par8o is named after the 19th Century Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, who first defined the powerful economic concept of “Pareto Optimization” in which a system is able to maximize benefits for each and every participant. When applied to the healthcare industry, Pareto Optimization holds the promise of being able to improve overall access to healthcare while lowering costs.
The par8o Healthcare Operating System allows healthcare organizations to optimize their networks of providers and other resources to deliver quality care by applying Pareto Optimization. This approach, and the technologies par8o has developed to implement it, are well-suited to the complex, multi-constituency nature of healthcare because they achieve continuous efficiency improvements while balancing the needs of all parties.
Simply put, par8o helps organizations match the right patient to the right resource at the right time.
Elevator pitch
Much like iOS or Android operating systems that tie together the user experience on your phone, par8o ties together payers, providers and patients to eliminate interoperability excuses to create a simple user experience.
Product/service description
par8o is a venture-backed, EHR-agnostic platform that creates a common point for coordinating care delivery and plan design, a technology that connects providers, payers, and patients. par8o is a cloud-based healthcare operating system enabling all parties to improve care and optimize towards several clinical and business goals in parallel rather than to the detriment of one another. par8o helps clients succeed by applying Pareto Optimization, a powerful economic principle that succeeds because it is well suited to the complex, multi-constituency nature of healthcare. Simply put, par8o helps organizations match the right patient to the right resource at the right time, ensuring that patients successfully transition to the next step in their care.
I continue to find the research and editorial produced by CDW insightful and easy to consume, and I remain a fan of the company’s work, though, honestly I don’t know as much as about them as I do other vendors. CDW is a provider of information technology solutions, including hardware and software, in the U.S. and Canada.
Editorially, other than producing an annual list of the top 50 healthcare blogs (which this site has been named the last two years) CDW operates a massive editorial arm, producing some fantastic publications, including BizTech, EdTech and FedTech, among others.
My point is that the organization knows a good deal about producing great content and editorial, and releasing interesting insights related to top of mind topics – this time healthcare wearables.
Though the following graphic (I’m also am a huge fan of infographics) may be a bit dated, I believe it paints an excellent picture of the current state of the healthcare wearables market and touches on the evolving trend of consumerism in healthcare. The popularity of wearables continues to skyrocket, despite much talk about the market being over saturated and the fact that the data produced by the likes of FitBit, for example, really is not that useful. That said, the wearables market saw and 684 percent increase growth in the first half of 2014 alone.
According to CSW, consumers are not the only fans of health and self-care wearable devices. Physicians, hospitals and insurance companies see the potential of wearables for managing chronic conditions, improving patient fitness and health and reducing healthcare costs.
But, there are still a few wrinkles to work out — data access, accuracy and privacy among them. The following infographic offers a bird’s-eye view into why this year’s wearable sales are expected to be just the tip of the iceberg.
In this series, we are featuring some of the thousands of vendors who will be participating in the HIMSS15 conference and trade show. Through it, we hope to offer readers a closer look at some of the solution providers who will either be in attendance – with a booth showcasing and displaying key products and offerings – or that will have a presence of some kind at the show – key executives in attendance or presenting, for example.
Hopefully this series will give you a bit more useful information about the companies that help make this event, and the industry as a whole, so exciting.
Elevator Pitch
Curaspan offers effective and efficient solutions to help automate and standardize the care transition process, ultimately improving quality of care and financial outcomes through the use of care transition software.
About Statement
Curaspan is a provider of patient-transition solutions that help the top healthcare providers nationwide manage all aspects of transition planning. Its best-in-breed solutions automate transition of care workflows to create efficiencies and reduce process variation across networks of providers. With a secure platform for collaboration between providers and the analytics necessary to optimize performance, Curaspan’s solutions are the foundation for initiatives like ACOs, HIEs, value-based purchasing and other evolving models of care and reimbursement.
Founder’s Story
Curaspan started with a broken hip. When co-founder Tom Ferry’s wife’s grandmother broke her hip, the family quickly discovered that managing the transition from the hospital to a nursing home was far more difficult than anticipated. An experienced banking industry executive, Tom decided to create software to facilitate the process by automating the most laborious aspects—referring to the model as the “Travelocity for healthcare transitions,” Tom founded Curaspan in 1999. By 2001, Curaspan was the first company in the industry to automate the patient transition process and, as of this year, the company handles more than 20 percent of discharges from U.S. hospitals.
Guest post by Dean Wiech, managing director, Tools4ever.
No matter the industry, each time a purchase is made, business leaders always want to know what they are getting in return for their financial investment. Questions frequently asked include: “How is this going to help me?” and “What is my return on investment?” Another phrase, often uttered by “Mr. Wonderful” Kevin O’Leary from the popular show Shark Tank is, “What am I getting for my investment?”
