HealthChampion, a digital health analytics company and creator of the world’s first consumer-driven health platform, today announced it is offering free access to its new COVID-19 tracker with symptom assessment. Since the explosive spread of the novel coronavirus across the world, HealthChampion has been focused on leveraging the full power of its platform to help American businesses and individuals manage and maintain their health during this crisis.
HealthChampion is now providing free access to its remote health monitoring and management platform which allows users to track and monitor COVID-19 symptoms such as body temperature, coughing and shortness of breath. The tracker also conducts daily symptom assessments over a 14-day period, the incubation time of the coronavirus. People who are self-isolating or sheltering-in-place can also use the app to:
Track symptoms for peace of mind – early detection is critical, especially for high risk individuals.
Share vitals and health information with family members and provide remote care for loved ones.
Connect with lab results and digital health records across a variety of sources for a complete view that can be shared with care providers and family.
“Since the outbreak, HealthChampion has been working around the clock to adapt our solutions to help Americans respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, monitor for symptoms and foster optimal health,” said HealthChampion CEO Terrence Ryan. “In addition, we are also committed to providing resources to the essential business employers and employees serving us all on the front line, whether in our grocery stores and warehouses or hospitals and senior care facilities.”
In addition to supporting the health of the general population, HealthChampion’s COVID-19 offering is uniquely tailored to support essential businesses (those that people rely on in everyday life) during the crisis. Employees of these businesses can use the secure, personal app to manage their family’s health, while employers can easily file required COVID-19 health reports, through HealthChampion’s employer platform. The app allows essential businesses to:
Engage employees through HealthChampion’s free mobile platform to track symptoms
Enable different levels of data sharing to fit company needs and employee’s comfort level – to ensure the right action at the right time
Enable employees to share with their family to help reduce stress
“HealthChampion was founded on the belief that our best weapon is our own healthcare data. This crisis has heightened the urgency to give people control of their own health data and put it to work to protect their well-being and that of their families,” said Ryan.
5G is on its way, promising high-speed internet access to everyone, everywhere. But how will increased connectivity impact overall security? Cybersecurity companies in the healthcare industry are working to effectively secure hospital networks and medical devices against hacks and vulnerabilities, but as technology like 5G becomes ubiquitous, more and more devices will have additional — and often unnecessary — connectivity features, thus creating more potential for vulnerabilities and breaches. Taking a proactive approach to cybersecurity is the solution we need to see more of in 2020.
In 2020, I expect there to be a significant push on price transparency to help patients (and providers) align more on the actual cost of services. This will help patients know what they are getting into before services are rendered and help providers secure payment prior to any procedures being performed. There has been an upward trend on this in the urgent care space, but I expect there to be an major expansion in 2020 with many other types of healthcare providers.
The tools available in the market, which will gain great adoption in 2020, will help to not only estimate costs, but will also help provide financing options for patients. These financing options often come with high interest rates, but give patients the ability to get the services they need today. With high deductible health plans continue to gain market share, patient out of pocket costs will continue to rise in 2020. Healthcare providers can no longer afford to wait for these funds after the fact, as patients take longer than the average insurance company to pay their bill.
Therefore, providers will be eager to secure payment before services are rendered in an effort to combat this new challenge they haven’t dealt with until recent years. With higher patient responsibility these healthcare providers have seen higher bad debt write-offs than ever before. The struggle providers are facing as more and more patients can’t afford to pay their bills is battling the thought of sending patients to collections and/or firing patients from their practice.
In 2020, providers are going to have to set stricter guidelines, collect more money at the point of service, offer financing options, and give greater financial transparency to patients (and themselves) before providing services. This opportunity is ripe for more healthcare technology companies to come in with price transparency and financing technology, coupled with patient engagement tools. These tools will help providers both engage patients and secure a form of payment to limit write-offs and increase collections.
Without this, we will continue to see more patients turned over to debt collections and even more patients filing for bankruptcy, due to their healthcare care costs getting out of hand. Healthcare technology companies in this space can help alleviate this issue and reduce the burden to both healthcare providers and patients.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data Solutions – platforms that aggregate large amounts of patient data, like EHRs/EMRs, will continue to partner with leading AI companies to combine the massive amounts of patient data with other analytics and capabilities to help monitor and treat populations. Digital health management will expand beyond chronic disease management to become a mainstay in the general population.
People will continue to adopt the right technology for their health goals and use digital health management to navigate their healthcare journey. Femtech will continue to expand aggressively as the female population looks to help manage every aspect of their health with both in-person and digital resources.
