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Health Connect South

Month: June 2015

Mobiquity

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 Mobiquity

Nirav Desai, Principal Health Strategist for Mobiquity

Mobiquity

On this week’s show, Diana and I sat down with health technology strategist, Nirav Desai, of Mobiquity. Mobiquity is a professional services firm trusted by hundreds of companies to be their mobile engagement provider. On a global scale, the trends, strategy, users, platforms, technology, development, organizational issues of mobile are complicated. Mobiquity eliminates the complexity.

We talked about how important the Mobile component is for all enterprises today, including healthcare. The ACA has created requirements for providing patients with access to portals where they can connect with their health providers and get access to their health data. Mobiquity helps health enterprises create more effective applications and platforms for handling this requirement as well as better outcomes for population health management.

Nirav shared some troubling statistics (~125,000 people/year die due to incorrectly taking their medications). We discussed how mobile technology and applications can promote better adherence to prescribed care by notifying providers if patients are taking meds as directed as well as giving providers access to real time patient data remotely.

Additionally, technology platforms can facilitate making decisions about care plans by showing aggregate data across a practice’s patient population as a whole. In this way, trends may be identified that allow more proactive approaches with the care plan.

We talked about the way mHealth and teleHealth are overlapping now. Previously, telehealth was mainly a way to deliver care to a patient, particularly in mental health. Now, with mobile health, more data can flow from patient to provider and the patient can take a greater part in achieving positive outcomes through engaging with a mobile platform. These mobile platforms can push educational information and reminders to help facilitate care plan compliance. Some telehealth platforms now have mobile components to them that enhance the patient encounter and have more robust data.

Mobiquity is also making available a behavior change platform called Delta IQ, aimed at helping to change patient behaviors such as smoking, alcohol consumption and other health behaviors. The platform “learns” as the user engages with the information, adapting what is displayed to the user to better facilitate effectiveness of suggested interventions.

Special Guest:

Nirav Desai, Principal Healthcare Strategist, Mobiquity  facebook_logo_small3  feed-logo  twitter_logo_small  youtube-logo1  linkedin_small1  vimeo logo

Mobiquity

  • MBA, General Management, University of Virgina Darden School of Business
  • Author of several publications on telehealth
  • Former Global Product Manager, GE Healthcare
  • Previous CEO, Hands On Telehealth

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Greenway Health

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Greenway Health

Mark Janiszewski of Greenway Health and Diana Keough of ShareWIK

Greenway Health

A couple of topics that have come up repeatedly over the course of weeks since we started the Health Connect South Radio show:  Population Health and Interoperability.  On this week’s show we sat down with health IT expert, Mark Janiszewski, EVP of Product Management for Greenway Health.

Mark shared how the company has recently introduced new solutions that are aimed at facilitating better population health management initiatives.  Recent changes in the law are placing greater requirements for focus on preventive health and patient outcomes over the older disease-focused models that reimbursed on a fee-for-service basis.

Greenway’s platform gives providers access to data that empowers them to close gaps in care delivery and better manage a population’s high-cost problems such as diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses.  Additionally, the company is providing a portal called, Greenway Exchange, that gives patients ability to see their health data, schedule appointments, and even interact with their care providers.

We talked about how the company helps their clients prepare for the coming implementation of ICD-10 coding requirements that are currently set to go into effect in October 2015.  The new coding format will add a much greater degree of detail in documenting patient problems and treatments.

The goal of the ICD-10 changes is to facilitate research, improve outcomes through better case management, decrease medical errors, enhance public health, educate patients on costs/outcomes, and more.

Mark shared some of the challenges that health organizations face in meeting the expectations for the ICD-10 documentation.  The company is helping to prepare their clients for the upcoming changes in coding.

“Greenway Health has always worked to empower our customers so they can deliver high-quality care while being financially sound,” said Tee Green, CEO of Greenway Health. “Never has that been more important given the rise of pay-for-performance, healthcare consumerism and a population with an increasing number of chronic conditions that requires coordination between multiple caregivers. Greenway Community enables providers to gain actionable insight into clinical and financial performance at all levels of the care continuum like never before.”

Greenway Health has been providing health IT solutions since 1977.  Over time, the company has grown significantly, both organically and through merger.  As an enterprise, the company delivers clinical, financial, and administrative information tools providers need to practice medicine the way they want to practice.

Greenway helps providers stay ahead of the complex regulatory requirements, maximize revenue and, most importantly, focus on their patients rather than on technology.  The company accomplishes this through intuitive user interfaces, interoperability leadership to exchange clinical data and facilitate connected care, and a grass-roots service culture.

Special Guest:

Mark Janiszewski, EVP, Product Management, Greenway Health  linkedin_small1  twitter_logo_small  facebook_logo_small3

Greenway Health

  • Bachelor of Commerce, Concordia
  • UniversityGraduate Diploma, Public Accountancy, McGill University
  • Previous Director, Account Marketing, Nortel Networks
  • Former VP, Product Management, Revenue Cycle Solutions

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Rimidi

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Rimidi

Rimidi

This week we hosted the President and CEO of Rimidi, Dr. Luci Ide.  Rimidi is a healthcare technology company that is working to help patients and health providers better manage diabetes.  It’s an important endeavor—roughly 24 million Americans are diabetic and as many as 86 million more are pre-diabetic (slightly elevated fasting glucose levels).

