EO Cleveland member Stephen McHale’s company, Explorys, Inc., recently announced that it has raised US$11.5 million in Series C financing led by Austin Ventures and Foundation Medical Partners, with follow-on investments from Santé Ventures and Cleveland Clinic.

Explorys was founded in 2009 by “big data” pioneers Stephen McHale and Charlie Lougheed as a spinout from the Cleveland Clinic toimprove care, costs, and outcomes by leveraging clinical data at scale. Since then, Explorys has become one of the World’s largest data platforms with over 3 billion clinical events and partner agreements with major healthcare systems that span over 10 million patients nationwide.

“Healthcare and the economy are in the midst of historical realignments,” stated Cleveland Clinic President and CEO, Dr. Toby Cosgrove, MD.  “Organizations that leverage their clinical data to improve care, speed innovation, and reduce delivery costs will shape the future of medicine in this country.”

The company’s technology is based upon a cloud computing system designed for the unique demands related to the volume and complexity of healthcare data. Its data platform aggregates and standardizes electronic healthcare record (EHR) data across disparate systems, employing security and privacy protection to comply with HIPAA and HITECH regulations.

“We see 2011 as a watershed year for healthcare data,” stated Explorys CEO, Stephen McHale.  “That’s why we have committed the necessary capital to rapidly support the needs of our healthcare partners who are serious about improving care and driving meaningful innovation; starting now.”

This round of financing will be used to double the Explorys workforce in 2011 and 2012 and triple the size of its existing server complex as it adds capacity and data centers.

“Explorys is now positioned to quickly and effectively scale to the data needs of the healthcare providers. We are excited to provide an opportunity for them to continue their forward momentum and drive network growth,” stated John Thornton, Austin Ventures General Partner.

Explorys has grown its network of healthcare systems since late 2009 to include large integrated systems such as Cleveland Clinic, MedStar, Summa Health System, MetroHealth, and University Hospitals.  Its solutions are used to discover actionable correlations and trends in treatments and outcomes to improve safety, increase quality, and to create cost efficiencies in delivering care.

“We see huge opportunities to collaborate with our peers in the Explorys network to advance research and improve health outcomes at the community level,” said Better Health Greater Cleveland’s director Randall D. Cebul, MD, professor at CWRU and internist in the MetroHealth System.  “Seeing Explorys’ rapid adoption among our peers, combined with its strong financial backing, enables us to envision what real time collaborative information platforms will be able to accomplish.