Editor’s note: Startup Spotlight is an exclusive feature from WRAL TechWire that brings attention to emerging entrepreneurial companies across the Triangle and North Carolina.

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DURHAM – The Durham-headquartered startup On Track Technologies has raised an additional $800,000 in capital from its two existing investors and plans to use the new funding to validate its turnkey remote patient monitoring system in new segments of healthcare practices, according to company founder and CEO Penny Shikowitz.

Shikowitz told WRAL TechWire on Tuesday that the company’s $800,000 fundraise came from its two existing investors, the Triangle-based venture capital firm Oval Park Capital, and an Atlanta-based family fund whose name she did not disclose.

Image: On Track Technologies website

Since raising $750,000 in August 2021, the company implemented its technology in one segment of the healthcare market – nephrology.

A subspecialty of internal medicine, nephrologists focus on the diagnosis and treatment of kidney disease.

Thirteen months ago, the company knew that to provide remote care to nephology patients, there needed to be a system set up to monitor patients remotely, said Shikowitz.

That was the technology the company had already built, a remote patient monitoring system, or RPM, and had raised money to bring to market.

“But what we figured out is that just having the RPM technology alone does not solve the problem for the practitioners,” said Shikowitz.  “They need support, they need people to connect with the patients.”

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Call it a pivot, or a logical next step

As it turned out, patients could receive better care, doctors could receive better information, and together, drive better health outcomes, but only if the system had one added component: human interaction.

“The technology flags everybody about what needs to be done and when a patient needs to be contacted,” said Shikowitz.  “But the game-changer is the human interaction.”

On Track Technologies hired care coordinators, bringing them on staff, in order to manage patient communications and improve the communication of medical information to practitioners of medicine.

“We turned this into a turnkey remote patient monitoring system,” said Shikowitz.  “The way we add value, in addition to our great technology, is we add the people component.”

The company’s care coordinators can manage hundreds of patients, and enable healthcare practitioners to provide better care through remote monitoring, especially for patients who may have mobility challenges due to chronic disease, live in very rural areas, or have transportation challenges, but who would benefit from more regular touchpoints with a healthcare practitioner than once a month or once every two months, explained Shikowitz.

“All the pieces that create, truly create, value-based care,” Shikowitz summarized.  “And the patient is getting better care.”

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What now?

Shikowitz told WRAL TechWire that the infusion of capital will help the company reach its next inflection point, and that the company plans to expand beyond the subsegment of nephrology.

According to Justin Wright-Eakes of Oval Park Capital, who also sits on the board of directors for On Track Technologies, the infusion of capital at this time is meant to “support the near-term growth, in terms of both enrolled patients and revenue, of its turnkey remote patient monitoring platform.”

An SEC filing indicates that the company could raise up to $700,000 more in capital, which Wright-Eakes told WRAL TechWire could occur as soon as the end of this year.

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