Recently Funded Tyto Care Brings Handheld Telehealth Device to Light

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With a fresh Series B financing round of $11 million, Israeli-based telemedicine startup Tyto Care is putting its own unique spin on the diagnostic device market. Backed by strategic investors like Cambia Health Solutions and Walgreens, Tyto Care is discussing its innovative product–deemed the “Swiss Army knife of handheld diagnostic devices”–with a number of digital health news resources.

Tyto Care’s solution combines a handheld device and online communication platform that is designed to facilitate secure and seamless interactions between patient and provider. The diagnostic handheld device can aid non-medical individuals (namely parents) in examining a child’s mouth, throat, eyes, heart sounds, lung sounds, temperature, skin and ears when traveling to the doctor’s office for an in-person visit is not possible. Doctors can conveniently guide users in performing these tests in real time or a “store and forward” method can be applied, whereby a doctor receives the results collected by Tyto Care’s device for remote viewing.

Tyto Care was co-founded by Dedi Gilad and Ofer Tzadik in 2012, with the goal of providing “connected examination technology” beyond the scope of just phone or video conferencing to patients and providers alike. After this third round of funding, Tyto Care is believed to have raised $18.5 million to date and final device approval from the US Food and Drug Administration is expected to be granted within the calendar year.

To read more about Tyto Care’s company background and current product version, check out the official website here.

With more than 85 healthcare companies in our client base today, DoseSpot is avidly helping digital health companies stay at the forefront of care with unique and customizable e-Prescribing solutions. We encourage you to read our recent Case Study with Intellivisit for more information!

SOURCES: GeekTime, MedCity News and MobiHealthNews 

DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit http://www.DoseSpot.com.

“The Facebook Treatment:” Boston’s Latest Patient Engagement Study

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“Time to check Facebook, it’s good for your health.” Most of us have never heard these words uttered by a physician–and if we did, confusing looks would likely ensue. But in the heart of Boston, Partners HealthCare is showing us that social media–specifically, the ever-popular Facebook–may positively impact young adults with health issues.

At Partners HealthCare in Boston, preliminary results of a study involving asthmatic teenagers found significant improvement in engagement and symptom control when patients received reminders and encouragement from both clinicians and researchers via Facebook. Dr. Joseph Kvedar, Vice President of Connected Health at Partners HealthCare, presented these early stage findings at the mHealth + Telehealth World Conference in Boston this week and stated that a peer-reviewed publication for this study is in the works.

The Study

Partners Connected Health (formerly known as the Center for Connected Health) joined forces with Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Pulmonology to create a private Facebook group for pediatric asthma patients ages 14-17. Partners provided the private group, only viewable by invited users, with access to a password-protected website where study participants could take the Asthma Control Test (ACT), a survey measuring asthma control.

Clinicians and academic researchers sent monthly reminders–with links to the ACT–along with educational information to each study participant via Facebook. The alerts were displayed just like any other Facebook reminder, making them salient and easy to access. After a 12-month period, Partners Connected Health achieved a 79% engagement rate with approximately 125 teen participants in the Facebook group–compared to an average engagement rate of around 18% with the ACT alone.

Patient engagement is a vital component of the treatment process and DoseSpot strives to improve engagement for dental, medical and telehealth/digital health software companies alike! Contact us today to learn more about how DoseSpot’s e-Prescribing platform can lead to increased patient engagement and effective treatment plans.

SOURCE: MedCityNews

DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit http://www.DoseSpot.com.

DoseSpot Startup Spotlight: Pager

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Startup: Pager

Founders: Philip Eytan, Gaspard de Dreuzy and Oscar Salazar (he co-founded Uber!)

Website: https://pager.com

Fun Fact: Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures has backed Pager

Funding: $24.4 Million

Located in: New York, NY

Overview: a Manhattan-based doctor-on-demand service, Pager gives patients the option to forgo a trip to the emergency room or urgent care center by offering the ability to order a doctor directly to the home. Currently available in all five boroughs, Pager is effectively used for the treatment of common infections and conditions such as bronchitis, ear infections, burns and sprains.

Having treated over 3,000 patients since its launch in 2014, Pager aims to connect patients with the right type of care in an immediate and convenient fashion. Moving beyond urgent care treatment scenarios, Pager’s slew of services also includes health checks for metrics such as blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels along with physical exams and tests required for camp, school and employment. A home visit for first-time users runs a rate of $50 and $200 thereafter. Patients can also consult a doctor by phone for $25 and exchange text messages with photos to address conditions such as rashes and insect bites.

