History

The health care industry is fractured, inefficient and buckling under the pressures of increasing demands across its entire value chain.  System inefficiencies range from 30-90%. Critical resources are often dramatically underutilized, and sometimes virtually wasted. Doctors are frustrated. Patient safety issues are skyrocketing.  Baby boomers are beginning to enter their peak demand years. We have a huge problem, which translates into opportunity for those who see it. 

A macro view of both medical technologies and communications technologies offers an intriguing perspective.  Within these two landscapes we find a powerful, inevitable, and yet largely untapped confluence of trends: 1) the miniaturizing and distributing of medical testing technologies, 2) the rapidly increasing power of ubiquitous wireless telecommunications, and 3) the increasing use of Internet portals for highly secure online banking, e-commerce, and other confidential uses.     

At the intersection of these trends we see a unique opportunity to improve the quality of our health care system.  Using wireless telecommunications, the Internet, and proven miniaturized medical testing technologies, basic health care functionality can be extended beyond the traditional venue of hospital rooms, doctors’ offices, and testing labs.  Doing so will provide health care consumers and their care providers with better access to current, vital patient data.  This, in turn, will create a pull-through market mechanism to drive essential change in today’s health care industry. 

State-of-the-art telehealth systems are conceptually lacking in their overall functionality.  These systems are usually tethered to a wall for electrical power, and voice or data communications. Those systems that offer some degree of portability are only functional for very short distances relative to a proprietary base station receiver (3-10’ for Bluetooth, or 50-300’ for Wi-Fi).

We developed a mobile, handheld, consumer-oriented personal health monitoring system that:

  • Extends basic health care functionality beyond the hospitals, offices and labs into an ever-present wireless environment with Internet connectivity, making care providers more efficient and increasing our health care system’s capacity
  • Equips health care consumers with the ability to generate and monitor their own medical data as it flows into a secure web portal that they, their advocates, and their chosen care providers may access to collaborate on the best course of action
  • Creates a pull-through market mechanism that equips health care consumers with the tools they need to make better health care choices, and to communicate more efficiently with their health care providers regarding their treatment options.

With the HRSI system, consumers and care providers develop a much clearer understanding of health status. At the same time, the system enables users to travel about freely while experiencing a much greater sense of security.  The result is increased capacities, lower costs, higher service quality and greater consumer satisfaction.  Initial focus is on the chronic health conditions of Diabetes, Cancer, Congestive Heart Failure, and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.  

This is a concept whose time has come. HRSI’s novel combination of medical, IT, and wireless telecommunications technologies, and the corresponding business model make it all possible, now.

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The next generation of healthcare information systems must record data from the patient and the care provider in data repositories that are accessible to both. Remote health monitoring is a critical component for connecting the patients with each of their care providers and leverages the efforts of those providers. This can result in a win- win deal for physicians, patients, and healthcare payers: better monitoring and easier data collection for physicians; better care and less travel and headaches for patients; and less expense for payers.

The personal health monitoring system also assists the needs of healthcare delivery organizations to streamline their operations and maximize their capacity to cost‐effectively serve more patients. Furthermore, unlike other information related systems typically found in the care providers’ office, the cost of the personal health monitoring system is borne by the patient themselves or their payer.

ForVida TM would enable the doctor’s practice to more efficiently serve a larger number of patients at a lower operational cost, thereby increasing the practice’s profitability. Therefore, the ideal initial market entry point for testing and promoting HRSI’s personal health monitoring is with physician practices. Once test pilot programs prove the capability, reliability and overall value of the HRSI personal health monitoring system marketing program will be developed to sell the product directly to consumers.

Patent Pending Technologies

HRSI has three patents pending related to the use of broadband wireless data routers (software modified cell phone devices) and their associated software, for collecting, routing, and storing remote monitoring telehealth data. All three patents are employed in its proprietary ForVidaTM personal health monitoring system. Expanding this to international patents is not too expensive (approx. $15k‐20k), and must be done within one year of the original patent application. HRSI plans to expand these patents to become international within that one‐year period.

Unique Industry Opportunity

As stated before, the Deloitte 2008 Healthcare Consumer Survey states, “Consumers are highly receptive to devices and self‐monitoring systems that permit them to monitor their own health condition and care at home.” This same Deloitte survey estimates that over $2 trillion was spent on healthcare in 2007 making it one of the largest industries in the United States, and the study also states that this sector is expected to double to $4 trillion in the next five years. HRSI is at the right place at the right time…with the right product…and the right execution team ‐ this industry will grow substantially in the coming decade.

The tremendous inefficiencies in the healthcare industry ‐ in excess of 30% in some areas of healthcare services ‐ provide an extraordinary opportunity to reduce costs. The projected savings that will be realized from implementing Telehealth services is $160 billion, annually. At the same time, these same services will actually improve patient outcomes by providing doctors and patients alike with up‐to‐date accurate information for assessing patient health and determining appropriate treatments; not to mention savings for the environment by reducing trips to the doctor’s office.

Services like the ForVidaTM personal health remote monitoring system are one of the critical components of the telehealth market. Forrester Research anticipates the growth rate in

Telehealth to reach the high double digits level sometime in the first half of the next decade, growing from $5 billion in annual revenues in 2010 to over $35 billion by the year 2015.

http://mobihealthnews.com/5816/wireless-health-year-end-report-2009/