backed by prominent New York business and finance leaders. Its chief objective was to deploy its investors’ resources – capital, time, and influence – to foster job creation, promote new business development, and enhance opportunities for the city’s residents and neighborhoods. Styled as an “evergreen” fund, it was designed to ensure that gains were perpetually reinvested. The fund had invested over $150 million exclusively in NYC-based enterprises, with a specific focus on digital health, fintech, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, workforce development, and food manufacturing.

The New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) was the other half of this collaboration. Established as a non-profit in 2006 by healthcare leaders, NYeC’s aim was to revolutionize healthcare for all New Yorkers through health IT. With support from state and federal grants, NYeC served as the epicenter for health IT in New York State. Its key objectives included crafting policies and standards, aiding healthcare providers in transitioning to electronic health records, and orchestrating the creation of a network for connecting healthcare providers statewide. Ultimately, NYeC strived to ensure that every patient within the State of New York had swift, secure, accurate, and readily available information, irrespective of their treatment location.

The SHIN-NY Initiative

In line with these goals, NYeC coordinated the Statewide Health Information Network for New York (SHIN-NY). Functioning like a public utility, SHIN-NY aimed to make electronic health records both secure and accessible to healthcare providers across the state, thereby improving patient care and reducing costs. As more private practices, nursing homes, clinics, and hospitals began to digitize their records, they could opt to connect to regional information hubs. These Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIO) collected health record data from the healthcare providers in their area and, with the consent of patients, allowed this information to be shared securely with other providers in the region. SHIN-NY served to connect these regional hubs, creating a private and secure network that spanned the entirety of New York State.