A group of doctors frustrated by interoperability gaps for EHRs and software developers who craft digital health records with little concern with what’s important to physicians have taken matters into their own hands. They launched Health-e-MedRecord to produce a series of electronic health record overlays with patient health records designed to fix communication gaps where patient information and treatment are concerned.
Its first product set for launch in June is a tool to facilitate handoffs from emergency room physicians to outpatient settings. Another part of it is designed to provide patients and their families relevant information for their care.
The companies will offer a preview of its first health IT product at HX360 as part of the upcoming HIMSS conference in Chicago.
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
Dr. Carlo Reyes, the co-founder and CEO of Health-e-MedRecord, explained the need for the product in a phone interview with MedCity News. “The problem today is that healthcare is disjointed.”
Reyes, has served as a clinical professor at UCLA Medical School for the past 15 years. He has also served as the
vice chief of staff at Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, California and trained as a lawyer. The company is a subsidiary of Health-e-law, according to its website.
The company is currently fundraising, but declined to go into details.
“All of our company’s investors are physicians who want to help doctors improve care,” Reyes said. “Our core belief for the company is we need to create solutions that help physicians take better care of their patients.”
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.
He added: “It is amazing that hospitals still rely on fax machines to receive patient records.” He cited a survey published about three months ago, which noted that only 12 percent of outpatient doctors share patient records with inpatient doctors.
He explained that although the blue button initiative has worked well in the public sector, in the private sector, there’s a feeling that there’s a gap in which doctors are not provided with the right tools to take care of patients and that patients don’t have as many tools as they need.
Although it is still fine tuning its business model, the idea is that customers will be hospitals and hospital networks.
It plans to eventually roll out versions of the communication tool/personal health record for nursing homes and extended care facilities that can be shared with patients and their caregivers. Another would be designed for first responders.
[Photo credit: People Connect from Bigstock Photos]
