Vendors

Q&A: Olivier Hua, BeWell Connect

August 15, 2017 by Kathy Dion Leave a Comment

‘As people monitor their fitness levels, they will be motivated to lead healthier lifestyles’

BOSTON – As the CEO of connected health technology company BeWell Connect, Olivier Hua is a big believer in the power of wearable devices and remote monitoring of patients for health prevention. Here’s what he had to say about how wearable devices and other technology are impacting home health.

HHTN: How does technology empower people to take charge of their own health?

Hua: As people monitor their fitness levels, weight and vitals, they will be motivated to lead healthier lifestyles, which will reduce their health care costs. Patients can monitor their own health, while still getting an expert opinion. Even more importantly, patients suffering with chronic health conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure can monitor their vitals on a daily basis, while sharing data with their doctors, reducing the amount of doctors’ visits they make. By empowering the patients, home health devices can ultimately give arguments to each individual to better negotiate with the insurers his/her healthcare costs.

HHTN: What are the obstacles to broader adoption of these devices?

Hua: Reimbursement is the key. Traditionally, reimbursement has been limited, so many people must pay out of pocket. Technologies are still fairly recent and are evolving very fast. Few of them were medical grade at the beginning, creating questions and/or doubts of their reliability. As more data and studies come out showing the benefits of at-home monitoring, including the cost savings for the patient and the payer in the long run by being proactive in monitoring, hopefully we will see a shift in the legislation. There’s a bill in process right now that would look to expand reimbursement for telemedicine and remote patient monitoring, so that’s a start.

HHTN: What needs to happen for wearable devices to be considered reimbursable?

Hua: The intention of these products is to help people improve their health and avoid a more costly or dangerous problem later, so the devices need to be medical-grade quality and FDA approved. Not all devices are created equal; it’s important the patient is collecting accurate data that he or she can use in conjunction with his doctor to monitor vitals and improve health.

HHTN: How is technology changing the way home health care is delivered?

Hua: Technology is changing the way physicians monitor patients, and it is enabling those with chronic illnesses to monitor their own health at home, while still keeping in touch with their doctors. All medical data recorded is transferred via Bluetooth to the user’s smart phone, which can then be sent directly to the physician, who can intervene if need be. This eliminates the actual trip to the office, but the doctor is, and will still be, involved in the process.

Q&A: Lori Herb, Geneia @Home Remote Monitoring

August 8, 2017 by Kathy Dion Leave a Comment

‘We have to be able to show a return on investment’

CHICAGO – Health plans, hospitals and employers depend on technology like wearable devices to better understand, evaluate and manage the health of their populations. Lori Herb, senior director of clinical outreach and engagement at health care analytic solutions and services company Geneia, talked with us about the role of wearable devices in remote patient monitoring programs.

HHTN: What role do wearable devices play in health care management?

HERB: Wearables allow for the use of biometric data to be incorporated into existing case and disease management programs to better manage the health of the members participating in these programs. These patients are the highest risk and having this data allows for improved outcomes by reducing cost, and improving quality and program satisfaction.

HHTN: What are some obstacles to broader reimbursement of these devices?

HERB: We have to be able to show a return on investment as we expand out to additional disease states. Using analytics to identify members who would benefit from home monitoring is key to improving outcomes and seeing a return on investment.

HHTN: Do you think we will see broader reimbursement in the future?

HERB: If there continues to be positive outcomes with the use of devices, there will be greater consideration for reimbursement. We need to continue to see improvements in the risk of the population, resulting in lower costs and improved outcomes.

HHTN: Why is this a technology that’s worth reimbursing?

HERB: Technology allows for better use of clinical resources by providing the ability to intervene in a patient’s care when needed, sometimes without even needing to make a visit to the home.

Q&A: Honeywell’s John Bojanowski

July 25, 2017 by Kathy Dion Leave a Comment

‘I can see a more intentional shift from reactive to proactive models’

BROOKFIELD, Wis. – As president of Honeywell Life Care Solutions, John Bojanowski is deeply immersed in the telehealth space. Here are his thoughts on the future of tech-based home health care delivery.

HHTN: How is technology impacting the way home health care is delivered?

BOJANOWSKI: Technology is having a positive impact on home care delivery because of several factors. There is a cost savings associated with remote patient monitoring due to reductions in home visits, improved outcomes and reduced hospital readmissions. Nurses can manage more patients using remote patient monitoring and telehealth technology. Remote/rural patients have increased accessibility to specialists and, in turn, health care systems have increased reach to rural patients through remote patient monitoring and telehealth. The videoconferencing component of telehealth not only makes it possible for the clinicians to see and assess how patients look and react, but it offers the opportunity for a patient’s family members or other caregivers to participate in decision making.

