Welcome to Beantown: CVS Health Digital Innovation Lab Finds Home in Boston

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Last week, CVS Health announced the official opening of its Digital Innovation Lab in Boston, a new and inventive facility that is focused on creating a digital, accessible and integrated personal experience across the pharmacy and health sectors. The Lab will serve as a hub for the rapidly growing digital team at CVS Health, which (as a whole) will remain headquartered in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.

According to Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer for CVS Health, Brian Tilzer, “Digital technologies are ubiquitous and highly configurable”–a powerful motivator behind CVS Health’s decision to double its digital investment. CVS Health anticipates an increasing preference among customers to manage personal health via digital means and “the opening of [the] Innovation Lab is a significant step forward on this path.”

The launch of the Digital Innovation Lab marks CVS Health’s latest stride in prioritizing digital health endeavors. The new Lab is staffed with an array of team members from various backgrounds including developers, product managers, digital strategists and user-experience designers. The primary focus of the Lab will include the exploration of potential digital health breakthroughs via mobile, connected health, digital therapeutics and more. The Lab will embody CVS Health digital team’s mantra to run like a startup by rapidly testing, improving and implementing new programs with efficiency and accuracy.

To learn more about the Digital Innovation Lab and its new Boston home, check out CVS Health’s official press release here!

SOURCE: HIT Consultant 

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.

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.

Parsing the Patient Portal: Why Engagement Strategies Must Go Beyond It

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According to a recent survey from HIMSS Analytics¹, major healthcare organizations are assessing current portal use and looking for ways to further enhance patient engagement. The survey found the top motivating factors for patient engagement to be the following: to enhance and improve community health (77%), to build brand loyalty for patients (77%) and to meet meaningful use requirements (60%).

Reasons for portal adoption—the current “go to” engagement tool on the healthcare scene—were also somewhat varied:

• Meeting meaningful use requirements for functionality and data sharing from a single source (71%)
• Using portals that offer patient services, technology and content (54%)
• Using portals as a configurable, interoperable information exchange platform with multi-source data sharing (51%)
• Using portals provided by electronic health record vendor of choice (66%)

With a predominant and short-term focus on meaningful use, many healthcare IT companies are in the process of designing products that span the entire care continuum—from the time a patient first engages with a provider until treatment is completed. These “next-generation” portals will allow patients to become partners in their own care, by offering features such as e-visits or e-consultations (80% of respondents are seeking), interoperability across multiple providers (70% seeking), health evaluation and coaching (70% seeking) and televisits (50% seeking)

Overall, healthcare leaders are looking to better align portals with the definition of patient engagement and ensure that accessible healthcare tools provide patients with appropriate decision-making powers when it comes to health and wellness.

For more details on HIMSS’ recent patient portal survey, check out Healthcare Informatics’ coverage here!

SOURCE: Healthcare Informatics

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.

¹HIMSS Analytics is the marketing intelligence division of HIMSS.

“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.

From Startups to “Scaling Up:” U.S. Health Systems Find Value in Telemedicine

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As predicted for early 2015, telehealth developments are gaining a strong foothold in a number of healthcare arenas here in the U.S. One area of particular interest are major health systems, as recent initiatives to adopt and deploy innovative and large-scale telehealth plans have made it into the healthtech spotlight:

1. University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC)

As the only academic medical center in the state of Mississippi, UMMC looks forward to connecting with more than 165 hospitals, clinics, workplaces and schools via the creation of its new Center for Telehealth. Additionally, UMMC hopes that its new Center will help alleviate and address some of the major barriers to rural healthcare access within Mississippi State.

2. Avera Health

Based in South Dakota, Avera Health—clocking in with 31 hospitals total—is revamping and expanding its telemedicine program of already epic proportions. eCare is purported to be the biggest and most encompassing telemedicine operation in the world, covering an area the size of France and Germany combined. With 8 states involved (South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana) and telemedicine services for ICU, Emergency, Pharmacy, internal medicine, specialty care and long-term care, Avera Health remains a force to be reckoned with in the telehealth space.

