Teledermatology has been growing as companies venture into telemedicine specialties but now telewound is making inroads into mobile healthcare. The idea is to snap a few images at regular intervals so doctors and nurses can keep an eye on the healing process and be alert for any decline in the patients’ condition.
Healogram presented its service as one of Blueprint Health’s sixth accelerator class graduates this week. It is part of a wider trend of digital health companies using pictures to track subtle changes in a patient’s condition.
In an interview with Healogram cofounder Peter Jackson, the CTO said the company envisions the app to be used in two care settings. The first is a tertiary care setting, after the patient is discharged. The idea is that by keeping physicians updated with pictures, it negates the need for patients to visit in person.
It could also be used for home healthcare. The idea is a specialized wound care nurse would visit the patient regularly and snap pictures of the wound. The Wound, Ostomy, Continence nurse provides support for more complicate cases.
“Both of these are bundled payments,” Jackson said. “It’s designed to add value to existing appointments. The physicians get paid to stitch the patients up, but they don’t get additional payments for follow-up care.”
The company i currently working with Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Partners Healthcare at Home. It’s raising $500,000 to boost its clinician level to 200.
He added: “We are presenting this as a tool that doctors can use as they see fit,” said Jackson. Long term, the company sees additional applications for mobile monitoring for burn recovery, orthopedics and through biometrics to collect oxygenation and glucose levels. “We would [eventually] like to become a platform for remote monitoring.”
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Several companies use smartphone pictures to track recovery. Captureproof is one. It goes beyond remote monitoring and lets physicians use images and videos gathered by users for consults and to share with patients’ electronic medical records. But several teledermatology companies do this too, such as Iagnosis, IDoc24, DermatologistsOnCall, and DermLink.
