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Rapid Healthcare Gets Funding, Beefs Up Sales Ranks

Irvine-based mobile medical apps developer Rapid Healthcare Inc. received an undisclosed amount of funding from Watermark Venture Capital in Newport Beach.

Rapid Healthcare employs 15 and plans to use the funding to beef up its sales team.

“We are reaching out to organizations and putting devices in nurse practitioners’ hands,” said Teresa Jimenez, chief of operations. “It is important for us to demonstrate the product to nurses who are actually [giving the care].”

Watermark invests between $250,000 to $1 million in companies in California, providing angel, seed and series A financing.

Rapid Healthcare looks to improve patient safety with apps that are designed to ensure healthcare workers in neonatal intensive care units get correct information.

“The company started in 2013 with Mother’s Milk, which was born from a misfeed problem where the baby was given the wrong breast milk at a hospital in Los Angeles,” said Jimenez.

The company’s flagship app prevents mistakes in feeding in the hospital by matching a mother’s breast milk with her infant through patient identification and breast milk verification. The baby’s wristband is scanned to print matching labels that are applied to the baby’s milk bottles. Feedings are given only when there’s a verified scan match between bottle and baby.

“A nurse cannot administer an injection of medication or feeding until another nurse comes and verifies the patient is the patient, and the medication is the medication, and signs off,” Jiminez said. “You want to prevent human errors in hospital settings, but also promote better workflow.”

Rapid Healthcare is in the process of building out its product line.

“Our mobile solutions … [eventually] want to place the information—a patient’s electronic record, X-ray, CT-scan—in the palm of [a caregiver’s] hand,” said Jimenez.

The company plans to launch Donor Milk this month, “a logical next step to our Mother’s Milk app,” according to Jimenez. Donor Milk is designed to work with any donor milk bank supplying a neonatal intensive care unit.

Single-Use

Rancho Santa Margarita-based Integrated Endoscopy Inc. appointed Brad Sharp chief executive, president and member of the board of directors in advance of its Nuvis Arthroscope launch early next year. That’s a single-use rigid endoscope that received Food and Drug Administration clearance in 2014.

Sharp previously served as chief executive of Irvine-based Insightra Medical Inc., a medical device company focused on hernia implants used to treat bulging of organs through an opening in the abdominal area.

He takes a newly created position at Integrated Endoscopy, as will several more executives hired to join Lonnie Hoyle, co-founder and chief technology officer, and Kais Almarzouk, vice president of R&D, as the company looks to take its device to market.

“Getting an FDA clearance and preparing for a launch is not one and the same,” Sharp said. “I only joined recently [and together with this announcement is] a very significant buildup from management, quality, regulatory, manufacturing and commercial… to prepare for our product launch.”

The other hires include Rob Cripe, executive vice president of global marketing and America’s sales; Laxmi Khanolkar, vice president of Asia/Middle East sales; Mike Ameli, vice president of manufacturing; and Tom Colonna, vice president of regulatory affairs and quality assurance.

Integrated Endoscopy manufactures high-definition single-use endoscopes that are inserted directly into the joint through a small incision to provide medical imaging. It is used in minimally invasive joint surgery.

The company’s core Nuvis technology is designed to eliminate repair costs that come with multiple-use devices, and cut the risk of infection by contamination associated with reusable arthroscopes.

The device also produces high-definition images with its proprietary distal LED light.

The market potential for a single-use arthroscope is roughly $1.7 billion in the U.S., according to Sharp.

He said he has plans to eliminate cables with the introduction of battery-powered arthroscopes next year.

Bits & Pieces

Abbott Park, Ill.-based medical device maker Abbott Laboratories raised a $15.1 billion debt offering supporting its $25 billion acquisition of St. Jude Medical Inc. Abbott agreed to sell its optics unit, Abbott Medical Optics in Irvine, to Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick, N.J., in September. St Jude, based in St. Paul, Minn., has 422 workers at its Orange County operations in Irvine … Maynard Carkhuff, vice chairman and senior innovation officer of Irvine-based Freedom Innovations LLC, joined the California Orthotic & Prosthetic Association’s board of directors. Freedom Innovations manufactures prostheses for feet, ankles and knees. He previously served as chief executive of Foothill Ranch-based Ossur Prosthetics.

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