The 10 most innovative telemedicine solution providers 2018 ilovepdf compressed

www.insightscare.com March 2018

THE

10 Most

Most

2018

Expert's Outlook Connected Devices for Better Patient Care

Leadership Talk Digital Continuous Care: Disruption or Evolution?

GenieMD iVisit

ÂŽ

Reimagining Telemedicine

From the

Editor T

he Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is becoming an essential tool in many industries. Given the current explosion of advancement in technologies, ICT is increasingly growing relevant within the field of healthcare.

Moreover, with the rapid increase in the events of chronic diseases and the need to reduce healthcare costs, Telemedicine lies in the forefront of innovation for the healthcare industry.

Telemedicine: A New Frontier in Public Health

Using a combination of ICT, healthcare can be delivered from a distance, providing essential coverage to people in the rural communities. Telemedicine has the tremendous potential to offer access to quality care and provide basic medical treatment to the entire population. It also has the ability to deliver healthcare in a more convenient way for patients to reduce overall healthcare expenses, and increase patient engagement, thus increasing the overall quality of patient care.

Telemedicine is transforming how healthcare is being delivered.

There are a number of patient centric companies and organizations who are re-imagining how medicine can be practiced and are driving the industry forward with innovative technologies and solutions. The global telemedicine market is expected to reach US$113 billion by 2025. The main drivers are the growing numbers of chronic conditions and the rising demand for self-care. A recent survey found that 65% of patients who had a primary care physician were open to see their doctor via video. Among parents with children under age 18, over 78% expressed interest for the same.

Although there are still a lot of things to figure out in terms of legal, safety, ethical, and other considerations, but as telemedicine progresses, the impact and outcomes can only be anticipated as being astounding. New technology is already on its way and augmented reality, virtual medical advances, biotechnology, and wearables will be integrated into this landscape to provide additional methods for the provision of care, patient monitoring, diagnosis, and treatment. All of this will increase the level of physician-patient interaction that is leveraged and facilitated by technology and will require new ways of thinking about healthcare, technology, and medicine.

Nikita Doiphode

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Managing Editor Nikita Doiphode Executive Editors Shane Gomez Sugandha Sharma Contrubutor Shweta Priyadarshini Visualiser David King Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Associate Designer Rahul Kavanekar Co-designer Sapana, Shweta Art & Picture Editor Paul Belin Jayant Khanna Senior Sales Manager Matt Ryder Business Development Manager Justin Smith Sales Executives Sophia Young, Paul Cooper, Grifn Willams Technical Head Swapnil Patil Technical Specialist Amar, Vivek, Pratiksha Digital Marketing Manager Marry D’Souza SME-SMO Executives Prashant Chauhan, Uma Dhenge Research Analyst Chidiebere Moses Circulation Manager Robert, Tanaji Database Management Stella Andrew Technology Consultant David Stokes sales@insightscare.com

March, 2018 Corporate Ofces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightscare.com For Subscription: www.insightscare.com

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Telemedicine is the Future of Healthcare

A

s technology continues to permeate various industry sectors, it has remained just a bubble in the imperative healthcare industry. With people’s increasing eagerness towards technology, telemedicine is becoming a crucial part of public health and health administration. Telemedicine has helped in delivering a cost-effective, value-based care across communities and especially rural areas, where superior health facilities remain elusive.

Telemedicine has also created an environment of sharing knowledge across the globe to develop impeccable medical practices.

Given that telemedicine has become a potent force in the medical sector evident from its rapid growth and widening presence in providing care for patients, Insights Care brings to you “The 10 Most Innovative Telemedicine Solution Providers 2018”. In this edition, we have enlisted ten leading companies that are redefining the telemedicine landscape with the advanced and innovative technologies.

The Cover Story features GenieMD, a global provider of Telemedicine and patient monitoring and engagement solutions. Their mobile-first, cloud-based plug-and-play architecture enables for rapid customization of the product and integration with hospital and clinic's EMR, Practice Management, and other enterprise resources to make their Telemedicine product become a seamless part of the enterprise.

Apart from this, we have presented Simpson Healthcare, a global leader in biopharmaceutical consulting dedicated to driving therapeutic innovations forward. Eagle Telemedicine provides telemedicine services in the hospital settings. WorldCare International aims to improve healthcare outcomes of members worldwide by connecting their clients to the foremost medical experts at top-ranked U.S. hospitals. MEDSOLIS is a Healthcare software products company that is focused on creating a collaborative platform for patient management. eazyScripts works with providers to increase medication adherence and improve health outcomes. Medici is recreating the doctor-patient relationship allowing doctors to manage their patients from anywhere. A leader in digital health and a trusted healthcare solutions partner with extensive clinical research and medical technology expertise, Medpod is meeting the difficult challenges of healthcare head-on. Specialists on Call’s teleNeurology, telePsychiatry and teleIntensivist services provide innovative, cost-effective answers for hospitals nationwide seeking immediate 24/7 access to experienced, board certified specialists. Sensogram Technologies is a research and development company aiming at design, production and marketing of innovative biosensors implemented in the form of intuitively easy-to-use wireless mobile devices.

Scripted by our in-house editors, we have also included a remarkable article titled “Wearable Devices: New Trends in the Arena of Healthcare Industry”.

Additionally, to give meaningful insights and expand your knowledge base about the industry, we have included an interesting article written by an industry expert Terry Duesterhoeft, CEO and President, A&D Company, Americas titled, “Connected Devices for Better Patient Care”.

So flip through the pages and explore interesting insights into the world of telemedicine!

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More data means better solutions.

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Cover Story

GenieMD ÂŽ iVisit Reimagining Telemedicine

08 ARTICLES

Tech-n-Trends Tele-health Technology: Need of the Hour!

20

Inside Tech Wearable Devices: The Future of Telemedicine Industries

36

Expert's Outlook Connected Devices for Better Patient Care

28

Leadership Talk

cxo

Digital Continuous Care: Disruption or Evolution?

42

Executive Interview Cellnovo: Assisting People in the Pursuit of Healthy Lives

16 Eagle Telemedicine: Creating a Wave of Change in the TeleHealth Industry

24 Simpson Healthcare: Helping Patients Improve their Quality of Life

32 WorldCare International: Improving Healthcare by Connecting Patients to Foremost Medical Experts

38

COVER STORY

GenieMD ® iVisit :

Reimagining Telemedicine

Dr. Soheil Saadat Founder & CEO

D

riven by faster internet connections, ubiquitous smartphones and changing insurance standards, more health providers are turning towards electronic communications — and it is upending the delivery of healthcare.

Telemedicine, one of the most important fields in healthcare today, plays a key role in this shift towards a more value-based care which helps to cut costs, generate additional revenue, and enhance patient access to care and satisfaction.

Although telemedicine has experienced significant growth and adoption in the last decade and has brought about considerable changes to the healthcare industry, reimbursements for Telemedicine from both CMS and private payers are still either not available or available for certain specialties or remote locations.

