The CEO of Smartlink Mobile, a mobile health company that’s the sister business of care coordination software provider Infina Connect, thinks there is a lack of patient-driven communication tools. Pocket HealthNet is a mobile tool designed to help communication by patients so they can schedule physician appointments and query lab test results from doctors, among other things. It is designed to help patients initiate contact with clinical and administrative units of a healthcare practice.
Smartlink has raised $2.3 million, mostly from private investors, to support product development along with a sales and marketing campaign. It’s all to support PocketHealthNet, a Pocket HealthNet is positioning its communication tool not only as a patient-facing tool, but also as a way to help healthcare providers and clinics make the transition from manual phone-based communication to text-based communication. For example, providers can push clinically relevant information to a group of patients or to an individual, send reminders for appointments and preventive medicine, and respond to patient requests, according to a company statement.
Siu Tong, Smartlink CEO and founder, said in a phone interview that the technology would be particularly useful for accountable care organizations. “If you think about traditional patient engagement solutions, they focus on pushing information from doctors to patients.” He also said that patient portals have been slow to gain adoption because each EHR vendor has a different way to communicate. “It’s still easier for a patient to just pick up the phone than it is to manage multiple sites and login credentials.”
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