HHTN: What are some of the biggest challenges?

BOJANOWSKI: Rapid deployment and long-term growth; integration with EMR; and reimbursement.

HHTN: What will home health care look like in the next five years?

BOJANOWSKI: Home health care needs to support a more mobile patient population in the future—meeting people where they are with more flexible solutions. I see virtual visits to a care provider becoming the norm instead of in-person clinic visits and this will absolutely need to be supported by telehealth solutions.

HHTN: What do you see as some of the biggest technological advances on the home health care horizon?

BOJANOWSKI: An exciting prospect is that of digital health technologies merging with smart home technologies for better, broader and more scalable remote patient monitoring programs. I can see a more intentional shift from reactive to proactive models—supporting individuals with even more tools to manage their own care and ultimately leading to preventive care instead of chronic disease management.

HHTN: What do you see as Honeywell’s role in the market?

BOJANOWSKI: LifeStream is the foundation of our telehealth offering. It is FDA-regulated, so it is classified as a medical device, and combines technology, training and support services validated during our 15-plus years of experience in telehealth. We know exactly what works—and we can provide the ultimate telehealth experience.

Technology improves compliance

July 18, 2017 by Kathy Dion Leave a Comment

Q&A: Mike Schmidt, president of SoClean

OXFORD, Mass. – Developing a home health device and bringing it to market is not a process for the faint of heart, according to Mike Schmidt, president of SoClean, makers of a CPAP sanitizing device. Schmidt said developing the device took years of research on the market before prototyping of the machine could begin. Here’s what he had to say about the experience.

HHTN: Why is it frustrating/difficult to clean a CPAP machine?

SCHMIDT: Cleaning a CPAP machine is not a simple process, and when people hear this needs to be done daily, or at least weekly, they lose motivation to properly clean their equipment. That’s what makes SoClean so easy—only a one-time installation is necessary, there’s no drying time involved and it’s hands-free. All you have to do is place your CPAP mask in the SoClean’s chamber, close the lid, and go!

HHTN: How long did it take to develop SoClean?

SCHMIDT: First, we worked to understand the market segment. We surveyed potential customers to see what they really wanted in a CPAP cleaning machine. Then it took about eight months to work through prototyping and beta test units, and then another year to get the product that we have now.

HHTN: Why is SoClean unique?

SCHMIDT: After doing extensive market research we knew that if we brought a CPAP cleaner to market that it had to be a set-it-and-forget-it process. Therein lies the challenge—how do you clean everything from mask, hose, reservoir and even the humidification water without taking all the pieces apart? Our team created a product that does just that.

HHTN: What were some obstacles you had to overcome in developing the device, and how did you overcome them?

SCHMIDT: We had to expand market awareness for the need to clean a CPAP machine and compliance with CPAP usage.

HHTN: How is this technology impacting sleep therapy?

SCHMIDT: We know that a lot of people become lax on keeping their CPAP equipment clean because it’s a complicated, time-consuming process. We realized that by making the process a lot easier and faster, people are much more likely to regularly and frequently clean their CPAP equipment. This not only helps prevent illness, but it also helps to keep them compliant with their CPAP therapy.

HHTN: What’s next for SoClean?

SCHMIDT: SoClean is all about helping the health of people and we are developing some new things, as well as introducing products to hospital and lab settings.

Wellframe raises $25M to fuel growth

July 18, 2017 by Kathy Dion Leave a Comment

BOSTON – With $25 million in new funding, mobile-enabled care management provider Wellframe is looking to expand its scope of offerings.

While Wellframe began with a mobile platform for care management and patient engagement, the recent funding will allow the company to explore new technology opportunities and expand its footprint, says Jacob Sattelmair, CEO and president of Wellframe.

“We’ll be looking for tech-enabled transformation collaborations to help our partners re-think their service models and non-clinical resources, focusing on more data-driven outcomes and using that for continuous improvement,” he said.

Wellframe’s platform connects a mobile app for patients with a care management dashboard for clinicians. The platform is fully customizable and built to treat comorbidities and new diagnoses.

Wellframe partners with health plans and at-risk providers to better leverage their care management resources for greater impact by taking a tech-enabled, data driven, patient-centric approach. Engaging with patients has traditionally been telephone-heavy, leading to high costs and high numbers of staff, said Sattelmair.