Traditionally when we speak about Telemedicine, we are referring to a call or video connection between the patient and the doctor. Although there are significant advantages to using video visits to diagnose and treat common illnesses such as cough, abdominal pain, UTI and many dermatological conditions, there are also disadvantages. Many patients shy away from video visits when not feeling well, and some just don’t have access to high-speed Internet. For a provider, the most significant drawback to video or telephone visits is that the provider may spend as much time on the call/video as on an office visit, but make only a fraction of the money under the current reimbursement rules. Another challenge associated with video visits is scheduling. Patients and providers often are late for their appointments, and such delays can disrupt an entire series of scheduled video visits. Lastly, many physicians do not want to reserve a day or afternoon for telemedicine visits hoping for patients to sign up.

GenieMD, a global provider of Telemedicine and patient monitoring and engagement solutions, uniquely addresses these major challenges in Telemedicine. Their mobile-first, cloud-based plug-and-play architecture enables for rapid customization of the product and integration with hospital and clinic’s EMR, Practice Management, and other enterprise resources to make their Telemedicine product become a seamless part of the enterprise.

The vision of GenieMD is to facilitate doctor-patient communication by providing engaging and easy to use solution for patients to report their health concerns to a provider from the comfort of their home or office while allowing providers to deal with each case efficiently from any desktop or mobile device.

Unique Solutions to Prominent Problems GenieMD makes telemedicine super-efficient by using an AI based engine to interview the patient and collect all pertinent information about their chief complaint. Additionally, GenieMD iVisit seamlessly shares patient generated data or aggregated data from disparate sources such as hospital EMRs to give the provider a holistic view of the patient health history for better diagnosis and treatment options. In most cases, the provider can diagnose and treat the patient based on this information by spending less than two minutes per case.

In cases where video offers clinical or patient satisfaction value, GenieMD iVisit offers appointment scheduling and reminders to join a secure multi-party video conference with the provider, specialist, family members or translators.

‘‘

Telemedicine has the potential to democratize

healthcare, connecting patients and doctors

‘‘

globally

To make the encounter more efficient, GenieMD iVisit interviews the patient in advance and generates a report for the provider to review before joining the call. This reduces the length of time needed on the video call as the bulk of the visit is asking and documenting the Q/A by the provider.

For maximum efficiency, a new case falls into a central bucket and all participating providers are notified of the new pending case. Similar to Uber, the first available provider can take the case and treat the patient. This technique allows for Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants to handle most common cases relieving the doctors to spend more time on more complex cases.

Unlike the patient portals provided by EMR vendors, that contain information about that particular clinic or doctor’s visits, GenieMD’s iVisit collects data from multiple sources

COVER STORY

“

The vision of GenieMD is to facilitate doctorpatient communication by providing engaging and easy to use solution for patients to report their health concerns to a provider from the comfort of their home or office while allowing providers to deal with each case efficiently from any desktop or mobile device

containing patient information offering a more accurate representation of the patient health history to the provider during an episodic encounter. This becomes especially valuable when the encounter is between the patient and a doctor that is not familiar with the patient’s health history. In addition, patients can use smart Wi-Fi devices such as glucometers, blood pressure devices, and scales to collect and share trends of vitals instead of a singular measurement that can be off for a variety of reasons. Patient generated information is clearly marked so providers can place proper considerations on the accuracy of the readings.

In addition of making the service available on all brands of mobile devices and multiple browser and operating systems, GenieMD iVisit can also be accessed through voice activated devices such as Amazon Alexa. This further lowers the barrier for the utilization while making the interaction more engaging for the patient.

Post Encounter So what happens after the episodic encounter is over? GenieMD iVisit can optionally create an encounter and save the information in the provider EMR. Patient related information such as medication prescribed, care plan and any educational material provided by the physician is made available to the patient through GenieMD iVisit.

The Visionary Dr. Soheil Saadat, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of GenieMD, is responsible for charting the company’s global course. He founded GenieMD in 2012 with more than 25 years of technology and executive management experience. In 2005, he founded Prodiance Corporation (Acquired by Microsoft), a global leader in Enterprise Risk Management Solutions. Prior to Prodiance he founded Scientific Software, Inc., (SSI) (Acquired by Agilent Technologies). Under his direction, SSI became a world leader in the chromatography and scientific data management markets, with its products deployed in the top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Soheil is passionate about using technology to solve real life problems.

He enjoys mentoring young entrepreneurs and has been an active investor and serves on the Board of a number of software startups in Silicon Valley. His philanthropic focus is providing opportunities for the youth to achieve their fullest potential through educational assistance.

He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

“

The da Vinci Surgical System

da Vinci is powered by robo c technology that allows the surgeon’s hand movements to be scaled, ďŹ ltered and translated into precise movements of the EndoWrist instruments working inside the pa ent’s body.

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Company Name

Management

Brief

Biotronik biotronik.com

Marlou Janssen President

At Biotronik, they are committed to helping people with heart and blood vessel diseases to live healthy, and fulfilling lives.

Eagle Telemedicine eagletelemedicine.com

Talbot “Mac” McCormick MD & CEO

Eagle Telemedicine provides telemedicine services in the hospital setting.

eazyScripts eazyscripts.com

Reed Liggin CEO

ePrescribing Software for clinics, telemedicine and hospital systems. eazyScripts works with providers to increase medication adherence and improve health outcomes.

GenieMD geniemd.com

Dr. Soheil Saadat Founder & CEO

GenieMD is a global provider of Telemedicine and patient monitoring and engagement solutions.

Medici medici.md

Clinton Phillips Founder & CEO

Medici is an app that connects doctors & patients – securely from their mobile phones.

Medsolis medsolis.com

Akash Randhar CEO

Medsolis is creating new solutions for difficult healthcare problems that makes the lives of clinicians and patients easier and better.

Sensogram Technologies sensogram.com

Vahram Mouradian Founder & CEO

With Sensogram technologies, critical data can be shared with family members, physicians, and professional caregivers in real time.

Simpson Healthcare simpsonhealthcare.com

Kelly Simpson-Angelini Founder

Simpson Healthcare is a global leader in biopharmaceutical consulting dedicated to driving therapeutic innovations forward.

Specialists On Call specialistsoncall.com

Hammad Shah CEO

SOC Telemed helps healthcare organizations launch or expand intelligent telemedicine programs to drive clinical, operational and financial success.

Worldcare International worldcare.com

Nasser Menhall CEO

WorldCare International aims to improve healthcare outcomes of members worldwide by connecting their clients to the foremost medical experts at top-ranked U.S. hospitals.

Cellnovo: Assisting People in the Pursuit of Healthy Lives

U

sing technology to facilitate healthcare self-management is not a new idea, but as patients become more technologically savvy, devices are becoming more available, and new technologies are emerging.

With an aim to revolutionize the traditional diabetes care technology, Cellnovo has come up with an innovative and thoughtful design that makes managing diabetes easier. In an interview with Insights Care, Dr. Julian Shapely, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cellnovo, gave some insightful answers highlighting the advances made by Cellnovo to take diabetes management towards new heights.

