Health IT
Patient Engagement Starts with Making Appointments
ZocDoc is a free online service for patients to book doctor and dentist appointments instantly – and we wish more doc offices used it!
ZocDoc’s mission is to improve access to healthcare. The service currently offers patients the ability to book appointments with clinicians in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco and Washington DC.
Patients benefit because they can avoid the hassle of waiting on hold, or wondering whether a doctor takes a particular insurance. Participating doctors and dentists benefit by attracting new patients, and alleviating the productivity lost from last minute cancellations by filling those available appointments with ZocDoc patients. (Source)
ZocDoc, a New York-based four-year-old start-up raised $50 million from DST Global last week. DST Global is the investment vehicle of Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, who had made early bets in Facebook, Zynga and Groupon. ZocDoc is its first health-related investment. Milner joins another billionaire investor who’s become a mini-expert, Peter Thiel. His Founders Fund put up $15 million last summer. Others include venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff, and SV Angel’s Ron Conway. This brings the amount of money ZocDoc has raised to $70 million, one of the largest in health IT.
ZocDoc’s business is refreshingly simple. Patients can schedule doctor appointments online for free. Doctors pay $250 a month for the service. The key is creating more revenue for the physician; Massoumi says his automated scheduling software is more efficient than a receptionist and most of his clients add at least two new patients per month which makes up for the monthly fee.
“We’re the fastest growing health technology company,” says Massoumi. He won’t disclose the number of doctors signing up, but 700,000 unique patients per month use ZocDoc in 10 cities so far.
Massoumi, a 35-year-old former McKinsey & Co. consultant, co-founded ZocDoc in 2007 with Oliver Kharraz, a neurologist who also worked at McKinsey. Massoumi had flown from Seattle to New York with a bad sinus infection which punctured his ear drum upon landing. It took him four days to find a Ear Nose & Throat doctor through his health insurance web site. He found out that it typically takes 20.5 days to see a new doctor, and that physicians had a 10% to 20% cancellation rate. “I thought there had to be a better way,” he says. If restaurants and airlines could automate booking, why couldn’t doctors? (Source)
Posted under: Health IT
Advances in Mobile eHealth; Coming to a Car, Home, Person Near You…
Four out of five practicing physicians use smartphones, computer tablets, various mobile devices and numerous apps in their medical practice, according to a new report from Jackson & Coker.
The report, titled “Apps, Doctors and Digital Devices,” presented the results of several recent studies that investigated the use of smartphones, mobile computing devices and a wide variety of software apps by physicians in different specialties.
The report cites recent studies that pointed out the practical value of integrating the latest digital hardware and software into healthcare delivery. It’s not surprising that so many practitioners are relying on iPhones, iPads and other computer tablets – as well as downloading a myriad of apps – given the growing movement toward “digitizing as much of the health care process as possible,” the report notes.
The study also addresses security and privacy concerns associated with honoring HITECH and HIPAA protocols. As a crucial preventative measure, some hospitals require medical staff to limit software use to read-only access to patient information while prohibiting storing such information.
As digital devices put more critical information in the hands of physicians, “the potential applications are virtually limitless,” it concludes.
(Source)
Consider The Following Studies Concerning The Increasingly Rapid Move Toward Mobile Health:
- The U.S. mobile health industry is expected to grow to $4.6 billion in 2014, more than triple its value just five years earlier, according to a 2010 report from consulting firm CSMG, a Boston-based consulting firm.
- According to Manhattan Research, the number of physicians who own smartphones will increase from 64% in 2009 to 81% in 2012. As a result, software vendors that want health care providers’ business will increasingly need to offer their services on mobile platforms such as phones and tablets.
- More than 500 million smartphone users will be utilizing mobile health applications by the year 2014, according to the Global Mobile Health Market Report 2010-2015, a study from research2guidance, a Berlin, Germany-based market research firm that focuses on the mobile marketplace.
(Source)
Does E-Health Stand a Remote Chance?
Advancing technology—the availability of faster and more reliable networks, wireless devices, high-definition digital images and video, and the ubiquity of mobile devices—is creating a foundation for a system of virtual healthcare where neither patient nor caregiver need be in the same place—or even in a clinical setting at all. And the programs are rising in popularity: In the 2011 HealthLeaders Media Industry Survey of technology leaders, 46% of respondents said they have one or more telemedicine programs in place. Another 41% say they’ll have one in place in one to five years.
Call it telemedicine, telehealth, e-health, mobile health, m-health, or remote healthcare, some predict that using technology to deliver care over a distance will improve access, ease physician shortages, create new revenue streams and increase volume for healthcare organizations by expanding market reach, and improve quality of care.
(Source)
On The Mental Health Horizon…
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced it is awarding up to 29 new grants, totaling up to $25 million over three years, to expand use of health information technology to increase access to behavioral health services.
This program will leverage technology to improve access and coordination of the treatment of mental and substance use disorders especially for Americans in remote areas or in underserved populations. Web-based services, smart phones, and behavioral health electronic applications (e-apps) will enhance communication between patients and health care providers to improve discussions about treatment options and decisions, and better manage health.
(Source)
Not All Mobile Devices Are Driving Distractions…
Ford Motor Company is ready to demonstrate its new in-car health monitoring systems at this week’s Wireless Health 2011 conference in California.
Researchers said in a statement that they’ve created the glucose monitoring, allergy notification, and diabetes and asthma coaching apps they promised earlier this spring. The systems are integrated in the company’s Sync vehicle.
The systems use Bluetooth to connect drivers to cloud-based Internet services, and to allow voice-activation and control for drivers.
Posted under: Health IT
LAUNCH OF HHS’ Campaign“Putting the ‘I’ in Health IT”
Helping Consumers Be Partners in Their Own Health
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) knows that patients are asking themselves, “How do I manage my health information?” (Source)
ONC recently announced a Consumer e-Health Initiative to equip and empower individuals to be partners in their own health and health care through health IT.
The primary goal is to help patients become more involved in their medical care before they potentially experience a health crisis.
The program will focus on three major areas:
- Access, which involves patients viewing medical records, identifying any mistakes and understanding discussions about their health care;
- Action, which involves encouraging patients to interact with their health information using tools such as smartphones, cellphones and other devices; and
- Attitude, which involves encouraging patients to be more actively engaged in communicating with their physicians.
The campaign uses stories to showcase how consumers and health care providers are partnering to use health IT to improve health and health care. The campaign is being implemented by the National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC). NeHC is a public-private partnership that enables secure and interoperable nationwide health information exchange to advance health and improve health care. National eHealth Collaborative’s stakeholders include government agencies, health systems, health professionals, academic medicine, patient and consumer advocates, major payers and employers, non-profits, technology providers and others. (Source)
To access NeHC’s “Tools”:
There are many stories discussing how patients are becoming advocates in their own medical care, reaching out on the internet for information. This article illustrates how the Mayo Clinic used social media to find and engage chronically ill patients for the purposes of clinical research.…”When Patients Band Together…Using Social Networks To Spur Research for Rare Diseases; Mayo Clinic Signs On”
Posted under: Health IT
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