“The problem is that many people don’t have a land line, don’t pick up the phone, or find a telephone call inconvenient or disruptive to their day,” he said. “We now have a growing number of adults who prefer to engage through mobile technology.”

Sattelmair said that while the company’s success is attracting the attention of more plans, Wellframe will also look to partner with home health agencies who use those plans.

Sattelmair said the company has work to do to change the perspective of care management from a necessary evil to a strategic investment—and a chance to connect better with patients in need.

“We’re trying to enable more diverse channels of communication to really understand how these patients are doing and informing the home health care visits,” he said.

Telehealth survey spurs new telehealth division at MobileHelp

July 12, 2017 by Kathy Dion Leave a Comment

BOCA RATON, Fla. – MobileHelp, an mPERS provider, has used the results of a health care provider survey to create a new telehealth division for home health agencies, managed care organizations, hospitals and accountable care organizations.

“Gathering this data was instrumental in creating the structure for our telehealth business model,” said Chris Otto, senior vice president of MobileHelp Healthcare, the new division, in a statement. “We have been able to bring a telehealth solution to market that not only addresses key provider concerns, but provides additional features and benefits, such as a combined telehealth and medical alert system.”

The new division provides the MobileVitals telehealth solution in combination with clinical dashboard options to help health care organizations achieve better patient outcomes through enhanced patient oversight and reduced readmission rates, according to the statement.

Sixty-five percent of respondents to the survey reported it would benefit their patients to have a medical alert device combined with a telehealth solution.

The survey also found that almost 30% of health care providers have already incorporated telehealth programs into their clinical operations, and 85% of health care providers that are not currently using telehealth services see the benefit and plan to implement such a program within the year.

“We have found the results of our survey to be consistent with what our health care provider partners have shared with us: Telehealth is a means to improve patient access and provider efficiency, especially as value-based care and reimbursement incentives provide a greater share of revenue,” said Otto. “Telehealth solutions are being used increasingly to provide the connection point between chronically ill patients and healthcare providers, and extend the care continuum beyond the traditional healthcare system.”

Lifestyle wearables startup targets insurance market

July 11, 2017 by Kathy Dion Leave a Comment

DANVILLE, Calif. – Opter, a lifestyle wearables startup, is in the final stages of readying its first product for launch and has its sights on the health insurance industry as a future market.

“We definitely see insurance providers as looking to include these devices in their plans to scale premiums based on behaviors,” said Chalisa Prarasri, CEO and co-founder of Opter.

“More and more people say they would use fitness trackers if they were provided by their health insurer. High market adoption is going to happen there, and then these devices will become ubiquitous.”

Opter plans to launch its first product, the Opter Pose, in early fall. Worn as a necklace, the device tracks posture, activities, nutrition, UV exposure, sleep and blue light, exercise and breathing.

The company plans to conduct a crowdfunding campaign to launch the Pose, then use the data collected to raise investment capital that will allow them to bring the product to retail. From there, they will gauge interest from health insurance companies.

“There are direct health outcomes related to the data being collected from these devices,” said Prarasri, who believes that smart devices like the Pose help what health care providers already do in terms of sleep diaries and food logs—but they lower the barriers to adherence to such treatment plans.

“We can treat chronic diseases but it really comes down to how people take care of themselves every day,” she said.

The Opter Pose is the first in the company’s planned ecosystem of Internet of Things lifestyle devices. Other planned devices include a smart coaster that can track the amount of water a person drinks and a smart fork that weighs food and determines micronutrients as it is eaten.

“Everything you do affects your overall health in some way,” said Prarasri. “We’re using technology to help people build habits.”

Prarasri said Opter is currently working with Johns Hopkins Hospital on a clinical trial monitoring post-surgical spinal patients using the Opter Pose to determine how posture and exercise affects their recovery.

Akili adds to executive team

July 10, 2017 by Kathy Dion Leave a Comment

BOSTON & SAN FRANCISCO – Akili Interactive Labs has named Robert Perez as executive chairman. Perez, former CEO of Cubist Pharmaceuticals, has been a commercial advisor with the digital medicine platform company for the past year and will now move into a more official leadership role as the company continues its growth, said Eddie Martucci, president and CEO of Akili, in a statement. The company, which has developed an interactive digital therapeutics interface for neurological conditions like Parkinson’s disease, has also added Glenn Entis and Noah Falstein as executive advisors. Entis is the former CEO of DreamWorks Interactive and Falstein was previously chief game designer at Google. Akili’s Project:EVO platform is currently being evaluated in a clinical trial. The company is building clinically validated cognitive treatments and assessments that are delivered in an action video game interface.