What were the primary considerations you kept in mind while establishing Cellnovo?

Our mission is to make life easier for people with diabetes. Thoughtful, innovative design and modern technology can help people with diabetes to take control and live their lives to the fullest. These were the primary considerations behind the conception of our revolutionary insulin pump and they are the beliefs that still drive our day-to-day work.

Tell us something about Cellnovo's journey to this successful venture.

Before founding Cellnovo, I was very involved in the study of microfluidics and was at NASA. I subsequently founded Starbridge Systems, the pre-

16 |March 2018|

cursor to Cellnovo, in 2002, and then.

Cellnovo in 2008 in Swansea, Wales. I created this company with the vision that technology can make our lives easier and that those who rely on medical devices should benefit from these technological advances to improve the care they receive and to make their lives easier.

The life today of a typical Type 1 diabetes patient is a relentless daily routine of testing, tracking, calculating and journal keeping. Our vision is that through elegant design and the thoughtful integration of everyday technology into medical systems, we can restore ease of life by providing freedom from the cumbersome, burdensome and obstructive procedures of traditional diabetes management.

We have a multidisciplinary management team lead by Sophie Baratte, our CEO, who is a 20-year veteran of the medical technology sector with a distinguished career in healthcare having held senior positions at Johnson & Johnson, Sorin, CIT and Lifecell. She has extensive experience in bringing innovative technologies to market, and has brought together a team of industry veterans to lead our organisation in its growth and development. Since our initial public offering in 2015, the company is based in Wales and France.

Brief us about your company and the various services that you provide the industries to stand differently.

Cellnovo is an independent medical technology company specialising in diabetes. We are publicly-listed company, since 2015, on the Paris Euronext (CLNV: EN Paris). We have developed and are marketing the first mobile, connected, all-in-one diabetes management system that helps make life easier for patients.

The Cellnovo System is compact, intuitive and entirely connected. It comprises a mobile touchscreen controller with an integrated bloodglucose meter. It is a unique device that allows optimal management of insulin injections whilst ensuring extensive freedom of movement and peace of mind for patients. Thanks to the automatic transmission of data, it also allows the patient's condition to be continually monitored by family members and healthcare professionals in real time.

Cellnovo is currently participating in several major Artificial Pancreas projects with Diabeloop, TypeZero and Horizon 2020 (PEPPER) to develop automated insulin delivery systems.

What are you hearing from doctors and medical groups about Telemedicine adoption?

There seems to be general agreement in the domain regarding the enormous

Executive Interview

potential of telemedicine to enable better, more efficient care for patients.

Cellnovo is leading the charge in this area with its Online Platform, which facilitates the capture and sharing of comprehensive information with clinicians and family members about the patient's condition via a secure management portal for immediate response and assessment.

Diabetes is the perfect candidate for telemedicine because it is a chronic condition that requires continuous self-management and monitoring on a daily basis.

What type of Telemedicine practice do you most often recommend? Why? In regards to our System, the obvious answer is the use of Cellnovo Online, our secure, online management portal, for access to key clinical data in real time.

From a single online dashboard screen, the clinic has access to the status of all the patients on the system, including current blood sugar, average blood sugar, insulin dosing, hypo frequency and blood testing habits. At a glance, anyone having difficulties can easily be seen for an immediate response, restoring effective control when it's needed, instead of weeks later during a routine visit.

With a single click, all the data for a patient is analysed and charted to identify trends, patterns and problems. Using the portal, clinics can completely reorganise the way in which patients are managed. Text and email can be used to check on recent events. Clinic visits are focused completely on current and accurate information.

What were the different challenges that you faced in the initial days and the experiences that led you to be successful?

It is important to note the foundation of Cellnovo required not only the creation of an innovative product but also the building of a well-oiled company that could function efficiently and with agility in the highlyregulated environment of medical devices, already dominated by established players.

Key challenges we faced, include: Business Environment: The challenges of moving from an R&D to a commercial company and all that that entails (Cultural change, a shift of focus from the product to the customer, funding needs, cash flow, etc.)

Dr. Julian Shapely Founder & Chief Scientific Officer Cellnovo

Team Dynamics: Building a team with core competencies, in sales and marketing, regulatory, manufacturing, engineering, etc., and finding the right

| March 2018 | 17

Executive Interview

partners to build a distribution network.

Regulatory and Clinical Considerations: We are a medical device company so regulatory considerations are important (vigilance, post- market surveillance, etc.) and we dedicate significant time to ensure that our device is safe and effective.

Strategic Partnerships: Commercial network, R&D partners (we are involved in numerous collaborative artificial pancreas projects, for example), and particularly key for us at the moment is the manufacturing and scalability of our product, which requires mass quantities of the consumable element (the insulin cartridge which a patient needs to replace every 3 days.) So, there has been a lot of capital investment and consideration taken into choosing the right partner and the right strategy to scale.

How has Cellnovo contributed to innovative technologies at the current pace?

We have created a very clean freedom to operate with the wax actuator, which is the highly unique pumping mechanism at the heart of our innovative technology. This technology is a key differentiating factor with other insulin pumps and allows superior accuracy and precision in insulin delivery, as recently published in a scientific study comparing the accuracy of our pump to other standard industry pumps in the patch pump family.

Also, we put great emphasis on the user experience that is often less a priority in most medical devices. For example, our insulin pump is a “micro-pump” with very little tubing, which means it can be worn more easily, anywhere on the body, than a traditional tubed pump. Our handset looks, feels, and functions like a mobile device, which is already a familiar interface for all our users. The feedback we have received is that these are the benefits of our system that allow our users to regain freedom in their lives.

Kindly brief us about the unique tactics and solutions that are used in Cellnovo.

Cellnovo stays ahead of the game by taking a system-level view of diabetes management. The Cellnovo System is not only a high-precision insulin delivery device; it also integrates a blood glucose monitor and is connected to an online platform that allows for real-time data management.

Moreover, the Cellnovo System is the industry's first insulin delivery platform to use Bluetooth® Low Energy and

18 |March 2018|

AndroidTM. The use of a best-in-class wireless communication technology and a standard mobile operating system further enables interoperability with other e-health platforms, including artificial pancreas projects.

These are the types of differentiating factors that have given Cellnovo the ability to stay as close as possible to cuttingedge technology and ensure we are future-proof.

Kindly brief us about the most satisfactory experience with a client. What kind of game-changing services have you provided them?

Numerous people using our system have shared testimonies about how the Cellnovo System has changed their lives.

From being able to enjoy meals again, taking up sports that had not been possible before, or being able to feel more confident about themselves, many of the experiences revolve around the aspects of everyday life that many of us take for granted. One quote from one of our System users sums it up nicely: “The Cellnovo System has made my life so much more flexible. It has made it easier to manage my diabetes. I feel more confident.”

What do you see as the future solution for telemedicine adoption for large medical groups, for small practices; for hospitals and hospital-linked practices?

