Metro Atlanta Chamber Driving Bioscience Growth

Posted on March 28, 2016

Kornelius Bankston of MACC talks bioscience.

Metro Atlanta Chamber Driving Bioscience Growth

The Metro Atlanta Chamber exists for one reason – to help Atlanta thrive. From recruiting businesses to tackling policy issues, MAC’s efforts in metro Atlanta are designed to promote prosperity and growth for you and your business. Georgia’s bioscience and health IT industries are responsible for almost $30 billion in annual reported revenue and 120,000 employees.

The Health IT industry in Georgia already leads the nation with more than 200 companies and more than $4 billion in annual reported revenue and 15,000 employees. The bioscience industry is also firmly rooted in the state, with more than 100,000 jobs and an annual economic impact of $23 billion.

As the national economy rebounds, Atlanta has the potential to create thousands more jobs per year in these two sectors. Whether you’re with a FORTUNE 500 business or putting in sweat equity in a startup, this is the city that can help you create a solid future.

Connect to these vibrant bioscience and health IT communities is through the Bioscience and Health IT Leadership Council. Join peers, including McKesson, Merial, Alcon, CDC, American Cancer Society, CyroLife, CardioMEMs and others who are leading the industry with cutting-edge innovation – tackling common goals. Council subcommittees focus on branding Atlanta as a center for global health and clinical trials as well as marketing the state as the “Nation’s Health IT Capital” to attract even more companies and high-quality jobs.

Special Guest:

Kornelius Bankston, Director of Bioscience, Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce

Mercer University Health Services

Posted on March 18, 2016March 21, 2016

Podcast: Download

Dr. Ashish Advani and Dr. Ted Matthews of Mercer University

Mercer University Health Services

We sat down with Dean and SVP of Health Services, Dr. Ted Matthews, and Dr. Ashish Advani, Clinical Associate Professor of Pharmacy from Mercer University. Mercer University’s College of Pharmacy is ranked among the top five pharmacy programs at private institutions in the United States, according to U.S. News & World Report. The College offers doctoral degrees in pharmacy (Pharm.D.) and pharmaceutical sciences (Ph.D.). The College is one of four health sciences units within the Mercer Health Sciences Center, which also includes the School of Medicine, College of Nursing, and College of Health Professions.

With an enrollment of more than 650 students and a distinguished faculty of basic scientists and clinicians, the College of Pharmacy houses seven centers focusing on research, teaching and learning. The College’s motto, “A Tradition of Excellence – A Legacy of Caring,” frames its philosophy of providing excellent academic programs in an environment where every student matters and every person counts.

Mercer University is applying an approach to their health sciences programs called, “interprofessional education or IPE”. This approach brings students from the various health science programs together with those of the others to talk about their respective considerations when approaching certain care scenarios. This leads to a greater understanding of the other team members of the multidisciplinary team and ultimately, better patient outcomes.

The College of Pharmacy has also developed a technology platform aimed at putting pharmacologic study data and medicine information in the hands of clinicians to facilitate evidence-based decision making. Developed with support from Mercer University’s College of Pharmacy, InpharmD is a web-based drug information center. With an estimated 20 million pharmaceutical studies available, InpharmD offers access to the health information that healthcare providers and patients need to make informed and improved decisions.

InpharmD provides customized, evidence-based responses within a user-requested time period. By significantly increasing the credibility of the information and substantially decreasing the turnaround time, InpharmD has created a fundamental change in drug information delivery.

Special Guests:

Dr. Ted Matthews, Dean and SVP of Health Services, Mercer University

Dr. Ashish Advani, Associate Clinical Professor, College of Pharmacy, Mercer University

Moving Analytics

Posted on March 10, 2016March 16, 2016

Podcast: Download

Moving Analytics

This week I spoke with the co-founder, Harsh Vathsangam, of a technology company, Moving Analytics, that is working to significantly increase participation rates in cardiac rehabilitation. Over 900,000 Americans experience heart attacks each year. Still more will experience heart failure, valvular disease, and other cardiovascular problems that create a diminished tolerance of activity.

We know very well that regular activity and selective behavior choices around such things as diet, alcohol consumption, and smoking, among others, play a large role in stopping or even reversing effects of these conditions. Currently, roughly a third or less of these patients are engaging in a supervised cardiac rehab program. Clearly, there is much room for improvement in this regard.

As a computer scientist, Harsh has long-known the power of computing and analytics data for creating efficiencies and making well-educated strategic decisions. He and some colleagues began to look for opportunities to leverage this power in the healthcare arena, one which we know is actively seeking to reduce cost while at the same time improve patient outcomes.

The Moving Analytics app allows patients to receive frequent feedback regarding their prescribed activities and behavioral choices. Additionally, it provides data regarding the patient’s compliance with their regimen along with some basic health data to the health professional overseeing their cardiac rehab progress. In this way, the patient is able to engage in healthful activities that will improve their condition in the convenience of their home. Additionally it will allow the cardiac rehab professionals to scale their services to a wider patient population, reducing cost of providing care (based on a per-provider cost).

Moving Analytics is looking to partner with hospitals and health systems who are working to improve patient engagement with these important cardiac rehab programs for the post-cardiovascular event patients.

Special Guest:

Harsh Vathsangam, Co-founder, Moving Analytics

PhD, Computer Science, University of Southern California
MS, Computer Science, University of Southern California
Recipient, PhD Award, University of Southern California
Awarded USC Annenberg Fellowship 2008-2012

Radix Health

Posted on March 3, 2016March 18, 2016

Podcast: Download

CW Hall and Arun Mohan of Radix

Dr. Arun Mohan talks Radix Healths physician scheduling optimization solution.

Radix Health

Jay Shaffer and I sat down with co-founder of Radix Health, Dr. Arun Mohan. Radix Health uses technology to improve patient access. Radix’s flagship product, DASH, is a patent-pending, cloud-based software platform that optimizes ambulatory capacity utilization and reduces scheduling cost. DASH automates and optimizes much of the work currently done by schedulers.

DASH intelligently balances patient characteristics, patient and provider preferences, and appointment availability to match patients with the right provider at the right location for the right duration. The system supports all forms of scheduling including through an agent, provider-provider scheduling and patient self-scheduling. DASH easily integrates with existing practice management systems.

By leveraging predictive analytics, rules-based scheduling, automation, and user experience, DASH improves access, reduces scheduling costs, eliminates scheduling errors and ensures happier patients and providers.

Arun shared how his experience as a physician, coupled with many conversations over time with colleagues, revealed there is an opportunity to improve patient satisfaction and engagement, while at the same time optimizing the physicians’ utilization of their schedule time.

The Radix Health solution integrates and enhances the basic scheduling feature of existing EMR’s, bringing valuable analytics and algorithms designed to insure a patient is scheduled with the correct specialist, avoiding the need for rescheduling and loss of productivity.

Special Guest:

Dr. Arun Mohan, Co-founder, Radix Health

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Month: March 2016

Metro Atlanta Chamber Driving Bioscience Growth

Metro Atlanta Chamber Driving Bioscience Growth