Looking ahead to future plans, Pager hopes to expand to San Francisco within the next month or so. After that, it will consider Los Angeles and Chicago as probable sites for expansion. Keep an eye out for a full regional launch list come 2016!

Interested in learning about e-Prescribing and telehealth? Download our Telehealth Whitepaper today and become an expert!

To read more about Pager and the services this New York-based healthcare startup offers, check out the company website here.

SOURCE: Crain Communications Inc. and VentureBeat

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit http://www.DoseSpot.com.

“Protecting the pill:” Johns Hopkins students develop tamper-proof, biometric pill bottle

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Over the past few years, prescription drug abuse has been a heated topic here in the U.S. among healthcare professionals and policymakers alike. Engineering students within Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering are taking strides to address continuously alarming drug abuse statistics with the creation of a novel, tamper-proof pill bottle.

As cited in HIStalk Connect’s article, the engineering students were called upon by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to undertake this special project. With more than 16,000 annual deaths attributed to prescription drug-related overdoses, the goal of Hopkins’ project was to develop a robust pill bottle that would help control the nation’s relatively unsecured supply of prescription narcotics. According to assistant professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Kavi Bhalla, the overseeing team wanted “this personal pill ‘safe’ to have tamper resistance, personal identification capabilities and a locking mechanism that allows only a pharmacist to load the device with pills.”

The four engineering undergrads assigned to take on this project answered accordingly–by developing a 2.75 pound, nine-inch-tall, steel-constructed pill bottle that can withstand any hammer or drill activity. Additionally, fingerprint scanners are used to regulate dispensing and ensure that pills are only released to the patient a medication is prescribed to–at proper time intervals and in correct doses. After gaining positive feedback from both Bloomberg clinicians and pharmacists at the on-campus Rite Aid, Hopkins engineering students uncovered an important and overlooked design value: the ability to record medication adherence rates. If connected to a monitoring system, the tamper-proof pill bottle (again, equipped with fingerprint reading capabilities) could eventually be useful to payers and health systems working to reduce funds wasted on poor medication adherence.

For healthcare software companies looking to incorporate the ability to electronically prescribe controlled substances (EPCS), DoseSpot could be your solution of choice in just a few hours, days or weeks! Through our third party EPCS audit with Drummond Group Inc., a global software test and certification body that is approved by the Drug Enforcement Administration to audit EPCS software applications, DoseSpot is now able to deliver audited and trusted EPCS software applications to customers. For more information on DoseSpot’s EPCS software, please download our Integration Tool Kit here!

SOURCE: HIStalk

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit http://www.DoseSpot.com.

Healthcare Startup Spotlight: Heal

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Startup: Heal

Founders: Nick Desai (CEO) and Renee Dua, MD (Chief Medical Officer)

Website: www.getheal.com                         Funding: $3.7 million

Funding Fun Fact: Lionel Richie is an investor!

Currently Operating In: Los Angeles and San Francisco

Overview: A new version of the housecall is taking shape and Heal is front and center in this innovative style of healthcare delivery. Described as “health care at a distance,” telemedicine and virtual housecalls typically require the use of telecommunications by physicians to diagnose, consult, treat and transfer medical data. A doctor and patient can conduct or schedule an appointment online–and that’s exactly where Heal comes in.

Coined “An Uber for Doctor Housecalls” by the New York Times, Heal is a smartphone app that mirrors the Uber workflow–but instead of a car showing up, a doctor arrives at one’s door for assessment and treatment. Patients can download the Heal app and then enter details such as home address and the reason for the visit. After adding in credit card information, a patient can then request a visit from a family doctor or pediatrician and within 20-60 minutes, the physician arrives for a flat fee of $99.

Heal physicians arrive equipped with a medical assistant and handy dandy kit filled with the latest high-tech gadgets such as tools for taking vitals and otoscopes (used to examine the ear). Heal officially kicked off in its first city, Los Angeles, this past February and recently expanded to San Francisco. High growth is expected over the next year, as Heal plans to roll out in 15 additional major cities.

Want to learn more about Heal and see if the housecall is right for you? Check out www.getheal.com now!

SOURCE: EmpowHER and NY Times 

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit http://www.DoseSpot.com.