Telemedicine will help make healthcare systems and services more efficient, allowing for faster, better treatment for a larger number of patients, and making it easier for consultants and healthcare professionals to deliver better care to a greater number of people. In the case of the UK, freeing up resources from the over-burdened National Health Services, by making it more efficient through advanced technology, will benefit society and create benefits for the entire community.

Any valuable tips and suggestions for the budding entrepreneurs It is important for entrepreneurs to create solutions as opposed to creating products, leave “me-too” products to the large established companies. Love what you are doing and allow others to see this passion, leading by example towards your goal. Find a way to relax that has nothing to do with what you are trying to achieve, having a “mentalfast” allows your mind the space to find difficult to reach solutions.

Everything is aimed at

we do

Improving Lives

www.acorda.com

Tech-n-Trends

Tele-health Technology:

Need of the Hour!

S

ince ancient times, sound health has been accounted as one of the trails of ingenuity in a human being. It is believed that, “He, who has health, has hope, and he, who has hope, has everything”. The secret to success transpires on the road of a healthy body along with a sound mind. Time and again developments to foster basic necessities of health have been emerging globally. One such groundbreaking effort in this field is tele-health which believes that telecommunication and information technology, when united, can create massive benefits in the field of clinical healthcare.

Supplementing the users with transmission of Medical Imaging, Health Informatics, Video Telephony, Diagnostic Methods and Server Application for Prescriptions, telemedicine has not been covering market only for cutting barriers across rural communities, but to really leap the methodology and way human insight is going into medical field. In fact, E-health is an umbrella for tele-health, electronic medical records and other health information technologies. Delivering occupational and emergency health services to remote communities, travellers and employees on work place, the reach of Tele-medicines, interchangeably referred as Tele-health, has increased dramatically over the years.

The first system of telemedicine was basically designed in 1989 to diagnose and treat the patients of cardiac defibrillation by mobile cellular versions for the same.

However, from isolated communities of previous century to new generation of 2018, society has been thoroughly enchanted with the recent developments on medical devices and how their compatibility with smart phones have paved way to a new future.

20 |March 2018|

Wearable Medical Devices Portable medical devices which are commended in measuring body workings such as heart rate, blood pressure, calories burned, glucose level and ECG postures have created the accessibility to health much easier and wider. These inventions have curtailed the long queues of basic health issues facilitating more time and energy to be saved. According to an independent survey, wearable and other digital health devices constituted 40% of more space at 2015's consumer electronics show compared to previous records. This leads us to the idea of increased usage and demand of medical devices with their popularity at peak.

Smartphones as Medical help and New Diagnostic Apps Development of latest multimedia sets and cell phones has created a humongous access to internet and as a result, there has been practical growth in using it for medical benefits.

Many of the basic tests of oral and skin contamination have been possibly done by smartphones and its supporting features. It has also been accepted for self-diagnosis by simple tests of medical conditions. More or less, it has been able to efficiently give advice on food intakes and actions through certain Apps. Few therapy Applications and communication have facilitated the conditions to be identified at early stages which later on advices about visit to be paid to psychiatrists or required specialists.

Since last 18 years ATA (Annual International & Trade Show) has been the premiere forum for healthcare professionals and business executives working in telemedicine. It has been regulating the progress of various inventions in this field and also acknowledging the steps

Tech-n-Trends

taken to enhance medical technology at more ease. Below are some listed technologies which have evolved as an effective example in Tele-health: Health spots Offering high quality of medical diagnostic to people anywhere at any time, Health spots have become affordable and preliminary checkup centers. Face to face interactions account for better responses to a treatment. This is supported by EHR i.e. electronic health records where data is easily transmitted and information is retrieved about the patient. A private, spacious, quiet atmosphere with security accounts for its popularity. It is available at employee’s sites, universities and is expected in other location in the near future.

Telemedicine Kits A range of handheld tele kits on mobile are being offered by many telehealth providers. It encompasses medical advice and a device needed to conduct first-line patient exams, and integrate it further to a tablet or computer. The devices range in latest advance in optics, LED light sources, digital displays and wireless data transfer. It also deals in high resolution imaging to interface with EHR and PACS. Screen for Diabetic Retinopathy More than a certain number of cases in the world going blind today hold an inclination towards diabetes as its root cause.

Diabetic retinopathy leads to destruction of eye retina after the insulin tends to destroy the cornea of optics. An idea of change in preventive measures has led to new hopes of safety. Optical imaging firm I-optics has developed new system to improve the scenario called Eye-prevent. It functions through retinal imaging with remote expert interpretation solely powered by Easy scan retinal imaging system. It provides the user with agility of easy scanning and diagnostic of retina failures.

A recent survey states that within 30 days of discharge, one in five patients and within 90 days of discharge, one in three patients are readmitted due to poor health care statistics.

Measures for awareness of health driven technologies have become a necessity now rather than treating them as options.

Basic tele-health monitoring has shown dramatic reduction in hospital intakes for few chronic conditions. This antidote of many harmful scenarios should not only be accepted to prioritize healthy lifestyle but also to fetter ourselves regarding proper coordination of advancement in health stiffs.

| March 2018 | 21

Eagle Telemedicine: Creating a Wave of Change in the TeleHealth Industry

‘

We believe our physician solutions can make a huge difference, and our passion is to continue to cultivate relationships so that we have opportunities to do just that

‘

24 |March 2018|

Talbot "Mac" McCormick MD, CEO

H

ealthcare remains one of the few services that require people to have a face-to-face interaction.

But more and more consumers are questioning that reality, and change is on the way. The widely held goal of improving healthcare outcomes while lowering costs is accelerating the shift from a one-to-one to a one-to-many model of care delivery, which telemedicine makes possible.

With continuous advancements in technology, the healthcare landscape is rapidly changing. Care providers are looking for ways to deliver faster, and more personalized care to their patients while improving communications within their care teams.

Cognizant of this fact, Eagle Telemedicine started providing telemedicine services in the hospital setting in 2008. Initially, they started by providing inpatient TeleHospitalist and TeleStroke services to rural hospitals.

Over the last nine years, it has adapted and grown to meet the ever-evolving demands of the industry. Eagle Telemedicine has expanded its services to offer additional inpatient medical subspecialties, such as Tele-ICU, TeleCardiology, TelePsychiatry and TeleNephrology. Given the breadth of its services, the company is uniquely positioned to fill any gaps in specialty coverage a partner hospital may have.

Eagle Telemedicine is strictly a physician group, and it doesn’t sell any hardware or software. It is technology

recognized strengths in TeleHospitalist medicine, they began asking Eagle to provide other physician specialty services for the inpatient environment.

agnostic and will work with whatever telemedicine cart the partner hospitals acquire.

The Leading Light Eagle Telemedicine’s CEO Talbot “Mac” McCormick, MD is an Emory University School of Medicine graduate and a board-certified Internist. His previous leadership experiences from multispecialty group practices, to population health management (full risk capitation agreements for 100,000 patients), to national hospitalist group practice management, provides unique perspectives to position and grow Eagle Telemedicine as the premier provider of inpatient physician services utilizing telemedicine tools, processes and best practices.

