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Medullan's March Newsletter: Increasing Access to Primary Care – Medullan’s work with Health Care 360
03/25/2009 - Medullan is passionate about applying technology to develop innovative solutions that will help transform the US health care system. We have a track record of working closely with early stage companies and entrepreneurs to help define and shape these solutions. Health Care 360 is one such impactful and promising endeavor.
Client Feature: Increasing Access to Primary Care - Medullan's work with Health Care 360.
What is Health Care 360
Internist and proponent of the Health Care 360 initiative, Ron Dixon, MD, believes that good primary care delivery is both technology-enabled and relationship-based and with the two combined, the paradigm of care delivery can be changed. The purpose behind HC360 is to make primary care more accessible, to improve communication between patient and physician and to bring value to the system by reducing visits.
At the heart of HC360 is a medical kiosk – a networked tabletop machine for patient data collection. The current prototype is a 2-foot-by-4-foot Windows-based machine. It poses questions to patients about their dietary and exercise habits and the patient uses a touch screen to submit information. The kiosk gathers vital signs via a number of integrated peripherals -- a blood-pressure cuff, a weight scale, a pulse oximeter to measure blood oxygen levels, a peak-flow meter to determine whether someone's airways are constricted and a blood-testing device to measure cholesterol and glucose levels. While the current version requires a trained assistant to do the finger stick for blood collection, future versions will be automated.
Dixon envisions the kiosks placed in supermarkets and stores, at retail medical clinic drugstores, and even at corporate sites. Customers could step up to a kiosk, key in their password-protected information, answer questions related to their personal health history, and then get their checkup. The results would go to a provider who then analyzes the data and sends a message back to patient via e-mail or text messaging regarding next steps. It could determine whether current medications are doing their job, whether a particular treatment is working or changes need to be made or whether a more in-depth exam is necessary.
While other healthcare kiosks and remote screening devices do exist, Health Care 360 is unique in that it will be able to deliver immediate results for its tests. The interface has been optimized based on Dr. Dixon’s own research, and the device is considerably smaller than other kiosks.
Partnering with Medullan
Medullan was introduced to Dr. Dixon through CIMIT, Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, and the work began in mid 2007. “They were a partner of CIMIT and I was paired with them as my ideas were very conceptual at the outset” says Dixon.
In phase I, the goal was to bring concept to reality. Through in-depth interviews, Medullan drilled down and created patient storyboards and graphical illustrations that exemplified the concept and helped showcase the ideas at conferences and presentations.
In phase II, the goal was to develop a working prototype of the kiosk, Medullan helped formulate the technology strategy and scope, performed user experience design, and developed wireframes for the touch screen kiosk. This phase involved a cross functional team of individuals to address the funding, business model, device integration, clinical aspects and more. Medullan facilitated workshops, helped synthesize plans for the prototype, and contributed to the development of the prototype.
Though the prototype is complete, the collaboration continues -- Medullan is helping develop Health Care 360’s long term technology strategy. Dr. Dixon, states that Medullan’s process, technology expertise, and strong network have made them an extremely valuable asset in HC360’s progress.
“Early stage innovation is about process and people. Medullan has a great process and the staff are unbelievably good at extracting the meat from ideas and turning them into something tangible that can be the springboard for larger investment of resources.” - Ron Dixon, MD
What are its Benefits
HC360 is meant to reduce the time and cost of health screenings or routine doctor visits — especially for patients with chronic health conditions. It could enable doctors to intervene earlier in chronic disease and avoid costly hospitalizations. It will also help efficiently screen for and monitor chronic diseases among people who typically don’t go to a doctor unless they are sick.
Placing such kiosks in doctors' offices could streamline the process and completely change primary care for both patients and their physicians, by reducing wait times for patients, and time spent by providers in coordinating tests and managing information. It could allow doctors to focus primarily on patients who need personal attention. Ronald Dixon hopes his kiosk will do for doctors' visits what ATMs have done for banking.
What’s next for HC360
In June, the U.K. National Health Service will do a test deployment of Health Care 360 in stores and other public spaces in Britain as part of a newly established vascular screening program to prevent cardiovascular disease, stroke, and heart attack. The U.K. is an ideal testing ground because it has a nationalized health-care system: everyone has an assigned primary-care physician and electronic health records, so the infrastructure for sharing and responding to the results is already in place.
Highlights from the 2009 Transforming Healthcare Summit
by Peter Mueller, H.I.L. Forum Advisory Board member
Medullan was one of the sponsors for the recent HIL Forum event, "Transforming Healthcare Summit 2009: Impact and Opportunity in the Obama Plan". The event was held on Feb 26th at the Seaport Hotel in Boston. Over six hundred people were in attendance. The summit showcased an overview of expected impact of new administration healthcare policy on the healthcare industry from James Roosevelt, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of Tufts Health Plan and member of the Obama Presidential Transition Team. Other speakers and panelists included Charlie Baker, President and CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, Jonathan Bush, co-founder, President and CEO of athenahealth, Valerie Fleishman, Executive Director of the New England Healthcare Institute and John Glaser, PhD, Chief Information Officer of Partners Healthcare.
Within a few square miles, Boston boasted the collaboration of national leaders in technology, life sciences, healthcare, information technology, public policy, and academia. The Summit enabled a dialogue between these different parties around making health reform policies successful, effective, and actionable.
Social media played a critical role in the conference development and framework, demonstrating ROI in building momentum and buzz through viral marketing, and shaping the dialogue through attendee input. The Summit was deemed a top Twitter trend as the event was live Twittered and blogged, picking up pockets of followers across the country. Numerous healthcare leaders guest blogged their perspectives on healthcare reform, healthcare-related issues in the Stimulus Bill, and other topics central to the evening's discussion on the run up to the event, and a LinkedIn group was created for attendees to connect with each other online and continue the conversations started that evening.