Grades Matter: State-by-State telemedicine performances and what they mean

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In the days of schooling that we all loved and miss dearly, report cards were used to denote “good” and “poor” students. Similarly, within the realm of U.S. telemedicine, standards to separate a “good” state for telemedicine and a “not-so-good” one have been put into motion. Earlier this month at its annual conference, the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) released two key reports: a state-by-state analysis of coverage and reimbursement policies for telemedicine services and a second on physician practice standards and licensure in each state.

So who made the grade? In terms of coverage and reimbursement, five states (six including the District of Columbia) received an A based on 13 criteria. New Mexico, one of the lucky “A” states, received its grade for a few key reasons worth sharing:

• New Mexico has distinguished telehealth parity for private insurance, Medicaid and its state employee health plans.
• New Mexico is one of just five states to specify that its Medicaid program must cover telemedicine services provided by substance-abuse or addiction specialists.
• New Mexico Medicaid also covers telemental health delivered by licensed clinical social workers and counselors (as do several others). However, only New Mexico, Oklahoma and Washington do so for behavioral analysts. This trend, according to the ATA, “is unique because these specialists are critical for the treatment of autism spectrum disorders.”

And then there were those who didn’t make the class. The only two states to earn failing grades on coverage policies are small New England neighbors, Connecticut and Rhode Island. These two states each failed the three major categories–parity for private insurance, Medicaid and state employee health plans–mainly due to their lack of Medicaid telemedicine coverage (according to the ATA). Both Connecticut and Rhode Island allow telemedicine services without a telepresenter or other healthcare professional present with the patient and neither got extra points for innovative service-delivery models.

Catch up on your telemedicine news and see how all 50 states fared here with the ATA’s official telemedicine report card!

SOURCE: MedCity News

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit http://www.DoseSpot.com.

All Aboard the Funding Train: ONC Backs 6 Digital Health Pilots!

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On Monday, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) awarded a hefty $300,000 to six winners of the inaugural ONC Market R&D Pilot Challenge. The Challenge, which launched in October 2014, finds early stage health care startups from across the U.S. and connects them with health care organizations for pilot partnerships and application testing. The six lucky entities, each receiving $50,000 for program funding, will live-test new health information technology applications in health care settings hosted by their challenge partners. Check out a few noteworthy winners below:

ClinicalBox and Lowell General Hospital

ClinicalBox develops software for care coordination and patient engagement across the surgical care continuum. ClinicalBox’s application, CoordinationBox, tracks a patient through the care delivery cycle and provides a visual overview of the stages of care. The pilot with Lowell General Hospital will test CoordinationBox’s efficacy in streamlining care during surgical episodes.

Gecko Health Innovations and Boston Children’s Hospital

Gecko Health Innovations’ product, CareTRx, uses medication sensors, mobile apps and savvy cloud computing to improve respiratory disease management for asthma patients. Gecko’s proprietary technology tracks medication use, sends reminders, records symptoms and shares reports with health professionals. The Gecko Health Innovations/Boston Children’s pilot will evaluate the effectiveness of CareTRx on asthma self-management among urban school children versus traditional disease self-management.

Optima Integrated Health and University of California, San Francisco, Cardiology Division

Optima-for-Blood Pressure (Optima4BP) is a cloud-based artificial intelligence solution that evaluates hypertensive patients’ status in real time to provide patient-specific recommendations for medication/treatment alterations. Hosted by UCSF’s Cardiology Division (and integrated with its EMR), the pilot will evaluate Optima4BP’s ability to improve care coordination for patients with uncontrolled hypertension.

Vital Care Telehealth Services and Dominican Sisters Family Health Service

Vital Care’s assisted telehealth program for seniors (called STATS) connects populations to caregivers for preventative care and chronic disease management programs. The pilot project will test STATS’ efficacy in increasing access to both primary and secondary prevention services on the Shinnecock Indian Health Services Clinic located in eastern Long Island.

For more information on the ONC Market R&D Challenge and the full list of winners, read Health2.0’s full blog post here—the pilot programs become operational in August!

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.

“The couch is where it’s at:” 78.5 million to use home health technologies by 2020

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According to a recent report from Tractica, a Colorado-based marketing intelligence firm, the number of people using home health-specific technologies is expected to increase from 14.3 million worldwide in 2014 to 78.5 million by the year 2020. This more than five-fold increase will be driven by a number of important factors—and if you’re curious (like we were) to find out what they are, read on!