Eagle’s initial idea came from the question: “Could our hospitalist doctors use telemedicine tools and processes to help rural hospitalist programs care for their patients at night?” Several demonstration projects later, which showed improvements in quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction, Eagle was approached by a rural Kentucky hospital to help cover the hospitalist program at night. Even after eight years, Eagle Telemedicine doctors are still helping cover nights at that hospital.

Eagle believes the foundation of its success is rooted in the belief that the local doctors, providers, and nurses on the ground are the foundation to any hospital’s delivery of care to their communities, and that it can augment and supplement their capacity for care by bringing its physicians alongside using telemedicine tools, processes and best practices. “Our approach to customize each hospital partner’s needs and best interests, by using their equipment, their EMR, and covering the hours and specialty needs they define, positions us as their servant,” says Talbot. Eagle’s scope across virtually all medical subspecialties provides a single-partner and cost-effective engagement.

Being a Good Partner for the Hospitals It Works With Since 2008, Eagle Telemedicine has adhered to one basic strategy: to provide cost-effective and sustainable staffing solutions, and alleviate the challenges hospitals face due to recruiting issues, the worsening physician shortage, and the geographic maldistribution of doctors, which results in a “geographic penalty” to those living in rural areas.

What’s unique about Eagle’s services is that it is a one-stop “virtual partner” for hospitals, regardless of the coverage that they need. Whether they need 24/7/365 TeleStroke or Tele-ICU coverage, or just periodic TeleNephrology or Tele-Oncology consultants, Eagle has developed a customizable solution.

The type of telemedicine solution Eagle offers is a two-way audio-visual communication between a doctor “beamed in” from another location and a patient, which delivers broad

“The toughest challenge in the beginning was that we were doing things that we didn’t know anyone had done before, so we had to develop the processes, workflows, and critical skill sets as well as business and compensation models for TeleHospitalist medicine,” says Talbot. The work, lessons, and experiences gained in those early years allowed the company to develop competencies, business and clinical processes, and scalability. As Eagle grew and hospitals

| March 2018 | 25

benefits to any rural hospital. First, sustainable staffing solutions ease the struggle small community hospitals face in recruiting top-quality hospitalists and specialists to their rural locations. Second, it offers an effective alternative to the frequent transfer of patients to distant tertiary referral hospitals to get the care they need.

The company sees the benefits time and again as forward-thinking rural hospitals rely on its telemedicine programs to bridge staffing gaps. Rural hospitals reduce out-transfer of patients. They increase admissions, patient census, and revenue. They increase patient satisfaction. And they improve quality and consistency of care through 24/7 access to specialists.

Eagle’s solutions include TeleHospitalists (night coverage for smaller hospitals and night floor call and surge protection for larger ones); TeleStroke and TeleNeurology inpatient programs to facilitate timely stroke care and retention of appropriate patients close to home; behavioral health for ED consult service and back-up inpatient units; and virtual partnerships for solo specialty doctors or small groups for weekend, night or vacation coverage.

Upcoming Initiatives Eagle Telemedicine aims simply to change the world. Every telemedicine engagement it has with a hospital partner is rooted in a scenario where traditional or previous practice solutions could not produce the intended outcomes. Eagle’s vision would be to build on its platform to change the world for individual hospitals, doctors and nurses as well as patients and their families in need of inpatient physician care and support.

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Community Care Collaboration (C3) Model

Care Teams Family, friends and Professional community care providers

Mobilize Care Actions Care instructions distributed via mobile devices shared by Care Teams

Lifestyle Support Access to lifestyle products/services to keep people in their homes

Because together, we’re better. Our C3 model – Community Care Collaboration – supports care programs that require high levels of collaboration between interdisciplinary care providers, patients, and family caregivers. Our goal is your goal: to keep patients independent, living comfortably in their homes.

Care3.co

Terry Duesterhoeft President & CEO A&D Company- Americas

Connected Devices for

Better Patient Care 28 |March 2018|

Expert’s Outlook

patient engagement, Judith Hibbard of the University of Oregon developed a “patient activation measure” – a validated survey that scores the degree to which someone sees himself or herself as a manager of his or her health.

W

hile the Health IT (HIT) space has seen an incredible influx of new technology in the form of wearables, mobile apps and other devices, the foundation continues to be the older, proven technologies of telehealth and telemedicine. What has become the underpinning of both HIT and consumer mobile health is remote biometric collection, primarily enabled

by Bluetooth Smart and, to a lesser extent, Wi-Fi. We are not far from a future where any device we purchase for purposes of managing our health – from blood pressure monitors to weight scales to glucometers – will automatically collect our data and allow immediate access to it from an engaging mobile app, as well as its secure upload to/storage in the cloud. From there we will have ready access to it, and will be able to track, trend, monitor and share the data with whomever we choose.

So why is this important to both individuals and the healthcare system?

Numerous studies have shown that patients who are “activated” – or have the skills, ability, and willingness to manage their own health and healthcare – experience better outcomes at lower costs compared to less “activated” patients.

In an effort to quantify those levels of

Looking at more than 30,000 patients, Hibbard and her associates found that those with the lowest activation scores, that is, people with the least tools and confidence to actively engage in their own healthcare, incurred costs that averaged over 20 percent higher than patients with the highest activation levels, even after adjusting for health status and other factors. And not only that – the patient activation scores were shown to be significant predictors of healthcare costs, which has profound implications for planning around the reduction of costs in healthcare systems in the long-term.

And it’s been the pursuit of lower healthcare costs – whether from personal reimbursements through employers and insurance companies around healthier habits or increased reimbursements from Medicare around telehealth services – that has been actively driving the HIT space for the past several years.

Thus, the real promise of the proliferation of connected health devices is that it can be a major catalyst for getting individuals “activated,” in two important ways.

First, the act of taking their biometrics and receiving immediate feedback drives greater personal engagement by the individuals in the management of their health. Second, enhanced communication between an individual and care providers offers a range of enablement from direct care professional interaction to education

and coaching. All of this ultimately provides an enhanced quality of life and outcomes, as well as reduces the overall cost for both the individual and the system.

Of course all of this puts pressure on technology companies to continuously improve the simplicity and ease of use of their products to ensure the broadest population can successfully use them.

If individuals have the tools to manage their own care, with appropriate and timely oversight by a professional, cost savings will be realized.

All of this is made possible by the adoption of smart phones and tablets, cloud based services, mobile apps, and the rise of lower-cost, high-quality consumer health devices. This now moves what was only possible on expensive, purpose-built devices and systems a couple of years ago into the reality of consumer healthcare and allowing a personal health ecosystem to become the center of how a person manages their personal health.

There are many analogies to this evolution in our personal lives, from mobile banking to how we book travel.

It is clearly one important way to achieve the scale needed to make a real dent in the cost of care.

