ROANOKE, VA – Wireless MedCARE says it has raised $535,000 in equity and debt offerings since October 2008 to develop its Web-enabled wireless VivaTRAK Activity Monitoring system for use in long-term care facilities. The Roanoke, Va.-based company has received investment from the Carilion Biomedical Institute, Optimum Sensor Holdings and individual investors primarily in southwest Virginia.
Wireless MedCARE (WMC) was created in 2006 to address common quality of care and efficiency problems in skilled nursing sector of healthcare delivery. Many occupants of the 1.6 million beds in U.S. nursing homes in the United States are at risk for pressure ulcers and falls.
WMC’s first product, VivaTRAK, is a complete system that uses wireless and sensor technology to track the activity of patients and their caregivers in nursing homes.
The system ensures that care tasks are completed on time and documented in healthcare records for quality assurance, reimbursement, and liability risk mitigation purposes.
After completing its first clinical evaluation in a Virginia long-term care facility, WMC sought funds to transition from prototypes to production.
“We are pleased that even in these difficult economic times, especially as investments are highly scrutinized, we’ve been successful in communicating to the investment community the value proposition for healthcare IT systems that address quality of care and staff efficiency issues,” said Dan Wrappe, CEO of Wireless MedCARE.
“Our funding has supported development of an innovative system that promises real solutions for a critical population.”
According to statistics available from PricewaterhouseCoopers MoneyTree, the amount of capital invested in seed and early-stage companies in recent years has been down dramatically.
“The landscape for new companies seeking capital, either institutional venture or angel investment, in the last 18 months has been utterly dismal,” noted Dave Gilroy, managing director of Scale Finance in Charlotte, N.C.
“Successful fund-raising results of this kind place Wireless MedCARE above 95 percent of early-stage ventures in their category.”
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