mHealth Apps: Evidence-Based Analysis at the Point of Care

In part two of a four-part interview series with mobile health (mHealth) app developers, Healthcare Informatics Associate Editor Gabriel Perna speaks with Jack Olexy, co-founder and vice president of information technology of eDoc4u.

The app, which was chosen by Allscripts (Chigaco, Ill.) as one of the 15 finalists for its open app challenge, provides evidence-based clinical analysis at the point of care for both patients and physicians. In a population health management environment, the information this app can provide is critical to closing the gaps in a patient’s care.

If eDoc4u wins the Allscripts’ app challenge, it will take home a $250,000 prize. The app will be judged on usability, integration, ease-of-installation, and other facets. Below are excerpts from the second interview in this series of four. Part 1 can be found here.

eDoc4u; Jack Olexy, co-founder and vice president of information technology

eDoc4u

1) Explain what your app is and what it does?

The eDoc4u’s NCQA [National Committee for Quality Assurance] certified Automated Physician Extender aims to enhance clinical productivity, lower costs (at delivery and in the back office), and improve compliance among high-cost, chronically ill patients, and provide a personalized, automated follow-up programs for patients.  The app automates health risk assessments, and integrates this health risk assessment information with evidence-based clinical analysis at the point of care.  It gives patients measurements of their risks for preventable diseases, recommendations for preventing/managing chronic diseases, and personalized health programs with action plans.  It aims to help providers identify care gaps, and improve patient outreach by automatically tracking and managing a patient’s progress, participation, compliance, and satisfaction.  The app also can help providers transition to value-based care incentives, including P4P [pay for performance] reimbursements for quality and performance improvements.”
 
2) What was the inspiration behind this app?

Drawing from its success with employer population health management, eDoc4u wanted to provide clinicians with new services that extend beyond traditional EHR [electronic health record] functionality to engage patients in their ongoing health and behavior, and make an impact on the communications between patient and clinician in a closer, more trusting environment. We wanted to automate the Medicare health risk assessment; deliver new evidence-based solutions at point of care, save time in patient encounters and the back office, improve quality and efficiency of the encounter, better engage patients, increase patient compliance, and deploy mobile devices; reducing nurse visit calls. It’s an effort to improve patient satisfaction; and support patient-centered medical home [PCMH] initiatives.

 3) How do you envision clinicians using this? (Either directly or indirectly if it’s a consumer-based solution)

eDoc4u’s platform looks to extend the physician’s clinical, financial and quality capabilities with patient engagement and outreach, and integrates with Allscripts’ platform. For example, the platform will automatically identify top patient cost drivers (those with gaps in disease management care) within a practice and message / engage them in ongoing education and disease management tasks.  It will then notify clinicians of patient activity via the task notification process, as well as share patient specific disease prevention recommendations, Medicare health risk assessment conclusions for those over 65, health awareness program status to the EHR for clinician review.  This process reinforces the patient / clinician relationship leading to increased health outcomes, increased clinician revenue and decreased healthcare costs. 

4) If this data uses PHI, how does it safeguard data for HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] regs?