Q&A: Nathan Treloar

June 30, 2017 by Kathy Dion Leave a Comment

‘Voice assistant technologies add another dimension to home health care that other connected health technologies can’t provide’

BOSTON – Nathan Treloar, president of voice-powered health care solutions provider Orbita, sees the potential impact of the power of voice-assisted technolgy and embraces it, along with artificial intelligence and virtual reality, as the future of home health care.

HHTN: What are some of the most innovative ways that voice assistants and artificial intelligence are being incorporated into home health care?

TRELOAR: One example is our project with the Commonwealth Care Alliance, in which voice assistant technology will be used to improve home care coordination for low-income patients with chronic care needs. We’re also working with several partners in the pharmaceutical industry to optimize clinical trials through the use of voice assistant technology to improve adherence and capture patient wellness data through daily assessment surveys delivered through the voice assistant. Additionally, there is considerable interest in voice assistants that engage more proactively with patients in home care settings and beyond to provide things like medication reminders.

HHTN: Will technologies like these replace the human touch in the future?

TRELOAR: I think the role of voice assistants is to supply something approximating a human touch when an actual human is unavailable or otherwise unable to meet the patient’s needs. Having said that, there are situations where a voice assistant can be preferable to a human. For example, it is common for Alzheimer’s patients with short-term memory loss to ask the same question repeatedly and a virtual voice assistant never tires of repeated questions. This is one of the unexpected applications of voice assistants that we’re just now discovering.

HHTN: How is technology impacting the way home health care is delivered today?

TRELOAR: Voice assistant technologies add another dimension to home health care that other connected health technologies can’t provide. Technologies like the Amazon Echo can provide a way for patients to access medical information or message their caregivers, but they can also play a favorite song, deliver a weather update or tell a joke. This touches directly on patient engagement—one of the biggest challenges in health care. Patients who are not engaged in their own wellness are unlikely to adhere to treatment, get well or stay well.

HHTN: What are some of the obstacles to a wider embrace of technology in home health care?

TRELOAR: The health care industry is notoriously slow at adopting new technologies because of questions like who pays for these new technologies in an economic environment where the stakeholders still have conflicting motivations. At the same time, practical realities like limited network connectivity in some patients’ homes is still a challenge, particularly in more rural locations. Finally, voice is new enough that the use cases and patterns of deployment are still being work out. These variables have resulted in many pilot programs, but not yet any significant larger scale deployments in home health care.

HHTN: What will home health care look like in the next five years?

TRELOAR: It’s clear that emerging digital technologies like smart, connected devices, virtual assistants, virtual reality, augmented reality and even more futuristic technologies like brain-to-computer interfaces will play a larger role in home health care. The rate of adoption is the bigger question, but we need only look at the success of voice assistant devices over the last few years to get a sense of how quickly things can change. While home health care is anything but a high-velocity industry when it comes to innovation, we will see these technologies having a big impact on home care much sooner than most expect.

Cricket Health, American Kidney fund partner for patient education

June 30, 2017 by Kathy Dion Leave a Comment

SAN FRANCISCO – Cricket Health, a developer of technology-enabled care solutions for chronic kidney disease patients, is teaming up with the American Kidney Fund, to bring education and support to advanced stage CKD and end-stage renal disease patients.

“Cricket Health’s platform is a great complement to the patient-focused programs and services we provide,” said LaVarne Burton, president and CEO of the American Kidney Fund, in a statement.

Over the summer, 100 advanced stage CKD and ESRD patients from AKF’s patient network will voluntarily enroll in Cricket Health’s online kidney care platform, which connects patients and their loved ones to structured, multi-channel educational content, virtual health care expertise and a community of peers and patient mentors to help them make informed decisions regarding ongoing disease management and treatment options.

These 100 patients are the first large group participating in the platform, which Cricket Health is refining for a wider commercial rollout to providers and health plans seeking a comprehensive education and care management program for CKD and ESRD patients.

At no cost to them, patients enrolled through AKF will have access to education relative to their condition, a virtual kidney care nurse moderating texts and chats and the Cricket Health community of patient peers and mentors.

“As organizations deeply committed to the best health outcomes for the patients we serve, AKF and Cricket Health are logical partners in helping bring technology and patients together,” said Burton.

Cricket Health is a developer of scalable health care technology services designed to transform the care and treatment of people with chronic kidney disease who are at high-risk of progressing to end-stage renal disease.