iMPak Health

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May 27, 2013 Issue

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iMPak Health’s Low Cost, Easy to Use Mobile Health Solution Empowers Individuals to Better Assess, Track and Manage a Variety of Health Conditions with Easy Integration into the Health System Workflow for Physicians

About iMPak Health

www.impakhealth.com

Our health experts and technology innovators work together with a common purpose – to design mobile health solutions that empower individuals to better manage their health.

For the last few decades much of the emphasis in health information technology has been on facilitating operations and improving patient care through tools like electronic health records (EHRs). It is only in the last few years that we have seen growth in technologies that engage individuals in actively managing their own health. The advances in wireless and mobile applications have made technology more personal and subsequently we are seeing health technology move in the same direction.

 
At iMPak Health, we believe in the power of the individual. Our low cost, easy to use mobile health solutions are designed to help individuals assess, track and manage a variety of health conditions including sleep, weight, asthma, COPD, heart health and others. The data collected can easily be shared with their physician for a complete personal health management solution.


Sandra D. Elliott

Executive Director, iMPak Health, L.L.C.

And Corporate Director, Consumer Technology and Service Development

Meridian Health

 

Sandra Elliott is the Executive Director of iMpak Health, L.L.C. a health technology startup funded by Meridian Health. In addition to day to day operations, Sandra is also responsible for product development, strategy, and market development for iMPak Health.  In addition, she also has responsibilities as the Corporate Director Consumer Technology and Service Development with Meridian Health where her role is to develop new technology based services and business ventures targeting population segments such as the boomer and aging populations which was the genesis for iMPak Health. She has been instrumental in defining opportunities to work with innovative companies and begin to understand how home or person-based technology can be integrated into a health delivery system. Sandra has been a national speaker and published many articles in developing opportunities for growing business in publications such as Trustee Magazine, Journal of Healthcare Financial Management, FutureAge, Hospitals and Health Networks, and the Health Strategist.


Healthcare

Cloud devices

 

iMPak Health
1350 Campus Parkway
Neptune, NJ 07753

732-751-3475
www.impakhealth.com


iMPak Health
 Print Version


 

Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published –  May 27, 2013

 

CEOCFO: Ms. Elliott, would you tell us the concept of iMPak Health?

Ms. Elliott: Our core focus is developing extremely easy to use, low cost devices that patients or consumers can use to better manage their health. To create long term value in those devices, we are also intent on making sure that we can integrate it easier into the health system workflow for physicians and hospitals as they exist today while building for the emerging transformation of healthcare in the future.

 

CEOCFO: Would you give us a concrete example of what the company is working on today?

Ms. Elliott: We have a medication compliance monitoring device that has the ability to track and trend compliance with the medication schedules. It is a small, pocket worthy device that patients can take with them anywhere. The device time and date stamps anytime the patient opens the device to remove their medication. All data is stored in the device until it can be wirelessly uploaded either through a mobile phone, tablet, PC or even a small wireless hub that sits in the home. The data is transmitted to the “Cloud”, where rules engines are used to understand how well the patient is maintaining their medication schedule or if they may need to be reminded to take the medication. The device also has the capability of alerting the physician’s office or whoever if the patient has been noncompliant with their medication for a period of time. We are trying to support physicians in their efforts to better manage their patients’ health by creating an infrastructure that helps physicians know when they really need to reach out  need to reach out to their patient population to provide assistance and or appropriate interventions.

 

iMPak Health is fully owned by a traditional multi-hospital, non-profit health system in New Jersey. “Our day to day job is taking care of patients.  We realized that we needed to think outside of the traditional hospital or clinic walls tto come up with better solutions to support physicians and the community in managing overall health and wellness”. One of the things that became clear to us was the need to evaluate how technology could enable us as a health system to connect with patients differently. In looking into available technology being deployed in healthcare, we found many problems. From different technologies and devices that were not interoperable to patients simply not wanting to use them because they were overwhelming or made them feel sick, there just didn’t seem to be a solution we could really get behind and start leveraging in our patient populations. Our next step was to start looking at the consumer electronics industry as a source of inspiration….an industry where people buy and use technology. How could we leverage that learning into something that could ties back to what is important to manage a chronic condition…that was our core challenge.

