Docs for Health’s Goal: provide healthcare orgs with simple, point-of-care solutions for SDoH
Docs for Health was born of an idea by now CoFounder + CEO, Rahul Vanjani, while he was practicing primary care at a community health center in south Providence, after noticing his patients were overburdened by health-related social needs; and importantly, often unable to attend to their health because of these competing priorities. In response, he hired and trained a cohort of community health workers (CHWs) to address these self-evident gaps in the treatment approach. After realizing that simply referring patients to local community-based organizations was insufficient, he collaborated with health and legal professionals to develop a suite of point-of-care tools that enabled the CHWs to address patients’ social needs from within the health system; and Docs for Health was born.
Today, Docs for Health provides healthcare organizations with simple, point-of-care solutions to address patients’ complex social needs by connecting investment in social programs to the people who need it the most. The program offers step-by-step guidance to identify social needs, automatically calculates which social programs individuals are eligible for, and completes those social program forms. Through a 3-step approach–SCREEN, INTERVENE, TRACK–Docs for Health guide users through questions and leverage complex eligibility criteria to maximize enrollment in social programs.
And the problem being solved is a significant one–the reality is that only 20% of overall health and wellbeing is due to “medical treatment”; meaning the remaining 80% of overall health is attributed to other outside factors. And failure to address these outside factors leads to further health issues, and perpetual churn within the healthcare treatment system accounting for incalculable sums of healthcare costs. In the US, $140B of social aid is missed out annually on by families in need simply due to bureaucracy and convoluted paperwork. Docs for Health addresses this churn, and contributes a positive action within our established healthcare systems. “We are not just a referral platform – we are a social care preparation software” says Vanjani.
NEMIC: Championing Advancements of SDoH
In 2024, NEMIC became connected with Docs for Health through a connection with ecosystem partner SEG/Social Enterprise Greenhouse in Providence. Through a series of meetings and advisory hours, NEMIC has worked with Docs for Health to analyze their model and provide insight for pitch readiness, fundraising preparation, and more. In October 2024, Docs for Health won 2nd Place at the EforAll (Entrepreneurship for All) Fall 2024 Pitch Event; and in Q3 2024 Docs for Health was selected for the ‘24-’25 NEMIC Accelerator, which is our intensive 6-month business accelerator geared towards Medical Technology, Healthcare Technology, and Digital Health solutions.
To date, Docs for Health has raised $127,000 in Angel investments and pitch awards, and is applying for a NIH SBIR Phase I grant as well as a NIH SBIR Fast-Track Phase I+II gran. The company has received support from the Brown University School of Public Health, Microsoft Research, and MedStar Health Nat’l Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, along with current paying customers such as Women & Infants, RI DHS, and Providence Community Health Centers. Docs for Health is currently seeking to raise a minimum of $500K, for development use including for records integration, cybersecurity, product & engineering, and more. Stay connected with NEMIC to hear the latest updates of Docs for Health, and others from our network.