However, devices and applications are only as good as the system they plug in to or the data they provide: if I have a device that tells me my blood pressure every day, that's nice. But if I have a device that not only tells me my blood pressure, but also how that compares to the previous day, week or year, and further – how that is allowing me to relate to the goals my physician has for me around diet and exercise that impact my blood pressure, that kind of device has “stickiness” with the user. | March 2018 | 29

The impact will first be felt among chronic condition populations, who are often advised that they “need” to track their biometrics vs “want to” – as has been the case with the trend of quantified self. Of all wearable or m-health users, those with a chronic conditions are much more likely – to the tune of 60 percent more likely – to remain engaged with them [i.e. not to “abandon” them (as we often hear of FitBit users). They are much more motivated to use the technology in the long-term.

As we think long-term about how to provide more effective health care solutions to consumers, we first think of chronic conditions and how individuals with chronic disease will be impacted by the consumerization of health solutions and devices. As a $2 trillion dollar industry, addressing the issue of chronic conditions has the potential to radically reshape a large portion of our healthcare system.

Regardless, we are just beginning to scratch the surface of the real promise which is analyzing the data from the growing population of connected health users. As more individuals begin to use connected devices to manage their health, the resulting de-identified health information data has the potential to completely revolutionize healthcare.

The data a patient collects every day holds the possibility for healthcare providers to analyze and solve future problems – for that patient or for a population of patients with similar diagnosis. As the data set get richer, it will accelerate breakthroughs in how healthcare providers create care plans to address population health management goals and initiatives.

If we look at how advances in mobile technology have impacted what we do in everyday life and the resulting impact on individual productivity, we can extrapolate how the same changes could be applied to the management of health. Technology has progressed very quickly to allow people to manage the environment of their homes: from a thousand miles away, you can now use a mobile app to

30 |March 2018|

check to make sure the doors of your home are locked, the lights are off (or on) and the temperature is set as desired.

We are now seeing the same flexibility from health applications and devices. For example, from the balcony of a cruise ship, a consumer can now climb on a scale to get their weight and use a monitor to take their blood pressure or blood sugar, aggregate that data on an app on their phone, track and trend the data to ensure the cruise food is not impacting their diabetes, hypertension or chronic heart failure (CHF) condition, and if concerned – upload the data to a personal health account to have their results reviewed by their care provider.

That may seem like science fiction to some, but at this point in time all the technology and apps exist to do this. Over the next few years, we will see this type of health management become as typical as checking your bank account or investments; or checking in for your flight from your smart phone.

Additionally, these devices and tools will connect into systems to aggregate the data and make it more actionable, allowing the individual to get faster and more appropriate feedback on their condition and the actions they should take to help them manage a chronic disease.

At the end of the day, enterprise systems such as telehealth and telemedicine have laid the foundation for this over the past several decades and shown the outcomes we can realize from their use. Additionally, they have shown us that if we give individuals the tools they need to engage fully in their own healthcare while simultaneously giving healthcare providers the tools they need to effectively interact remotely with these populations, we will be able to enact demonstrable change in the long-term health of much broader patient populations.

Simpson Healthcare: Helping Patients Improve their Quality of Life Kelly Simpson-Angelini Founder

‘

Simpson Healthcare challenges key stakeholders in the healthcare industry to think differently as we unlock our client’s full potential to reach patients who can benefit most from their therapies

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O

ver the last few decades, the global pharmaceutical industry has made revolutionary contributions to clinical care. The industry now faces the challenges of unpredictable product pipelines, increasingly competitive markets, and uncertain policy and regulatory environments. The net result of ongoing cost pressures and a precipitous decline in R&D productivity results in an unprecedented decline of the overall healthcare profit pool captured by the largest research-based pharmaceutical companies, while lower-margin sectors, like generic manufacturers, increase their share.

The critical question for these companies is how to evolve their business model in order to thrive in a world of shifting profit pools by focusing on outcomes rather than by simply generating more inputs—more products, more procedures and ultimately more cost to the payers. Dedicated to pioneering new healthcare communication methods, Kelly Simpson-Angelini founded Simpson Healthcare, a biopharmaceutical consulting company dedicated to driving therapeutic innovations forward.

At Simpson Healthcare, they believe it to be their responsibility to develop new and better scientific communication methods that best support the development of therapeutic solutions that effectively improve the quality of a person’s life. They understand what it means to be

and actively helps her team to live their purpose. She works to get to know who her people are at their core and coaches and mentors them, striving to empower each person to find their purpose in life. Kelly then identifies opportunities for her people to live their purpose inside and outside of Simpson Healthcare. That is a powerful way to lead an agency that pioneers disruptive change.

human and that is why they think differently about why scientific stories of therapy matter for patients.

For the past 20 years, Simpson Healthcare has had the opportunity to work with great healthcare clients, who develop disruptive therapeutic options that are most impactful for patients. Their medical and strategy teams have effectively become catalysts of medical innovation as they bring to bear the larger context of healthcare for their clients, aligned in their purpose, and always keeping the patient as their core focus.

The scientific expertise and disruptive thinking methods and behaviors among the elite members of Simpson Healthcare, span across a broad array of many major therapeutic categories, including respiratory, oncology, cardiovascular, immunology, rare diseases, gastrointestinal, adult vaccines, and severe asthma, to name a few. The Simpson Healthcare team is dedicated into tapping into the clients’ full potential to improve quality of life for patients and aim to deliver quality in communications and education programs that strengthen the health of their brands.

In 2016, Kelly Simpson-Angelini was named Women of Innovation Honoree by the Connecticut Technology Council for her entrepreneurial vision and leadership. She has since been honored in New York City by Medical Marketing and Media (MM&M) as a 2017 Healthcare Transformers- Top 10 Innovation Catalyst; and by Business Worldwide Magazine as 2017 Healthcare Industry CEO of the Year- USA and 2017 Most Innovative CEO of the YearUSA at the 2017 Business Worldwide CEO Awards. Kelly was honored most recently at the 2017 Stevie Awards for Women in Business, where she won Female Entrepreneur of the Year-Business Services: 11-2,500 Employees, Company of the Year: More than 10 Employees, and Most Innovative Company of the Year: More than 10 Employees.

Services that makes Simpson Healthcare a pioneer “We have used our passion for healthcare and disruptive innovation to build and customize specialized service offerings that provide long-term value to our clients’ business and the healthcare field,” says Kelly.

Simpson Healthcare digs deeper into the science of the therapies that their clients are developing and what it could mean for patients who could benefit the most from their therapies. After working with the client to clearly define the problem or opportunity, they then outline the objectives and timelines and move forward in a collaborative path.

A Disruptive Game Changer Simpson Healthcare was founded in 1998 by Kelly Simpson-Angelini, CEO and CSO; former Research Scientist at Pfizer. She is dedicated to the creation of future health forums—where world experts unite to explore global datasets, shifts, health policies, and patient needs for the coming years. Kelly is a truly transformative senior leader, working to develop her people and drive forward the better brands of tomorrow.

