M3 Clinician Wins Venture+ Forum Contest at 5th Annual mHealth Summit

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- M3 Clinician was selected by an expert panel of judges as the winner of the 2013 Venture+ Forum pitch contest for startups at the mHealth Summit in Washington D.C.  Presented by HIMSS Media, the Venture+ Forum offers a unique platform for showcasing transformative technology and for exploring investment opportunities to bring healthcare innovations to market.  The Venture+ Forum is focused on promoting business-building collaborations and fostering healthcare innovation by connecting investors, entrepreneurs and strategic partners.

M3 Clinician helps providers detect and manage mental health conditions in primary care settings. Its mental health solution is reimbursable and helps clinicians identify persistent and challenging illnesses which, when left unmanaged, double the cost of treating diabetes, cardiac, lung and other chronic diseases.

"There has never been a more exciting time to be an entrepreneur or investor in the mobile health and wellness space," said Rich Scarfo, Vice President, Events at HIMSS Media and Director of the mHealth Summit. "M3 Clinician delivers an inexpensive, web-based mental health screening tool to detect often misdiagnosed or under-recognized mental health symptoms in patients and represents one of today's most promising solutions for reducing costs, improving patient care and outcomes and transforming healthcare delivery."

"Most mental health care is provided by primary care physicians.  M3 Clinician provides the tools they need to improve quality and reduce costs," said Steve Daviss, MD, M3's chief medical information officer.

At the Venture+ Forum 11 pre-selected companies were given the opportunity to pitch their products, services and solutions to a panel of leading experts in healthcare investment, business and technology.

Selected as this year's winner, M3 received:

• An opportunity to present at the 2013 mHealth Summit on the Innovation Zone Stage
• Two full access passes for the 2014 HIMSS annual conference and the Venture+ Forum taking place at HIMSS14 on Sunday, February 23rd at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Florida
• A company feature in a HIMSS Media publication and Venture+ Forum e-newsletter and website
• A "Year in Review" key presentation opportunity at the 2014 mHealth Summit

"M3 emerged as the winner of this competition because their clinical data demonstrated major benefits to patients, they had solved for reimbursement, and they were open to bringing on board the seasoned business executive that they knew their business would need to succeed," said Andrew Farquharson, Venture+ Forum judge and co-founder of VentureHealth. "They were filling a major gap with an effective tool that saved time for clinicians and dramatically improved prospects for patients suffering from mental illness."

 "It is an incredible honor to have M3 recognized as the 2013 Venture+ Forum winner. Through the Venture+ Forum, the HIMSS organization is boldly confronting perplexing and difficult health problems with evidence-based mobile solutions," said Michael Byer, CEO and co-founder of M3Clinician. "We are grateful to HIMSS and the mHealth Summit for making the effort to feature a technology solution like ours."

The forum, which kicked off with a keynote address from Jack Young, Director of the Qualcomm Life Fund at Qualcomm Ventures explored key trends in digital healthcare and investment, including growing opportunities in wearable devices and big data in health such as claims data, EMR data, genomic data, consumer demographics, social (behavioral) and real time (biometrics) data.

HIMSS is now seeking company applications for Venture+ Forum at HIMSS14. Apply online today: https://gust.com/entrepreneur-conference/ventureplusforum/apply

About the mHealth Summit
The 2013 mHealth Summit, the global convener of the expanding mobile health ecosystem, explored the disruptions, challenges and opportunities of the expanding integration of mobile and wireless technologies into the healthcare system, and in consumer and patient engagement, for the delivery of better health outcomes. The 5th Annual mHealth Summit took place December 8-11, 2013 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in the Washington, D.C. area. The mHealth Summit is presented by HIMSS, in partnership with the National Institutes of Health, the mHealth Alliance and the Foundation for the NIH. The Venture+ Forum, presented at the mHealth Summit by HIMSS Media, was convened in strategic partnership with Springboard Enterprises, StartUp Health and UP Global. For information about the 2014 Summit, please visit: www.mhealthsummit.org

About M3 Information, L.L.C. 
M3 Information is a Rockville, Maryland, based company creating health information technology solutions to improve the lives of people with mental health and substance use conditions. M3 Clinician, the company's most popular product, is NCQA approved and uses secure mobile health and web-based technologies to deliver behavioral health risk assessments and progress tracking information to clinicians.  The company also developed WhatsMyM3, a mobile app and whatsmym3.com, an Internet-based risk screen for home use.  Health care providers rely on M3Clinician.com, a browser-based portal and mobile app. For more information on M3 please visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ex7syaOELk

SOURCE mHealth Summit