For Eve Kurtin, health care venture capital is all about funding businesses that have ideas for services and products that lower costs while providing a better level of care.

Kurtin fell into venture capital in 1995 when now-partner Layton Crouch asked her if she’d like to get involved in funding cutting-edge health care technologies. Together, they founded Encino-based Pacific Venture Group, where Kurtin is managing director.

The fund works with companies in all areas of health care: IT, hardware, services and life science. Raising money through institutional investors, the fund’s average investment is $4 million to $6 million.

Some of her biggest successes include computer security software developer Zone Labs Inc., which sold for $290 million and surgical center operator Symbion Inc., which went public and doubled the firm’s investment.

More recently, Pacific Venture has recently funded Asteres Inc., a San Diego-based provider of prescription storage and pharmacy check-out technology, and Aethon Inc., a San Diego-based provider of hospital management technology.

Pacific Venture invests in companies after the incubation stage when friends and family have helped all they can but before the entrepreneurs have had sufficient time to get the kinks worked out. The firm views investments as horse races.

“The horse is the business model and the jockey is the management,” she said. “We like to bet on the jockey.”

When evaluating applicants for her money, Kurtin said she looks for an idea that can take up a big enough share of the market to get a good return.

“You never want to assume you’re going to get more than a small share of the market,” she said. “We want to make sure that the market’s big enough that if we only get 5 percent, we’ll still have a nice return.”

Kurtin’s biggest pet peeve is applicants who say their company can grow to $5 billion in a market they’ve already told her is worth $1 billion. “But it happens all the time,” she said.

Pacific Ventures typically cashes out after initial public offerings. Kurin currently serves on the boards of Symbion, Asteres and Centerre Healthcare, a St. Louis company that provides rehabilitation hospital management services. She finds the board assignments a lot of work.

“We get monthly reports, so if someone wants to hide something they can,” she said. “If you have been misled and you have patients depending on you, it is very challenging and stressful.”

Kurtin has had plenty of preparation for that level of stress. She earned a bachelor’s degree at UC Santa Barbara and then a doctorate of pharmacy and an M.B.A. from UCLA. She had two very difficult experiences right out of the gate. Her first job, which she’d been offered a year before finishing her business degree, was phased out after three months. She left her second job at a large, publicly-traded health care company after she said she was a victim of sexual harassment.

“So here I was, eight months out of school looking for a third job. I thought no one would hire me,” she said.

Kurtin, however, went on to lead Physician Venture Management, which developed and operated nationwide physician networks. She also was a senior consultant to health care corporations.

Kurtin said that one of the hardest calls to make as a venture capitalist is picking the right time to make an investment. Often times, the firm is pitched by entrepreneurs with interesting but undeveloped ideas who have not even sought out funds from friends and family.

“My favorite is two guys and their dog Spot, but it’s not as economically successful as if you wait for them to get their life in more of a balance and then you invest,” she said.