Carium, OMNY among HHS-backed tech accelerator picks

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced this week that it had launched a digital health accelerator aimed at addressing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The PandemicX Accelerator, co-led by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, is tasked with using digital tools and publicly accessible data to reduce the disparities and inequity worsened by the novel coronavirus. The startups selected for the cohort include telehealth vendors, behavioral health tools, vaccination status platforms and healthcare ecosystem products, among others. "PandemicX will help give us interoperable tools that identify health inequities and facilitate interventions that prevent such inequities from further turning into healthcare disparities," said Micky Tripathi, U.S. National Coordinator for Health IT, in a statement. They will focus on health equity by design, national public health solutions, behavioral and mental health, violence prevention, socioeconomic outcome indicators, and community resilience, said HHS. "I am excited for the PandemicX Accelerator cohort to work with us to collectively address health equity barriers and other disparities exacerbated by COVID-19 by using data and innovation,” said Dr. Rachel L.