The pandemic-era explosion in the use of virtual health can continue to improve care and spark innovation in the long term with some help from Washington, D.C., executives of New Haven healthtech Wellinks told U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy on Wednesday.
Murphy toured Wellinks and met with company leaders after naming the firm his Innovator of the Month for October.
A developer of virtual tools to treat Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Wellinks just completed a $25 million Series C funding round to fund clinical research and development and expand marketing.
Wellinks works with insurers to track COPD patients and improve their condition using a combination of monitoring devices and virtual visits with wellness coaches to encourage exercise and other healthy behavior.
“What we’re doing is taking a virtual approach to helping with some of the low-cost, high-yield support that people need outside of the traditional healthcare system,” Wellinks President Geoff Matous said. “We’re trying to find a way to really move the needle for people with COPD.”
Wellinks leaders told Murphy of the company’s growth from a startup in Norwalk five years ago to an established New Haven presence.
Located in the Marlin Center at 85 Willow St., Wellinks expanded into a larger 3,000-square-foot space in one of the complex’s buildings this month, for a total of 5,000 square feet. The company expects to grow its workforce from the current 25 people to about 100 in coming months, Matous said.
Fueling that growth is the expansion of telehealth or virtual health since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wellinks executives said. COPD sufferers, many of whom are older and live in rural and other isolated areas, have embraced telehealth and show high rates of adoption of Wellinks’ technology.
“We’re on the precipice of a transformational shift,” said Wellinks CEO Alex Waldron. “Patients got used to virtual care — this is the new way.”
Pandemic measures that eased rules around licensing and reimbursement for online treatment “are doing amazing things for access to telehealth virtual care,” agreed Wellinks CFO Ryan McMillian.
Legislators can help by extending those measures and working to convince Medicare officials to expand virtual health coverage, he added.
“We would love to see those benefits continue because people are getting access to this really high-quality care,” McMillian said.
Murphy sits on the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and said he has maintained an ongoing effort to expand Medicare coverage.
Easing licensing and interstate restrictions for certain categories of healthcare workers will help companies like Wellinks expand their workforce and improve patient access to care, Murphy added.
Murphy added that expanding the talent pool for companies like Wellinks in New Haven is dependent on better travel options, including a high-speed rail link that would reduce travel to New York City to just over an hour. The senator has pushed for funding in President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package to go to high-speed rail in the Northeast.
“Think about how fundamental to New Haven that is if [the trip to NYC] all of a sudden becomes an hour,” Murphy said. “That’s a big part of the New Haven economic development mission.”
Contact Liese Klein at lklein@newhavenbiz.com.
