In the health care tech space, most of us are trying to solve the same fundamental challenges: help people stay healthy, ease the burden on caregivers and reduce costs for the system as a whole.
At myFamilyChannel, we now have a new solution that accomplishes all those objectives: myDoctorChannel.
Like myFamilyChannel, myDoctorChannel uses the technology that is generally most familiar to seniors – the TV – but to achieve different end goals. While myFamilyChannel focuses on keeping seniors entertained and engaged with friends and family as a means to reduce social isolation, myDoctorChannel focuses on helping to meet seniors’ care needs.
Telehealth programs have demonstrated themselves an invaluable tool for patients, care providers and payers. They’ve been shown to reduce hospitalizations by nearly 50 percent and 30-day readmissions by 75 percent, while driving down care costs by more than a third.
Dr. Praveen Arla, Chief Medical Officer and longtime practicing physician, sums it up best. He says myDoctorChannel is designed to address “the last mile” of patient care, after they’ve left a medical facility or physicians’ office, in three main areas:
- Health maintenance, such as preventive care screenings;
- Routine medical needs, such as medication management; and
- Acute care, such as helping seniors manage chronic conditions and connecting them with the appropriate medical professionals.
The platform integrates with medical devices (to screen for metrics such as blood pressure or oxygen levels), physicians’ offices (to share the assessment and screening information it collects) and pharmacies (for medication refill and delivery). myDoctorChannel also gathers health data by prompting seniors to take quick surveys or answer pop-up questions while they’re watching TV.
“There are many quality measures that need to be met and physicians have trouble gathering that data at point of care,”Dr. Arla said, citing things like depression and falls screenings or incontinence measures. “We make it fun and engaging. And once the data is collected, the ultimate goal is to get it back to the physician or health plan – wherever it needs to go.”
“We make it fun and engaging. And once the data is collected, the ultimate goal is to get it back to the physician or health plan – wherever it needs to go.”- Dr. Arla
With data breaches becoming increasingly common in recent years, privacy and security were at the forefront of the process as we developed myDoctorChannel. The cloud-based system is powered by Amazon Web Services with the world’s strongest encryption technologies, and it is fully HIPAA compliant. This allows family members, physicians, insurers and patients to communicate freely while keeping protected health information, well, protected.
The technology is currently being piloted with a nationwide rollout set for early 2020.
“We knew myFamilyChannel would be a powerful communication tool that seniors actually enjoyed using,” said company founder and CEO Todd Smith. “myDoctorChannel is the next iteration of that technology and expands its usage in a way that we’re confident will strengthen families and improve lives. We can’t wait to see the impact it has.”