3. Geisinger Health System

An early adopter of telehealth, this Pennsylvania-based entity has been pushing for solidified and widespread virtual health resources since 2012. This same year, Geisinger found that its own telehealth technology cut readmission rates by a shocking 44 percent. Focusing strongly on teleICU, Geisinger has seen strongly positive healthcare and financial outcomes in recent years and continues to refine telehealth initiatives as we speak.

4. Mercy Health

Got big telehealth plans? Then you might want to consult Mercy Health for advice…They have an entire facility devoted to virtual care. Operating out of St. Louis, Mercy Health constructed a telehealth facility in May of 2014, investing $50 million towards completion. The center hosts 300 physicians, nurses, specialists, researchers and support staff who are on call 24/7 for both video and audio services. Within the first 5 years that the center is up and running Mercy Health estimates that it will manage more than 3 million telehealth visits.

5. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)

Much like Geisinger, UPMC has moved quickly to meet telemedicine demands and efficiently reduce readmission rates. Over a 23-month period in 2013, UPMC increased patient visits by 49 percent, totaling 10,000 telemedicine visits. Among these visits, UPMC saw marked progress with heart failure patients in particular. When paired with a visiting nurse and subsequent telemonitoring, readmission rates hovered around 5 percent—versus the 28 percent readmission rate with no monitoring whatsoever. A massive difference indeed!

SOURCES: Medcitynews and Avera Health

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.

Taking a Peek at Patient Engagement in Beantown: Beth Israel’s New Pilot Study

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Further initiatives to end incessant EMR entry during medical appointments may now be in place within one of Boston’s own. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) recently received a $450,000 grant from the Commonwealth Fund to solidify a program allowing patients to add to and update their own medical records during visits. This program, called OurNotes, is an extension of the larger and well-known OpenNotes initiative. The idea for OpenNotes began 5 years ago and quickly mobilized into an approach that gives patients access to their physicians’ visit notes. OpenNotes has spread rapidly across the U.S. and is now used by more than 5 million patients and providers nationwide.

Throughout this pilot, Beth Israel will collaborate with a number of health sites and providers across the country, including Pennsylvania-based Geisinger Health System, Seattle-based Harborview Medical Center, Seattle’s Group Health Cooperative and Mosaic Life Care in St. Joseph, Missouri. The OpenNotes initiative started making waves in Boston during the 2012 calendar year, when researchers conducting a survey at BIDMC found that patients with access to clinicians’ notes were more engaged and witnessed more positive health outcomes. Results from this year-long study included data from more than 13,500 primary care patients and 100 physicians.

The OurNotes Pilot will initially focus on primary care, with the intent to later expand into other specialties. Jan Walker, RN, MBA and co-founder of OpenNotes hopes that the pilot will further increase patient engagement and improve adherence to medications. Walker also stated that patients in the OurNotes pilots at both BIDMC and additional sites will have access to other parts of their medical records, including problem and medication lists. After this initial phase of testing, each of the five sites will have the opportunity to develop its own prototype for further implementation.

SOURCES: mobihealthnews and OpenNotes.org

For more information on the OpenNotes initiative, check out Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s official press release here!

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.

Healthtech Happy Hospitals: Miami Children’s and its Mobile App Endeavors

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Over the past few years, mobile technologies of various sorts have proven vital in hospitals and healthcare centers across America with usage rates increasing rapidly for both providers and patients alike. As profiled in mobihealthnews just this week, Miami Children’s Hospital is continuing this trend with two newly released health-specific mobile offerings.

According to Miami Children’s Hospital CIO Edward Martinez, the hospital has developed a care transition app that aids clinicians in the hand-off of patients between shifts. This app includes a patient-facing option as well, allowing patients to keep track of such staff transitions. There is also a parent-facing component to this app, complete with a video consultation feature to enable Q&A between parent and provider after a child is discharged from the hospital.

Another app Miami Children’s has created is a care coordination product for clinician use. At the end of a shift, this app allows providers across all specialties to quickly enter information about a patient’s condition on a handy mobile device and pass it on to the next clinician. This way, the next attending physician does not miss any critical patient information related to symptoms or condition.

