Canvas Medical, the technology partner that champions independent primary care practices, today announced public availability of its Primary Care Platform. The company also recently closed a funding round led by Upfront Ventures with participation from iSeed Ventures, Village Global and several leading healthcare technology angel investors, bringing total investment in the company to over $3M.

Over half of physicians surveyed by The Physician's Foundation cite EMRs as contributing negatively to efficiency and patient interaction. Clinical and administrative demands on the modern primary care practice are particularly intense as payers like Medicare change how they reimburse providers in an attempt to slow healthcare spending growth. Canvas returns to an intuitive document user interface, using predictive autocomplete to structure data on-the-fly. Canvas uses this higher quality data to serve population health insights and automations directly in the medical record, eliminating the distraction of having an entirely separate population health product. This enables higher quality care and helps physician-owners take advantage of new reimbursement opportunities.

"There is mounting evidence that independent practices provide the kind of care patients want at a better value than their corporate counterparts," said Andrew Hines, co-founder and CEO of Canvas. "Inadequate reimbursement and rising administrative burdens are two of the main reasons a practice may feel they have no choice but to sell out to a hospital system. Having the right technology in place can help practices thrive and remain independent for the benefit of their patients." About half of US primary care physicians are independent, representing about 250 million encounters a year and influence over $1.5 trillion in total healthcare spending.

Clinicians participated in tests in which they used Canvas and their existing medical record to complete a comprehensive set of workflows. On average against the top three medical records by market share, clinicians using Canvas completed workflows three times faster with 80% fewer clicks, all while capturing data in a structured, interoperable format. "Canvas is much faster and more efficient than anything else out there," said Dr. Carl Erickson, owner of Cascade Family Practice in Portland, Oregon. "It eliminates the visible chart bloat that we are so accustomed to."

"It's a difficult task to convince practices to switch medical records," said Kevin Zhang, partner at Upfront. "The fact that the team has been able to do it shows how they have built a transformative product and have true customer empathy in their sales process."

About Canvas Medical

Canvas is the trusted technology partner for independent primary care practices, enabling physician-owners to improve care while thriving in the rapidly changing healthcare payment environment. Canvas Medical was founded in 2015 and is based in San Francisco, CA.