What I learned at Health 2.0 NYC

• Rip Road and text connectivity’s appeal. This is the firm responsible for Mount Sinai’s ‘Text in the City’ adolescent health and Partners HealthCare prenatal text programs. Texting not only has great relevance to a younger group, but has appeal that cuts across all ages, demographics and phone types, is HIPAA compliant and not a budget buster. President and founder Eric Leven’s strong presentation begged the question–why aren’t more providers doing this right now? Or are we in the field so in love with smartphones that texting ain’t cool enough to use right now?
• ClickCare and doctor/clinician/patient connectivity. This is a platform (mobile and desktop) started in 1995 by two doctors which essentially is a virtual doctors’ lounge where physicians can easily collaborate on patient results and share images. It also permits other clinicians and (in a limited fashion) patients and families to see information. Business model is a $99/month per license subscription. Business Development VP Angela Speziale presented.
• Perhaps most important in potential to telehealth providers is the overlooked concept of ‘transitional care’. Amaji’s Ben Spivey described the critical inflection point where the patient is being discharged from the hospital on ‘the bubble’ as requiring more than traditional home care–the need is in-home primary care. This comprises in-home visits (usually by mid-level providers) who manage rather than simply monitor patients; coordinated home visits and ancillary services such as routine outpatient visits, home nursing and home telemonitoring services, enabled by Amaji’s fully interoperable EMR. Here is a role for technology combined with care management and provider support. And some eHealth providers are now getting it. Honeywell HomMed, which many of us know as strictly a hardware provider–its latest being Genesis Touch–has combined services like Amaji, Ascend HIT and Verizon Wireless into LifeStream Partners.

Other presenters were Spain’s Kanteron Systems (open source digital imaging, including 3D imaging superimposed on the body prior to surgery); Fluent Medical (gaps in clinic workflow, CancerLife (patient support online network) and Fresh Digital (in hospital patient education).

Finally, Health 2.0 NYC head organizer Alex Fair is moving forward a ‘kickstarter’ for early-stage funding in eHealth…more on this when it happens!