In his interview with mobihealthnews, Martinez highlighted one key observation pertaining to the patients and families that enter Miami Children’s Hospital on a daily basis: the parental generation is more mobile-savvy than ever before. The hospital is capitalizing on this occurrence by engaging parents early on with activities such as texting and video chatting. With 2015 expected to produce yet another boom in the mobile health and telemedicine arena, it is very likely that large hospitals from California to Maine will follow soon follow in the footsteps of Miami Children’s.

SOURCE: mobihealthnews

To see some neat screenshots of Miami Children’s newly released mobile health apps, check out the full article here!

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.

Retail and Refills: Patient Engagement Technologies on Horizon for Walmart and Target

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Recent digital health initiatives suggest that Walmart, Target and other retail giants are steadfastly marching into the healthcare setting with a focus on customer and employee health. With representatives attending Health 2.0’s WinterTech conference in San Francisco, both Walmart and Target have confirmed plans to provide more in-depth healthcare services including chronic disease management and guidance towards healthier lifestyles.

Last week, MedCity News connected with Walmart and Target spokespersons to learn more. Complete with clinics that serve both customers as well as employees, Target and Walmart will look to enhance healthcare efforts with technologies like mobile coaching apps and telemedicine platforms. For both Target and Walmart, much of this expansion will take place in the form of strategic partnerships with powerhouses like UnitedHealthcare and Kaiser Permanente. In developing its new pharmacy prescription app focused on medication adherence for employees and customers alike, Target partnered with Mscripts, a leader in mobile pharmacy solutions. Michael Laquere, a senior buyer for pharmacy at Target, pointed out that through this app Target hopes to “connect with pharmacies in a more virtual way.”

When taking information access into consideration, retailers could be sitting on a data gold mine. With customer buying patterns and health information at their disposal, retailers could potentially make suggestions to improve health or aid in chronic disease management. With the current privacy barriers and regulations in place, this possibility is far from a reality—however, the opportunity to improve consumer health is salient and two major retail players have taken the reigns. Who will be the next to join?

SOURCE: MedCityNews

To learn more about increasing retail presence in the healthcare industry, check out MedCity News’ full article here!

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.

2015: Is the “Year of the Telemedicine” Upon Us?

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Have you texted, web chatted or Skyped with your doctor lately? You may want to, as health professionals and digital health entrepreneurs alike are predicting great things for telemedicine in the coming year. There’s no disputing that telemedicine “went big” in 2014—with provider communication, patient engagement and care coordination products dominating the digital health space, remote care and patient-to-provider telemedicine services proliferated virtually every area of the market. This “boom,” however, is expected to intensify in 2015 with ambitious predictions already circling within the wide and wonderful world of healthcare.

According to a recent article published by VentureBeat, there are several key indicators that 2015 will be the year that telemedicine has a takeoff of epic proportions. Check out the numbers:

• As of 2016, the global telemedicine market is predicted to be $27 billion with Virtual health Services accounting for $16 billion.
• By 2018, 65% of interactions with healthcare organizations will be done via mobile devices.
• Rock Health, a San Francisco-based digital health accelerator and seed fund, estimates that $4.1 billion of new capital in 2014 was invested in digital health—up from less than $1 million in 2011 (Forbes Magazine).

With the aforementioned financial gains on the near horizon, major players in the healthcare space—such as providers and insurance companies—can expect worthwhile benefits:

• Remote patient-to-provider virtual consults have the potential to reduce the need for all in-person doctor visits by up to 93%. This translates into savings of about $103 per primary care visit and $1,067 per emergency room visit. Your wallets will be thanking you!
• 50% of all doctor visits can be conducted virtually and 70% of all electronic health record (EHR) visits can be conducted remotely.

Finally, the patient—posited at the center of care—wins in the grand scheme of telehealth, as on-demand and high quality care becomes a reality. With a vast and continuously growing population of aging Americans, proponents of virtual visits point to the advantages conferred to those lacking easy access to a doctor’s offices, namely the elderly, the frail and those in rural areas. Telehealth is certainly headed in a strongly positive direction. Will predictions prevail? Only time will tell!

SOURCES: VentureBeat and Forbes Magazine 

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.