Episode Details

3:11- Kent talks about how he got from top secret military work to healthcare, specifically remote monitoring of biometrics.

5:11 - Lessons from 9/11, monitoring vital signs and stress levels via biometric headsets. And how to transmit this information back to the cloud from a technology perspective. Hones in on cell phones.

6:00 - Working with McKesson to do a small pilot for diabetes patients and the Navaho indian reservation. Began to focus on the 15% of people consume 80% of healthcare cost. Found that the trick to ROI is to align the technology solution to these high-risk patients. But that’s hard because the people who most need the technology are probably the least likely to use the technology: elderly, indigent and either are intimidated or can’t afford the technology or will attempt to use the technology in a way that doesn’t contribute to their health, like downloading games or selling the device in a pawn shop.

8:40 - First hope was to monitor people in their disease to identify people who are likely to wind up in the hospital or in danger of their disease exasperating to the next level.

9:00 - Use of monitoring devices in heart failure, for example to avoid hospitalizations.

10:50 - Chasing efficacy, alignment of reimbursement of physician incentives and the latest technologies. Constant pursuit of the right solution to try to engage patients at the right cost and the right incentives to doctors.

12:30 Stakeholders most interested in technologies like this are those financially responsible for the patient, especially those interested in capititated cost. One of the most effective, and the most costly ways to improve outcomes is to have a skilled nurse work with patients. The least costly is if the patient can use their own device to monitor themselves, but this is also the least compliant. So need to find a solution in between. “one solution doesn’t fit all.” Need to figure out what fuels people to engage them and keep them as high compliant as possible and keep them out of the hospital or ER.

14:45 - How the MedApp solution walks the middle line between cost and effectiveness. This solution is designed for the 15% of the market that consumes 80% of the heath resources. It needs to be simple, transparent in the background, ubiquitous. It can’t require extra steps. Humans don’t work any other way. An example of how Kent’s scale is automatic and transparent this way.

19:05- with this 15% patient population … the plan is not going to know which phones or technology their patients are using. And also have to be careful that the devices are not “hockable.” The unit needs to be “dumb” but highly autom