As a senior executive team leader and life coach, Kelly values creating positive employee and client experiences;

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At Simpson Healthcare, they believe that everyone on the team should know the client’s goals and how their scientific story will support in using a wide array of lenses and perspectives across a broad array of marketing and communications platforms. Deeply mindful of the importance of improving healthcare for patients, Simpson Healthcare has worked to pioneer sales offerings that are new to the pharmaceutical industry, and cannot be matched by other advertising and marketing agencies. They work hard to efficiently support the future of science for their clients’ businesses.

To expand on their service offerings, Simpson Healthcare recently launched a new line of Futuring work.

During Futuring, they envision the potential best and worst futures without any reference to the present day.

The reason this work is because the purpose of Futuring is to look at global datasets, policies, and influential variables, and to disrupt key markets in healthcare with a longer 10-20-year vision for the future.

Future Route The core stories of disease, diagnosis, and new therapies will continue to be new, disruptive, and abundant.

Simpson Healthcare sees a huge opportunity in continuing to build knowledge and skills in organizing and showcasing scientific content.

They aim to be supporting to the new types of products like gene therapies that are a simple, once in a lifetime treatment. “A personalized and individualized approach to disease education and “my brand” will be something to simplify and focus on,” says Kelly. They are proud to unite and support their clients to shape the future of healthcare so that the best therapeutic treatments may be available to provide a brighter health outlook for those in need.

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For more information about these products and where to purchase please visit cardinalhealth.com/products.

Follow us on Linked  and also on twitter at @CardinalHealth.

And share your best practice for your loved ones by using #BringTheCaringHome.

Wearable e Future of

Devices:

Telemedicine Industries

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earable technology is going to establish its place at a large scale to impact a new change to the healthcare sectors. It is nothing but some wearable devices provided with sensors that can be worn on the body and connected to an app depending upon the shape and specification of the device or product to perform certain tasks on the body. Everyone knows that healthcare industry spends a lot of time on research and experiment, but given the fast pace of the moving world and technology world, it is not the best solution to be followed. In order to reduce the hours spent on experiments, wearable devices are brought into the real environment which helps in understanding the condition of the body on a daily basis.

Today, these devices look same as watches, bands and glasses that are normally worn by the people that provide information and alerts for each part of the body specifically including the action and performance of the body. These abled wearable devices will be very useful to everyone that does not cause any side effects to the body. Here are some of the wearable devices which can help the people in the near future:

Smart Glove Smart Glove is a high-tech rehab device with a lightweight of approximately 130 g, which can be worn effortlessly by connecting to its respective app and proceeding to play the rehabilitation games. The app is connected to a computer system which can accurately compute the amount of individual finger movements. It provides various kinds of motion tasks such as ADL-related tasks with entertainment while considering both clinical effectiveness and fun factors.

The algorithm automatically adjusts to the optimal level of difficulty with a bending sensor, a variable resistor, which changes according to the bent which helps the play to balance challenge and increase motivation. The sensor is a 9-axis movement & position sensor that consists of 3 acceleration channels, 3 angular rate channels and 3 magnetic field channels that measures wrist movements.

Fever Scout The Fever Scout is a FDA-smart thermometer with flexible soft wearable patch worn under the armpits which will continuously measures temperature and sends information to the smartphone through an app. Rechargeable and Reusable Fever Scout is constantly monitoring the body temperature and it includes a wireless charging dock (3 AAA batteries). The mobile app track and alert the loved ones about the temperature seamlessly through the smartphone for up to 130 feet.

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Inside Tech

Fitness Socks Garments and pieces of clothing that are worn every day will be sensor equipped in the near future. These smart socks are smart-fabric enabled wearable devices for health and fitness that can improve speed, pace, cadence and foot landing. Virtual coach provides audio and video real-time feedback when it is paired with a bluetooth enabled anklet of a run app which may also help to prevent injuries.

Glucose Watch Tracker Glucose Watch is a wearable tracker which is equipped with a revolutionary biosensor that can measure the body glucose effortlessly and painlessly in just a matter of seconds when in contact with the skin. Nowadays, diabetes is rapidly increasing causing blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, stroke, lower limb amputation. In order to control the risk of diabetes, glucose watch allows diabetics to self-monitor their glucose levels without the need for painful blood-based tests. Glucose watch requires no calibration, just a simple press gesture on the watch to display the glucose level on the screen.

Bracelet Bracelets will be used to detect the very beginning of the fertile window by providing week by week content about the changing body and growing baby in real time. It tracks sleep, physiological stress levels, and resting heart rate and compare weekly weight gain to standard recommendations by supporting optimal health. It also impacts health with features like symptom tracking, trend analysis, graphs, and more. Trend analysis allows seeing how the menstrual cycle impacts the way throughout the month.

As per the present world, there are several wearable devices to help and support by giving solutions about human health conditions. The companies will never put an end to develop the technology further as there are plenty of wearable devices yet to be found to serve the healthcare industries. These wearable devices will help to know the condition of the body and at the same time, painful blood test and standing to fill the form are not necessary anymore to know the body’zs health conditions.

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WorldCare International: Improving Healthcare by Connecting Patients to Foremost Medical Experts

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We work collaboratively with our clients to understand their needs and how we can help them and by doing so, we are launching new services other

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MSO providers have not yet developed

38 |March 2018|

Nasser Menhall CEO

T

he adoption of telehealth services and m-health digital application platforms are transforming the traditional method of care delivery in the healthcare industry. The telemedicine technology is at the center point of stimulating patient-centric care by leveraging advanced clinical facilities at any time and any location to improve quality of care.

Founded 25 years ago, WorldCare International, Inc. (WorldCare) remains steadfast in its mission to improve healthcare outcomes worldwide by connecting their clients to the foremost medical experts at the top-ranked U.S. hospitals of The WorldCare Consortium® through its Medical Second Opinion (MSO) service.

WorldCare’s unique partnership with the hospitals of The WorldCare Consortium®, along with the teams of specialists and sub-specialists within these hospitals, enables them to provide expert MSOs of an unmatched clinical rigor and depth. They help millions of members worldwide and their treating physicians have the confidence that their diagnosis

is correct and that they are on the optimal treatment plan, while reducing overall healthcare costs.

WorldCare has extensive, innovative experience and highly-engaged customers, which has allowed them to continuously improve. Additionally, it is the only institution-based MSO provider powered by The WorldCare Consortium® hospitals. This allows WorldCare to provide an unmatched level of clinical rigor for each and every case. On average, WorldCare has four physicians who review each case whereas other providers have just one other physician review each case. WorldCare also re-reads pathology and radiology, which other MSO providers do not offer. WorldCare even goes the extra step of providing, when needed, a multi-institutional review in order to reach a diagnosis consensus for their members. All of which is delivered in a consistent, rapid manner.

The Pioneer “Startups never have a smooth road. Selling American medicine at American prices was the first challenge,” says CEO, Nasser Menhall. WorldCare has pioneered the concept of “capitated” pricing of healthy groups at a reasonable per person per month basis, essentially having the healthy many pay for the sick few. The first population was signed up in 1995.

