Press Release

Syneos recently entered into a new strategic collaboration with Ride Health to provide non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) to clinical trial participants. The collaboration will help in bringing the clinical trial closer to patient, increasing diversity and accessibility, and further expanding the Dynamic Assembly network of preferred technology collaborators to boost the design and execution of clinical trials.

Ride Health, a non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) coordination platform, has raised $10 million in a funding round led by Topmark Partners. This funding round follows the company’s $6.2 million seed round from last year.

Access to private transportation, or lack thereof, has long been a barrier to participation in clinical trials. And COVID-19 isn’t making things easier, with public health guidelines discouraging the use of public transport and ride-hailing services setting up policies against passengers with COVID-19 symptoms.

For Imran Cronk, the concept behind his company, Ride Health, came to him when he was volunteering at a hospital in North Carolina. A gentleman was leaving the emergency department and Cronk found out he had no way of getting home.

Soon to be integrated with the health system’s Epic EHR, the transport system has achieved, among other things, a more than 50% reduction in average cost per ride and a 20% improvement in inpatient bed availability.

Safe ride sharing options for patients in the era of novel coronavirus is a challenge that just became a bit easier in New Your City thanks to Ride Health's newly launched COVID-19 equipped transportation network. The COVID-19 equipped vehicles include standard and wheelchair-accessible vehicles, stretcher vans, basic life support ambulances, and advanced life support ambulances.

Lyft, Uber Health, and Ride Health have implemented safety protocol, efforts to expand patient access to care, and partnerships to give rides to frontline health workers.

Ride Health has announced a new program aimed to help reduce the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). The technology-enabled program helps to limit the exposure of independent ride-hail drivers and non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) providers to passengers who have been exposed to COVID-19 patients or have themselves tested positive for the virus.

Ride Health will make it easier for drivers to know if they have potentially contacted a patient with COVID-19, a step in preserving rideshare for patient access to care. A new functionality in the rideshare and medical transportation firm Ride Health platform aims to curb the COVID-19 epidemic by making it easier for drivers to know when they may have been exposed to the virus, according to a company press release.

Seven years ago, Imran Cronk was volunteering at a hospital and watched as a recently discharged patient began to walk home. It was around midnight, Cronk said. The patient, who arrived in an ambulance, said he lived about nine miles away. The North Carolina hospital was located in a rural area and there weren't other transportation options available.

Uber Health and Ride Health have partnered to combine their respective nonemergency medical transportation offerings to reach more patients across the U.S., according to a Jan. 21 news release.

Ride Health, providing smarter transportation for every patient need, announced they raised $6.2 million in a funding round led by Activate Venture Partners. The capital raise is joined by Newark Venture Partners, Anthro Ventures, BioAdvance, Leading Edge Ventures and Startup Health, according to a news release from Cision PR Newswire.

While there is no shortage of issues to be solved in the U.S. healthcare system – getting patients to keep the doctors’ appointments they make and then take the medications that their doctors prescribe is one that has a cascading effect of issues across the consumer and healthcare provider ecosystem.

"Ride Health connects health plans and healthcare providers to transportation options, whether that is an Uber (which the startup has partnered with) or a mom and pop transportation company in a rural area that doesn’t have ride-sharing cars. Think of them as a network management software, refining transportation, Cronk said."

"Ride Health closed a $6.2 million seed funding round led by New York-based Activate Venture Partners. The company helps hospitals coordinate patient transportation, whether that’s hailing a ride from a non-emergency medical transportation company or rideshare services like Uber."

“‘The existing centralized state level broker model is ineffective, and does not meet the needs of patients, or their health care providers, or the subcontracted drivers in a sufficient way,’ Imran Cronk, co-founder and chief executive of New York-based Ride Health, told Bloomberg Law. Ride Health manages automated coordination among transportation providers, patients and health-care providers.”

"‘Hospitals are very enthusiastic to adopt these more efficient, lower-cost, convenient modes of transportation,’ said Cronk, whose company aims to connect medical centers with transit, taxis, or ride-booking companies. ‘There’s a few providers who have led the charge in demonstrating these partnerships, but they’re all very early on in the game, and providers are still figuring out how to work with these new transportation systems.’”

"Transportation services can also be found in places like Virtua Health, [...] where a system-wide transportation assistance policy implemented in 2018 has generated increased patient satisfaction, improved bed turnover, a greater-than 50% reduction in the average cost of rides – from $42 to $20 – and a significant reduction in primary care no-shows. Overall, Virtua reports up to a seven-fold return on investment in its transportation program."

"Harvard Pilgrim partners with Ride Health to provide free medical transportation [...] The rides will be managed within the Ride Health platform, which features a member portal for scheduling rides; real-time ride monitoring; and a dedicated dsupport team for confirming benefit eligibility and scheduling tranpsortation."

“Public transportation in many places is just not all that accessible--particularly for the handicapped, sick, or elderly. Ride Health has a better idea. By providing consumers with accessible transportation to and from hospitals, the company wants to help those in need reach urgent appointments on time. The service is deployed in 25 states with a ride network available in all 50 states.”

“In addition to improving accessibility for patients, Ride Health reduces the time social workers must spend to come up with transportation solutions. Penn Medicine has since expanded the program to include certain other patient groups.”