By examining the answers to these questions, business managers and organizational leaders must ensure that their budget is being adhered to and that purchases by the organization are considered, or proven, not to be a “waste” of money.” Often, return on investment (ROI) is a combination of both “hard” and “soft” costs and savings, which can often be difficult to determine. The “hard” cost is easy to define: What am I spending now versus what will I be spending on a different product, solution or system, or by doing nothing? Alternately, how is this solution going to allow me to save money in the long run? In this scenario – “hard” costs and savings — there is a definitive dollar figure that is able to be applied to implementing a solution.
“Soft” savings are a bit more of a complex issue; they are more difficult to determine and to document. For example, time and labor saved, or stress saved by employees completing a task that takes 10 minutes versus 35 minutes are soft savings. Soft savings also might be seen in improvements in customer service or in the customer experience. It is difficult to put a dollar amount on these scenarios and improvements, but they do impact a business, its success and its financial performance.
Time is money, of course, but in the case of healthcare perhaps it’s more fitting to say that “time is life.” This savings equates to valuable potential life-saving time, as we well know, and, in turn, improves patient care. As healthcare organizations seek ways to allow clinicians the ability to focus more on patients rather than on information technology, there are some solutions available — many that that are often overlooked that allow them to reach their goals. Some of these technology solutions provide a direct correlation between a physician’s ability to enter an information system, retrieve or enter information and get back to focusing on patient care. Essentially, with these types of solutions, like access and identity management, physicians can get back to work more quickly and their interaction with the technology is reduced.
In this series, we are featuring some of the thousands of vendors who will be participating in the HIMSS15 conference and trade show. Through it, we hope to offer readers a closer look at some of the solution providers who will either be in attendance – with a booth showcasing and displaying key products and offerings – or that will have a presence of some kind at the show – key executives in attendance or presenting, for example.
Hopefully this series will give you a bit more useful information about the companies that help make this event, and the industry as a whole, so exciting.
Elevator Pitch
A leader in healthcare data management, BridgeHead Software is addressing the constraints of the traditional vendor neutral archive (VNA) with HealthStore, the first independent clinical archive (ICA).
About Statement
With 20 years’ experience in data and storage management, BridgeHead Software is trusted by over 1,200 hospitals worldwide. Today, BridgeHead Software helps healthcare facilities overcome challenges stemming from rising data volumes and increasing storage costs while delivering peace of mind around how to store, protect and share clinical and administrative information.
BridgeHead’s Healthcare Data Management solutions are designed to work with any hospital’s chosen applications and storage hardware, regardless of vendor, providing greater choice, flexibility and control over the way data is managed, now and in the future.
Services and Products Offered
BridgeHead HealthStore, is the first Independent clinical archive (ICA) for long-term storage, protection and sharing of hospital data. A modular solution built on top of the BridgeHead Healthcare Data Management (HDM) platform, BridgeHead HealthStore enables hospitals to standardize access to key elements of the patient record while simultaneously freeing them from dependence on any single system to locate the information.
The Louis W. Sullivan Institute for Healthcare Innovation, which is dedicated to distribute health information technology innovation to transform quality and efficiency of healthcare delivery worldwide, announced the release of “A Year in Review: An Update on the 2013 WEDI Report & Roadmap for the Future of Healthcare Exchange.” The industry report evaluated public and private stakeholder progress in critical areas of focus.
The 2013 WEDI Report, the first roadmap for healthcare information exchange produced by WEDI since 1993, provided a framework for the next generation of healthcare information exchange designed to lower healthcare costs, improve healthcare delivery, and achieve better healthcare outcomes. In the past year, the Louis W. Sullivan Institute for Healthcare Innovation has monitored those stakeholder efforts to drive improvements through technology and data exchange, and has produced a progress report on those initiatives, which can be found here.
The initial report identified four key areas of focus and 10 related recommendations that would advance healthcare information exchange. Summarized below are assessments of how industry has performed in each of the core focus areas:
Patient Engagement
Progress rating = Green
Although the industry has lagged in driving improvements in health IT literacy, there has been continued momentum in patient information capture and patient identification. Private sector efforts, combined with a new federal vision and roadmap for health IT, are deemed to be on pace in meeting WEDI recommendations.
Payment Models
Progress rating = Yellow
Over the past several years, new payment models have leveraged technological advances to rapidly iterate, evolve, and scale across the country. However, models such as ACOs have yet to fully mature, and their success and sustainability remain uncertain – particularly in light of the mixed performance seen in 2014. A framework of core attributes and technological functionalities has yet to be developed and the industry needs further directed efforts to achieve the recommendations outlined in the initial report.
In today’s concierge economy there is an increasing number of things available on-demand at our beck and call. TV shows and movies, car services, local dining hot spots, even directions, are all accessible at the ready. With the proliferation of voice commands, typing has even been removed from the equation in certain instances. Patient portals aren’t quite there yet but the consumerization of IT has forever changed user expectations and unfortunately, left many industries struggling to catch up.