Traditionally, home health technologies include offerings that enable providers to remotely monitor and treat patients with chronic conditions, improve care for elderly populations and conduct virtual visits with patients. Growing interests in these services, as Tractica mentions, are very much correlated with rising healthcare costs, a continuously aging population and a rise in the number of people living with one—or multiple—chronic conditions.

When getting down to the “nitty gritty” of research, Tractica added: within the home health technology space, “medical monitoring, diagnosis and treatment” will be the crucial segments to watch between 2014 and 2020–other key segments to keep in mind include remote consultations, elderly care and health & wellness. Tractia’s report states that these specific sectors will “drive the deployment of a wide variety of connected health devices and software applications.”

Although the home health tech industry faces a number of regulatory and security barriers to solve over the next few years, the future is looking bright. At the beginning of this year, a Harris Poll survey commissioned by American Well found 64% of patients to be on board with physician video visits and these numbers are only expected to climb.

For more information, read mobihealthnews’ full coverage article here.

SOURCE: mobihealthnews 

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.

Prescription Drug Monitoring? There’s an App for That

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Earlier this week, New Jersey’s Division of Consumer Affairs announced the launch of a new iPhone app that will allow authorized users of the state’s prescription drug monitoring program—namely pharmacists and prescribers licensed in New Jersey—to access the crucial database via their smartphone or tablet. The New Jersey Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (NJPMP) operates under the Division of Consumer Affairs and this state department is also responsible for managing and updating the prescription drug database.

The NJPMP collects data on prescriptions for controlled substances filled in the state of New Jersey, including opiate painkillers and a variety of narcotics. Prescribers can conveniently use the database to locate patients who may be “doctor shopping,” which the NJPMP defines as “deceptively visiting multiple physicians to obtain more prescription drugs than [a single doctor] would prescribe” or “trying to illegally obtain prescription drugs through use of multiple pharmacies.”

Officially launching in the year 2011, the NJPMP views this new iPhone app as the latest in a recurring series of upgrades that the Program has laid out for the coming months. A major goal, according to acting Attorney general John J. Hoffman, is to make the NJPMP as user-friendly as possible—thus increasing adoption rates among prescribers and pharmacists, whose participation in actively addressing prescription drug abuse is critical.

According to the NJPMP, 88.4% of the state’s 29,400 licensed prescribers are registered to use the NJPMP and between March and April of 2015, 169,000 user requests were submitted. The app is currently only available for iPhones and iPads, however, the NJPMP plans to launch both Android and Windows apps by the summer.

For more information on the New Jersey Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, check out a brief released by the Department of Consumer Affairs here!

SOURCE: mobihealthnews 

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.

“Getting the Bedside View:” UK Virtual Reality Project Puts Clinicians in Patients’ Shoes

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From the hospital to the pediatrician’s office, providing compassion and patient support is a top priority for most providers in the modern healthcare era. New initiatives to improve these metrics are constantly in the works, as evidenced by South Devon Healthcare Foundation Trust’s (England) teaming up with innovative software developers to create a firsthand virtual reality simulation of the patient experience.

Meet PatientVR, the brainchild of South Devon’s innovation team and spearheaded by PhD student Nick Peres. Initially, Peres and team were building out a “patient-esque” mannequin that could blink, breathe, bleed and speak—with the goal to develop a more accurate and realistic training tool for medical personnel. When considering the importance of what a patient feels and sees, however, ideas soon migrated to the topic of virtual reality.

PatientVR runs on a headset and chronicles a patient being transported to the ER with chest pain. Originating in the ambulance, said patient is stabilized, examined, informed that he is having a heart attack and then rolled into the operating room where pre-surgical risks are voiced via a team of surgeons. The video is seven minutes long and comprehensively captures the patient perspective along every point of the care delivery process. Oh, and did we mention that Peres filmed the video himself with the help of seven GoPro cameras?

A recent article in HIStalk Connect gathered feedback from a number of clinicians currently piloting PatientVR, including anesthesiologist Tod Guest. When asked about PatientVR’s efficacy, Dr. Guest praised the tool for “[reinforcing] the need to be sensitive to [patients’] needs and their ability to understand the information you’re [giving] them. Their vulnerability and emotional state is important, especially if they are suddenly taken ill with something serious.” If funding is secured in time, PatientVR will be rolled out across a number of UK-based health systems this year. Fingers crossed that Peres makes it over to the states as well!

SOURCE: HIStalk Connect 

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.