 

Armed with a new type of market knowledge, we engaged our clinical staff to really nail down the key elements to manage a chronic condition. In order for patients and physicians to know if a condition is being managed, there are three important data elements. We term it the “cycle of care.” The cycle of care has three major components: symptoms, vital signs and medication adherence. As a clinician, if you can know when a patient is becoming symptomatic but nothing critical is coming up in their vital signs and they are not 100% compliant with their medication, the action taken might be very different that with a patient who is compliant with their medications. It may be more encouragement and coaching so that the patient understands how important taking medications are to managing their symptoms. We have electronic health journals that are the size of a 4 x 6 photo with embedded technology enabling us to ask questions. Information is stored in the card and wirelessly, through smart Bluetooth technology, the information is transmitted to the Cloud as well here rules engines are used as well. It is simple to use regardless of age or technological prowess. One of the main problems health systems have is with managing chronic conditions in older patients. We are bridging the gap in understand how we can leverage technology for an older generation and still be able to digitize the information to monitor symptoms. The journals are flexible because they can be created to monitor different types of conditions, whether it is congestive heart failure, diabetes, pulmonary or cardiovascular disease.

 

CEOCFO: Where are you in the development of these devices?

Ms. Elliott: We have developed electronic journals, a couple of vital sign devices and the medication management device. They are available today with the exception of the vital sign devices which require FDA approval. We are piloting various technologies and products right now in many different settings and different use cases.

 

CEOCFO: What is the strategy for placing products on the market?

Ms. Elliott: Our strategy is to have healthcare organizations purchase the devices from us and they will utilize the devices to manage their patient population.

 

CEOCFO: Is the medical community on board?

Ms. Elliott: We have been talking to people around the world and everyone knows it is coming. The biggest challenge for many organizations developing products within this space is understanding the need for practical applications and the ability to integrate the devices or products into the system’s workflow. I have seen the disjointedness of everything. So many companies are coming up with products, but they have not figured out how to get people to use them or integrate them into a clinician’s daily workflow so that it is easy to deploy and implement.

 

CEOCFO: How have you ensured that the devices are user-friendly?

Ms. Elliott: When we develop the product, we put it in the hands of the consumers or patients of different ages and use cases. We watch how they respond and interact with the devices and embed the end user into the design process across different kinds of patient populations and use cases.

 

CEOCFO: Would you tell us about Emmett?

Ms. Elliott: Emmett is a character we created to engage kids in learning at an early age healthy behaviors. From a character perspective, we then created a storyline and a small companion book focusing on getting kids on the move. There is a nice story behind it and the next one will be a continuation on how to manage anxiety. We focused on the story and Emmett first and retrospectively understood how we could take our existing products and create fun around them. It has been an interesting process and we are finalizing an online game capability. 

 

CEOCFO: Where are you in the production of products? Will you be able to ramp up production? 

Ms. Elliott: We have all the production capabilities in place and it is only a matter of time. We can absolutely ramp up quickly.

 

CEOCFO: What are the next steps?

Ms. Elliott: The next steps for us is the process of rolling out pilots and research studies to understand how the mixing and matching of products can move the needle on healthcare costs and outcomes. In 6 months, we will begin translating those findings into white papers or journal publications.  

 

CEOCFO: Is iMPak Health funded for the next steps or will you be seeking additional partnerships and funding?

Ms. Elliott: We are funded for the rest of the year and currently in the process of looking for strategic partners and capital to grow. From a health system perspective, even though we are a separate company, our intent is to find the right partners so that we can strategically take this to a bigger national and international footprint. We understand that it will require a different level of skill set and capital to achieve.

 

CEOCFO: Why should iMPak Health stand out as a company to investors and the business community?

Ms. Elliott: One is that no other company in the medical device space understands on a day to day basis how healthcare truly works. We know what is really important in taking care of patients and supporting clinicians in that effort. We know how to integrate products and services; the best use cases for different products and services as well as how to make money from a care perspective. We are developing from the ground up based on what we know that is appropriate to manage patient populations with a twist of innovation along the way. There are not many health systems that are being that aggressive on how to figure out how to crack the healthcare cost nut in such a way that makes sense. You are not going to find another organization that is approaching their problems the same way we are. We have to solve the health care cost and chronic condition management problems; our own long term stability is based on figuring it out. If we can find the solutions to the problems for us, there is a huge market with the same sort of problems looking for alternatives.

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“Our day to day job is taking care of patients.  We realized that we needed to think outside of the traditional hospital or clinic walls tto come up with better solutions to support physicians and the community in managing overall health and wellness”.- Sandra D. Elliott

 

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