If you want to get a better sense of the amount of patient data used in the development of Futura mHealth’s COPD app, SmartScope, to reduce readmissions for the chronic condition, you have to go all the way back to 2006.
That’s when Dr. Gerard Criner of Temple University Hospital began using a palm pilot to collect the data from patients as part of a grant awarded by the state to improve quality of care and outcomes. He developed questions such as the color of their sputum, consistency, etc. and collected 4,000 patient days of data. He developed an algorithm to determine the likelihood of an infection that could trigger an attack.
COPD is accompanied by a strong risk for readmission, something that happens in about 22 percent of cases.
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In an interview with MedCity News Futura mHealth CEO David Gulian said it sees three strengths of the app: Criner’s clinical data, the art of the application –how it’s delivered and its ability to improve the compliance rate. The company also has the experience to support it. Futura mHealth was launched by Futura Mobility about one year ago. Futura mobility has been in the healthcare space since 2001 and has worked with 1,800 hospitals in the U.S.
“We have never seen anything out there in the marketplace that had the clinical data associated with it,” said Gulian.
The SmartScope has a patient facing version that asks users a set of questions daily and the answers are transmitted to physicians. A second version calculates those answers using an algorithm and suggests treatment to help the caregiver. The latter application will be submitted for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval at the end of this month. The idea is to flag up patients with signs of infection who would be at risk for an attack.
Gulian said it’s encouraged by the app’s market potential for accountable care organizations. It plans to use the platform technology developed for SmartScope app for other chronic conditions. He added that accountable care organizations see it as a great tool, especially given the focus on outcomes based care and bundled payments.
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It also sees benefits for payers because the technology holds the potential to reduce premiums. The amount of big data generated by the ongoing pilot studies of the platform technology could also be useful to pharmaceutical companies.
