The telemedicine market is shaking up the healthcare industry as a result of the growing geriatric population coupled with rising prevalence of chronic diseases, dearth of healthcare professionals worldwide, improvements in telecommunication infrastructure and need for affordable treatment options due to rising healthcare costs are some of the factors expected to propel the growth of the telemedicine market in the coming years. These are all factors that experts believe will propel the industry past $64 billion within five years, according to a report published by ResearchandMarkets.com. Telemedicine takes advantage of advancing innovation in communication technology that is permitting healthcare professionals to provide cost-effective healthcare, supervision, reduce the need for physical appointments while increasing efficiency of healthcare practitioner’s time. Active companies in the healthcare industry include: Reliq Health Technologies Inc., Medical Innovation Holdings Inc., Teledoc Inc., Tenet Healthcare Corporation, Community Health Systems Inc.
Reliq Health Technologies, a technology company focused on creating innovative mobile health (mHealth) and telemedicine solutions for Community-Based Healthcare, is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with True Life Home Health LLC in Texas to provide Reliq’s iUGO Care chronic care management, remote patient monitoring and telemedicine platform to their over 2,000 home care clients. This contract will generate over $1,200,000 USD in recurring annual revenue at full deployment. Patient enrolment will begin in February 2018. In total, Reliq now has contracts in place to provide its iUGO Care platform to over 50,000 patients, representing over $30 Million USD in recurring annual revenue at full deployment.
“We are very pleased to be working with True Life Home Health to deliver high-quality care to patients in the home,” said Dr. Lisa Crossley, CEO of Reliq Health Technologies, Inc. “Reliq’s iUGO Care remote patient monitoring system efficiently collects sophisticated health data from patients in their own homes. Our secure, cloud-based care collaboration platform provides the clinical care team, patient and family members with real-time access to patient health information including trends over time. This helps the care team identify patients whose condition is becoming unstable and intervene early, before a serious complication develops. Patients and their loved ones are able to clearly see how compliance with prescribed medication and lifestyle changes affect the patient’s health status, improving patient engagement and patient-and-family-reported satisfaction. The iUGO Care virtual care platform was designed to reduce readmissions and improve health outcomes. Our technology allows patients to receive high-quality care from the comfort of their own homes, reducing the cost of care delivery and increasing patient and family satisfaction.”
“True Life Home Health is committed to providing high-quality care to complex chronic disease patients in the comfort of their own homes,” said Sonia Anciso, President. “We are excited to be working with Reliq Health to support our care providers in their day-to-day workflow, freeing up more time for patient care. We feel that incorporating cutting edge technologies like the iUGO Care platform will help True Life improve health outcomes and reduce overall healthcare costs.”
True Life Home Health is certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The company offers home care from qualified health professionals as well as telemonitoring services to connect patients with their care team from the comfort of their own home. True Life Home Health’s caring and qualified healthcare providers are committed to supporting patients and families who are coping with chronic conditions like Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Diabetes, recovering at home from surgery or injuries and seniors who are ageing in place.
In other healthcare industry developments:
Medical Innovation Holdings Inc. has announced its future development efforts will include blockchain technology. The Company understands today’s methods of protecting patient medical and financial data that is continually threatened by ‘digital assassins’ dedicated to finding weaknesses in systems for the purpose of stealing sensitive data and/or holding companies’ hostage for return of data. This environment cannot continue to exist. MIHI sees blockchain, an immutable ledger of information that can be permissioned, shared and trusted, as a key part of the answer to solve these critical weaknesses. The Company recently announced its endeavour into the Health Care Sharing Organizations (HCSO) marketplace and has determined the systems necessary to best capitalise and manage this marketplace will be blockchain-centric. The Company expects other faith-based and ethics-based sharing organisations to incorporate the MIHI Blockchain Platform where appropriate security and exchange of data is a requisite to ensure patients, providers and payers are all able to benefit from this technology platform. This will make for a more efficient movement of secure data, resulting in lower transactional costs of moving data across a worldwide network. MIHI plans to release an initial version to support its own operations and then later migrate the application to allow third-party sharing organisations to utilise the platform under a transaction fee arrangement.
As information moves to patient portals that allow universal access to data across disparate medical systems in hospitals, physician offices, insurance companies and employers, blockchain technology will enable the patient to finally be at the centre of their care model and thereby providing them with the best system to provide protection and create trust between elements of their care continuum.
Teladoc Inc. has recently announced the commercial availability of its integrated mobile app experience. Members can now benefit from a single, patient-centred point of access to answers for a wide array of medical needs, as the app combines the high frequency care services traditionally provided by Teladoc, along with the expert specialty medical and second opinion services of Best Doctors. Following the successful limited release to select clients in Q4 2017, the integrated app is now commercially available for all joint Teladoc and Best Doctors’ current and future clients. “The integrated mobile app is foundational for Teladoc as we have redefined virtual care delivery and are providing our members and their families with a better way to navigate their individual care journey. With an approachable, simple-to-navigate experience and a curated set of services, we are enabling members to get answers to a range of health needs, empowering them to make smarter decisions and ultimately improve their healthcare outcomes,” says Dan Trencher, SVP of Product and Strategy for Teladoc.
Tenet Healthcare Corporation has announced it’s completion of the sale of its Philadelphia-area acute care hospitals and related operations to American Academic Health System, LLC (AAHS), an affiliate of Paladin Healthcare. Tenet and Paladin Healthcare previously announced the transaction on September 1, 2017. The facilities included in the sale are Hahnemann University Hospital, St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children and other hospital-affiliated entities, including physician practices. Tenet received net pre-tax proceeds from the transaction of approximately $152.5 million in cash and a secured promissory note for $17.5 million.
Community Health Systems Inc. is one of the largest publicly traded hospital companies in the United States and a leading operator of general acute care hospitals in communities across the country. The Company, through its subsidiaries, owns, leases or operates 127 affiliated hospitals in 20 states with an aggregate of approximately 21,000 licensed beds.
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