The 'Build-A-Bear Workshop' of digital health development: Jonathan Bush shares details on new startup 

Jackie Drees -

Former Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush launched his new digital health data-sharing platform Zus Health in June, with a focus on selling software directly to other developers, rather than physicians or providers, according to a July 14 Boston Globe report. 

Zus has four builders on its platform: Oak Street Health, Firefly Health, Cityblock Health and Dorsata. Zus' goal is to serve as a place for the builders to create proprietary health apps for consumers by offering capabilities and tools that support healthcare workflows, data acquisition, patient records interoperability and patient identity and control over data. 

Mr. Bush likened the platform to Build-A-Bear Workshop — but rather than helping kids make stuffed animals, Zus is delivering necessary building components for digital health app developers, according to the Globe

"It represents a new business audience in healthcare that actually wants to share records," he said. "They benefit from shared data while [many of] the established players don’t, and a set of tools to build stuff that just didn’t exist before recently."

Zus also closed a $34 million financing round in June, led by investors including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), F-Prime Capital, Maverick Ventures and Rock Health. 

Mr. Bush co-founded EHR company Athenahealth in 1997; since resigning from Athenahealth in 2018, he has invested in and become executive chair of telemedicine provider Firefly Health. 

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