Financing the start-up was their second challenge. The company relied on equity funding from beneficiaries of their MSOs. This alleviated having venture capital investors requiring near term exits. It also allowed for stable management with the continuous involvement of Mr. Menhall, who has several years of extensive business development, leadership and project management experience in both the healthcare and technology fields.

Prior to joining WorldCare, he was the Director for IDERA and has co- founded over ten companies.

Innovative Services and Strategies The WorldCare Consortium® hospitals are at the forefront of medical research, with access to over 20,000 medical

specialists and sub-specialists with more than US $4 billion in annual biomedical research funding. These hospitals conduct advanced clinical trials, have access to state-of-theart technology and are spearheading the collection and publication of the most up-to-date research and information.

The hospitals of The WorldCare Consortium® lead the world in identifying and treating rare, serious and complex medical conditions and have access to the most current and advanced disease treatments.

WorldCare’s unique relationship with these hospitals dictates that its team maintain a high level of knowledge of the most advanced medical remedies, which enables the company to provide their clients and their members and treating physicians with direct access to this information so they can make informed decisions about how best to proceed with their care. With the rapidly advancing science of medicine, having access to this caliber of research, technology and expertise cannot be replicated and helps to improve medical outcomes.

WorldCare works collaboratively with its clients to understand their needs and help them by launching new services other MSO providers have not yet developed.

While they are embracing technology just like other MSO providers, WorldCare will never lose focus on the important human-element of its service and continue to provide compassionate, highly-engaged services to its clients and their members.

“We are proud of the fact that in the past 25 plus years, we have not lost focus on what is truly most important – providing the information, resources and peace-of-mind needed to make crucial healthcare decisions with confidence and doing so in a collaborative, compassionate way,” says Mr. Menhall. WorldCare member satisfaction rating is above 98% and they work hard every day to keep it at this level and even try to make it 100%.

In 2017, WorldCare launched three new laser-focused medical second opinion services for Pain Management,

| March 2018 | 39

Mental Health issues, and Specialty Drugs. All of these were developed in response to and in cooperation with existing clients. Moreover, they are currently completing a research project using the new WorldCare Mental Health service and will be presenting the preliminary results at the Benefits & Pensions Monitor Conference in Toronto, Ontario.

Additionally, WorldCare offers medical concierge services and they have a consulting and advisory division that is focused on the planning, development and opening of medical centers worldwide and the WorldCare Wellness division, which is currently focused on the opening of the world’s largest Wellness Center in Dubai.

Future Roadmap WorldCare aims to continue investing in technological platforms to further expedite the process of transferring medical records and information to the hospitals and in improving their back office operations to offer enhanced client and member experiences.

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w w w. f h c p . c o m

QUALITY HEALTHCARE AFFORDABLE PLANS

Leon Eisen

PhD Founder & CEO of Oxitone Medical

42 |March 2018|

Leadership Talk

Digital Continuous Care:

Disruption or Evolution?

I

n this article we get a closer look at what the new-generation, digital continuous care means to patient, healthcare provider and payer, and how it affects the whole healthcare industry. We will show how continuous care changes the paradigm of the home monitoring of chronic disease patients, as well as the value that new care strategies and technologies bears to the stakeholders. So, enjoy the wild ride to new-generation digital care transformation!

Digital home care is nothing new in today’s medical world – everyone is familiar with medical devices for patient home monitoring such as glucometers, fingertip pulse oximeters, blood pressure monitors, thermometers and other connected to smartphone applications and clouds. The common denominator for all these devices is that they are designed for the sporadic measurements and usually are taken from the shelf when patient already feels bad. Transformation from episodic, manual and fragmented care towards continuous, automated and prolong one affects lifestyle and wellbeing of the chronic disease patient. It refers to three key healthcare trends: Ÿ Improve patient life-style Ÿ Improve quality of care Ÿ Cost and risk reduction

| March 2018 | 43

Leadership Talk

A digital continuous care capitalizes on these three trends to plan and deliver personalized health monitoring products and services. Digital wearable medical technologies allowing comfortable and reliable patient continuous monitoring drive home healthcare from reactive post-event intervention, resulting in real-time and predictive systems and processes. When smart wearable technologies and patient homecare planning come together, they can dramatically change the way clinicians plan and react. Digital continuous care combines the convenience of a wearable, tracking device, with state of the art monitoring capabilities, previously only available in the hospital or care facility.

Real-times means the system can continuously process digital biomarkers and their derivatives, and stay synchronized with what’s happening with the patient. Intelligent software can continuously learn and adapt patient’s care plan and intervention protocols versus relaying on episodic data and prescribed actions. This intelligent software can also predict event, provide insights and communicate with caregiver and clinician. A digital continuous care increasingly leverages usability and intelligence embedded in wearable medical devices and software systems allowing providers to analyze data from continuous tracking, empower patients to participate in their own care plan and predict and alert against future potential complications.

The digital continuous care is the next step in the evolution of modern patient remote monitoring and management. For example, one of the reasons healthcare providers will inevitably employ digital continuous care is to reduce hospital stay and risk of readmission. The so called “prospective payment system,” shifted the financial risk of patients’ hospitalization from Medicare to the hospital, encouraging the hospitals to optimize patient stay. The prospective payment system pays a hospital the same amount whether a Medicare patient stays five days or four. With the digital continuous care mechanism the hospital stay could be ultimately optimized, so the hospital doesn’t have to keep patient for longer – patient will continue a hospital-grade care at home.

Likewise, digital continuous care can reduce post-emergency room hospitalization that, in many cases, hits the healthcare cost bottom line. Patient will be sent back home with the wearable medical device and being connected to a care team in real time. Furthermore, wearable medical devices integrated into machine learning and artificial intelligence eco-system will make emergency room visits almost obsolete. For example, the technology will indicate, monitor and alert disease deterioration even couple of days before it starts to dramatically affect the patient. Recent review on “Monitoring of Physiological Parameters to Predict Exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)” revealed that continuous and regular monitoring of patient’s biomarkers is a promising method to predict exacerbation. Specifically, nine studies proved a reduction in peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2%) prior to exacerbation onset. Three studies for peak flow, and two studies for respiratory rate reported a significant variation prior to or at exacerbation onset.

Transforming from a conventional remote monitoring to accurately predicting patient health status is a slowly becoming reality. Clinicians and payers understand that the digital continuous monitoring with predictive analytics can enable mitigate patient risk much faster than they have been able to in the past. They are seeing the greatest value and momentum to start their journey, at least in small steps. However, it is challenging to try out some new technologies while to maintain current processes and workflow, that hampers a widely adoption and implementation of digital continuous care. So, to accelerate further penetration of digital continuous care into healthcare system, a new technology should be carefully tuned and embedded into the current clinical workflow without its dramatic disruption and added cost.

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|March 2018|

At Horizon, we’re driven by a clear purpose; to improve

Patients’ Lives.

www.horizonpharma.com