Two of the critical challenges to the successful adoption of patient-centered healthcare are, ensuring patients’ adherence to prescribed medication management and remotely monitoring patients’ chronic conditions.
Medication adherence means taking the right mediation in the right dose at the right time, resulting in better outcomes. And, monitoring chronic conditions, such as, blood pressure remotely means reduced costs of emergency and hospital admissions/readmission.
The advent of mobile health technology, from text messaging to wearable devices, gives physicians more power in assuring compliance and effective monitoring. And with a lucrative market that not only includes physicians but also health plans, caregivers and large businesses, vendors are showing up on the doorstep with a wide array of new ideas.
Among them is Woodbridge, New Jersey based iPatientCare, known for its decade-long leadership in serving more than a hundred million lives annually by deploying its awards winning Electronic Health Record (EHR) on a national level.
miPatientCare, the mobile iPatientCare product suite for care providers and patients both, has emerged as first-of-its-kind, cutting-edge product suite that represents disruptive innovation and a game-changer. It is an independent, vendor-agnostic suite of apps on mobile and wearable devices, such as, tablets, smart phones, glass, watch etc.; designed for helping healthcare providers (physicians’ offices/groups, hospital/health systems, health clinics/centers etc.) to engage patients actively in managing care for better health, improved care coordination and reduced healthcare costs.
Udayan Mandavia, President/CEO, iPatientCare revealed very encouraging results from two of its pilots conducted by physicians’ group practices, one in Michigan and another in New Mexico. The Group in Michigan sought to improve adherence to diabetes medications management and the one in New Mexico implemented remote monitoring of geriatric, hypertensive patient population using miPatientCare.
“We are one of the pioneering innovators in mHealth, known for our cutting-edge mobile point-of-care solutions implemented by the US Army, Department of Defense, hospitals/health systems, and thousands of physicians. These recent pilots utilized iOS based devices, Google Glass, and Androidware based smart watch because we believe, mHealth is already poised to take a giant leap in enhancing patient care. We need more committed physicians’ offices, rural health clinics and hospitals/health systems to implement them enthusiastically”, said Udayan Mandavia.
Kedar Mehta, CTO, iPatientCare, added, “miPatientCare implementation at these pilots resulted in significant reduction in hospitalization, and hence, desired cost-savings. Another most significant outcome of these pilots was the fact that patients felt empowered and in direct control of their health because of wearable and mobile devices that relayed timely alerts/reminders, allowed them to request refills anywhere anytime, and facilitated capturing and reporting blood pressure readings on near real-time basis to their care providers. More and continuously engaged patients saved time while waiting for their providers appointments, and additionally, less frequent visits to care providers.”
Providers appreciated efficient care to targeted patients and prompt decision-making based on right information-on-the-right-patient, and additionally, increased financial rewards from Federal incentives and pay-for-performance for meeting thresholds set for engaging patients.
