Better follow-up care and higher profits for medical suppliers may sound like a fantasy in an age of spiraling medical costs and lower insurance reimbursement, but medSage Technologies of Pittsburgh has found a way to make this a reality.
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| Founded in 2002, medSage has brought together a talented team of professionals from the home health care, software and medical device industries committed to solving problems for home health care providers. |
medSage has developed and commercialized a revolutionary interactive voice recognition technology that allows the home medical equipment provider to monitor their patients' conditions and supply levels more effectively and efficiently.
"As a nation, we need to figure out how to provide better quality health care at a lower cost," says Bob Crouch, CEO of medSage. "Automated technology like ours meets this growing need."
medSage, a BFTP portfolio company, uses its voice-recognition technology to stay in contact with more than 75,000 patients who are in-home customers for sleep apnea products, respiratory medication, orthotic stockings and other equipment.
Helping People — and the Bottom Line
"This is not a typical computer call," says Bill Kaigler, founder and president. "We ask 8 to 10 questions specific to each patient, document them, and provide them to our customers for follow-up action — which could include sending more medication or notifying the doctor if there are serious issues with the patient."
medSage gives its customers valuable supply replenishment information and product feedback in a timely manner. Patients benefit by staying supplied and having their condition monitored more consistently. Doctors, who can't possibly keep tabs on all their patients, are informed as needed of changes in patient status.
"We provide a tool to help our customers market more effectively and increase profits — all while raising the level of care for each patient," Kaigler says.
A Helping Hand
As medSage has grown the past two years, BFTP has been there to help, providing valuable intellectual assistance. "The Ben Franklin assistance goes way beyond the dollars," Crouch says. "They've helped us with job candidate searches and provided invaluable assistance in thinking through our strategy, processes and overall operations as we scaled up."
Now that the complex technology platform has been developed, specific applications can be developed more quickly. "We believe our model can be applied to any high-volume business that benefits from a more personalized approach — from appointment reminders in doctors' offices to political polling."
A medSage telephone survey usually begins with "clinical questions" that flag potential problems — such as morning headaches in sleep apnea patients.
A flag triggers a notification to a therapist so professional followup can take place. Next come the "compliance questions" to determine if a patient is using the medicine or equipment as prescribed.
Here, serious health risks such as improper use of medicine can be flagged. Finally, supply levels are assessed through replenishment questions.
"Timely contact with patients is a powerful tool," Crouch says. "medSage is providing, for the first time anywhere, a unique tool that does this in a highly efficient, economical and personalized manner." To patients, medSage itself is invisible. "The voice, the personalization, the questions — everything about the call itself—is coming from the provider," says CEO Bob Crouch.
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An Untapped and Growing Market
With $1 million in fresh funding — $200,000 directly from BFTP — medSage is expanding services and developing an application for the diabetes market. With diabetes, where daily blood sugar testing and insulin injections are essential, patient monitoring is a critical component of quality care.
Unfortunately, the standard monitoring process is labor-intensive, time consuming and cost prohibitive. "Our application server stores all the information regarding the patient — when they were last called, their specific protocol and so on," says Kaigler. "We upload the data into our voice server, which launches the calls, gets the information and then it drops it back into our server."
In cases where the system flags a serious issue, medSage pushes that information back to the provider, who has the option of calling the patient and, in serious cases, the doctor.
A Model for Success
Crouch likes the fact that medSage has great potential for profit while serving a greater good. "At the same time we are helping our customers be more efficient and profitable, doctors are getting timely information about their patients," he says. "We are improving healthcare by providing timely supply replenishment and by reporting changes in clinical status that require professional follow-up."
The medSage system also provides timely feedback to customers about products and services. For example, a company that manufactures two sleep apnea masks may learn that one has a higher level of patient complaints.
"Previously, the feedback manufacturers received came from limited data or through very expensive, labor-intensive market research. The truth is, more feedback ultimately leads to better products and better health care," Crouch says.
From the September/October 2005 issue
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