Based on current trends, 1 in 3 persons will have diabetes by 2050.  And when you consider the costs associated with treating diabetes and the problems such as heart disease, stroke, and others that often come with it, as much as $.60 of every healthcare dollar are spent on this population.

The Rimidi platform is an application that allows patients to share sensor data from glucometers, fitness devices, and share nutritional data from apps such as My Fitness Pal with their providers via a portal link on the provider’s EMR.

The benefit of gathering real time health data and sharing it with the provider is that corrective measures can be taken sooner should trends show that glucose levels are not responding to the care plan as expected.  In this way the patient can more consistently maintain or improve their glucose levels and avoid damaging effects of high glucose such as neuropathy, renal failure, vascular disease, and others.

The company’s platform has been live for roughly a year and they are now actively looking for healthcare partners to deploy their Diabetes+Me application.

We also had a chance to speak with a patient ambassador, Joelle, for “Lights, Camera, Take Action On MS” by Genzyme.  This public awareness event/campaign is working to increase awareness about multiple sclerosis.  The event is coming to The Atlanta Marriott, Alpharetta, June 27, 2015, 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM ET.

At the event, guests will have the chance to engage with experts and hear tips on how to manage their MS. Beverly Layton, Registered Nurse, will be at each event to discuss the emotional impact of MS and techniques to help people alleviate feelings of guilt or depression. Alongside Beverly will be Certified Life Coach Caroline Craven, who lives with MS and is skilled in managing the stress that comes with the disease. Medical Exercise Specialist Monique Acton will also be at each event to share tips on how people living with MS can stay active and maintain energy.

Special Guest:

Luci Ide, MD, President and CEO of Rimidi  twitter_logo_small  linkedin_small1  facebook_logo_small3  vimeo logo

Rimidi Diabetes

  • MD/PhD Emory University
  • Residency, Obstetrics-Gynecology, Magee-Womens Hospital
  • 2014 Recipient, Ross Baird Award for Excellent, Village Capital
  • Former Associate, Monarch Capital Partners

Elder Care

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Elder Care

This week we hosted experts whose companies address the care needs of our elderly population.  We hosted Maria de la Guardia, of Assisted Living Locators, Chris Foster, of LivHome, and Blaine Warketine, of Vimty.

Assisted Living Locators is a company that provides a free service for families in search of an assisted living facility for their loved one.  The company forms relationships with facilities around the community, getting to know them, the services they provide, costs, etc.  They then get to know the families who connect with them seeking help through an interview process to be better able to recommend a facility based on location, type of services available, living environment, cost, etc.

We talked about the fact that many online services focus mainly on a few facilities with which they have financial arrangements, leaving out many options in the area that could potentially be a better fit for a given patient.  Once they have contact information for the family it is shared with other services who then assail the family with calls and emails trying to sell them on centers they represent.  Maria shared some questions families should ask when they contact an online service that purports to be the facility they think they’re contacting.

LivHome is a company that helps seniors be able to live their lives in their own home or their family’s home with the care support and equipment needed to do so.  The company conducts an in-depth assessment of the needs of the patient(s) in need of supportive care/equipment through interviews with their nursing staff.  From there, they can make recommendations and provide the supportive care providers necessary.

Chris shared his story about having been disappointed in the experience with home care for loved ones in the past and that he wanted to provide a high-quality service for the patients who want to be able to live in their own home.  We talked about the fact that it’s actually possible to have an elderly patient live in their own or a family member’s home for less than or similar costs to an assisted living center or nursing facility.

Blaine Warketine shared some impressive statistics about how much of overall healthcare spend each year comes from providing high-acuity care in the last days of life, often for patients who didn’t actually want to have aggressive measures.  Vimty is a platform that allows patients to conduct video interviews with counselors and family members wherein they are able to state their wishes for end of life care measures, along with context for why they feel the way they do.

We talked about the fact that this record has much more weight and is much more likely to prevent much of the family drama that can occur with the typical written advanced directive document (or worse, in the cases of NO document).  Through the Vimty platform, patients have a permanent record that is part of their EMR that can be referenced when end-of-life measures become necessary.

Special Guests:

Maria de la Guardia, of Assisted Living Locators  linkedin_small1  facebook_logo_small3

Assisted Living Locators

  • MBA International Business, George Washington University
  • Professional Development in Gerontology, Kennesaw State University
  • Previous Strategy & Policy Development/Industry Analyst
  • Board of Directors, Strength of Nature

Chris Foster, of LivHome  twitter_logo_small  linkedin_small1  facebook_logo_small3  youtube-logo1  google-plus-logo-red-265px

LivHome

  • Certified Senior Advisor, Society of Certified Senior Advisors
  • Former Member, Board of Directors, March of Dimes of Georgia
  • President/CEO, SportsCom, Inc.

Blaine Warketine, of Vimty  twitter_logo_small  linkedin_small1  facebook_logo_small3

blaine

  • Doctor of Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin
  • Residency, Orthopedics, University of Maryland School of Medicine
  • Fellowship, Orthopedic Knee Conditions, Long Beach Memorial Medical Center
  • MBA, Entrepreneurship, University of Utah David Eccles School of Business