BlueCross BlueShield Create New Venture Capital Organization

Sandbox Industries will be the responsible party to manage the 116 million dollar fund. Interesting that their first investment was an EHR/data integrator health service. The information management portion consolidates and integrates data through the HL7 format. They also offer services to other entities outside of healthcare to include banking, hospitality and others.

As areas keep expanding, first we had the Blue Cross Bank and now the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Venture Capitalists. This investment was 5 million so there’s 101 million left in the till, what will be next, wish we could just get the claims paid. BD

BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners is a newly formed $116-million fund to which 11 independent Blue Cross and/or Blue Shield companies have committed capital. The fund invests in technologies, products, and services in the U.S. healthcare industry that promote efficiency, lower costs, and improve options for consumers. In a unique partnership, the fund is managed jointly by representatives from the Association, the participating Blue Plans, and Sandbox Industries, a Chicago-based venture capital firm.

The first investment the fund has made is in Initiate Systems. Initiate enables organizations to leverage and share critical data assets. Initiate^® software enables strategic initiatives such as electronic health records (EHR) and clinical portals that help improve efficiencies, increase patient and provider satisfaction, reduce errors that result from poor data quality, and create an interoperable environment that allows healthcare organizations to better serve their communities. It can also help healthcare organizations, including payers and providers, save millions of dollars in administrative costs.

Initiate Systems is a leading provider of master data management (MDM) and Enterprise Master Person Index (EMPI) software. We enable organizations to strategically leverage and share critical data assets. Our MDM software and experience as an information exchange leader provide organizations with complete, highly accurate and real-time views of data spread across multiple systems or databases, even outside their firewalls. This allows companies to unlock the value of their data assets for competitive advantages or operational improvements.