For the healthcare industry specifically, it’s been a hard pill to swallow as organizations have gone after the various government incentives offered through the HITECH Act. As those organizations have found out, the trail from paper-based records to fully digital portals can be a long and weary journey, but if the lofty consumer expectations can’t be met, the impatient patients will rear their ugly heads and make meaningful use requirements an even more elusive prey. The good news is that there are ways for healthcare organizations to make their patient portals seamless and efficient without having to develop an extravagant user experience that is on par with an Apple operating system.
When developing a patient portal, first and foremost, ease of use is of the essence to minimize the time needed for patients to accomplish tasks. Patients have very short and finite attention spans that are easily surpassed if they have to jump through too many hoops. Stage 2 meaningful use requirements included secure messaging, the ability to access and download electronic information, reminders sent for preventative and follow-up care, and general education materials.
These are all very basic tasks, but the parallel consumer experiences are incredibly user friendly, fast and intuitive. The key point to make is that the majority of patients really only need one of those criteria met for patient portals … speed. If patients can get what they need quickly, they are often satisfied. It’s not a social network, it’s a tool, so building patient portals with speed in mind is key to driving the patient engagement percentages required to meet the meaningful use standards. Given that so many of these processes are document heavy, streamlining the document viewing process is a key piece of the pie.
That document viewing part of the puzzle centers on the fact that patients benefit if only one method is needed to view the multitude of documents used in the healthcare realm. Records, prescriptions, X-rays and charts; the list goes on and on, not to mention the different digital formats in which the documents are often stored. Add to that the complexities involved when different organizations have different approaches to creating and storing these documents and the potential for complications and problems starts piling up quickly. Unfortunately, the place where all of these complexities converge is the patient. Portals need to be able to handle all of these document types with ease and again, quickly. HTML5 technology is a huge boost to this process as it enables browser-based document viewers to be easily integrated into patient portals. This means that any patient with an Internet connection and a standard browser can easily access any of their documents. There is no need for additional software downloads, such as Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat or even an image viewer, which is often the last straw for patients before giving up on the system completely.
Representing more than 5,000 app companies and information technology firms, ACT | The App Association is widely recognized as the foremost authority on the intersection of government and the app economy. In addition to drafting best practices, guidelines, and FAQs to help inform app companies about new legal obligations, ACT | The App Association hosts conferences, bootcamps and workshops to provide developers the resources they need to ensure compliance.
As the only organization focused on the needs of small business entrepreneurs from around the world, ACT | The App Association advocates for an environment that inspires and rewards innovation while providing resources to help its members leverage their intellectual assets to raise capital, create jobs, and continue innovating.
Here, Morgan Reed, executive director of the organization, discusses its goals, the app economy, how ACT | The App Association works across mobile health, innovations in the space and what’s likely to come in the year ahead.
What are the biggest barriers to entry for new health IT companies?
Morgan Reed
We have a “cascading” problem in the mobile health space right now. Regulatory guidance hasn’t kept pace with the rate of innovation, which has led to care providers being worried they will be exposed to liability, or will be providing services that aren’t covered by health plans.
It’s this fear and uncertainty that keeps hospital systems, independent practices, and individuals from adopting new technology, leaving care providers and patients to suffer as we wait for all the pieces to catch up.
What is ACT | The App Association doing to address issues facing mobile health companies?
ACT | The App Association is spearheading an effort to bring updates to outdated health privacy laws with a group we recently launched called the Connected Health Initiative. This coalition of leading mobile health companies and key stakeholders urge Congress, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to adopt policies that encourage mobile health innovation.
How is ACT | The App Association working with Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services to bring clarity to the outdated regulatory environment facing mobile health companies?
Most recently, ACT | The App Association and a number of our member companies, all of which are part of the newly formed Connected Health Initiative, called on Congress to bring much needed updates to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). We outlined changes needed from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to ensure HIPAA fits better in today’s mobile world.
Specifically:
Make existing regulation more accessible for tech companies. Information on HIPAA is still mired in a Washington, D.C. mindset that revolves around reading the Federal Register, or hiring expert consultants to ‘explain’ what should be clear in the regulation itself. Not surprisingly, app makers do not find the Federal Register to be an effective resource when developing health apps.
Additionally, there are limited user-friendly resources available for app developers, who are mostly solo inventors or small groups of designers – not large companies with the resources to easily hire counsel or consultants who can help through the regulatory process.
Proposed solution: HHS must provide HIPAA information in a manner that is accessible and useful to the community who needs it. The agency should draft new FAQs that directly address mobile developer concerns.
par8o is named after the 19th Century Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, who first defined the powerful economic concept of “Pareto Optimization” in which a system is able to maximize benefits for each and every participant. When applied to the healthcare industry, Pareto Optimization holds the promise of being able to improve overall access to healthcare while lowering costs.
Curaspan offers effective and efficient solutions to help automate and standardize the care transition process, ultimately improving quality of care and financial outcomes through the use of care transition software.
The 
Representing more than 5,000 app companies and information technology firms, 