Not many healthcare entrepreneurs can reference negotiating $2 billion oil service contracts in Iraq on their resume, but Cyrus Maaghul is a little outside of the box. He’s also founded and sold a couple of ecommerce companies. But his most recent role is founder and CEO of global telemedicine collaborative startup PointNurse. In an interview with MedCity News, when asked if he’s been able to call on any personal insights from his experience in Iraq for his current role, Maaghul answered this way.
“I learned not to react to situations, I increased my emotional intelligence quite a lot. I learned to be patient, and not be intimidated.”
Although nurses make up a big part of the healthcare resources the company calls upon, the emphasis is on collaboration with other healthcare professionals including doctors, specialist nurses, RNs, nurse practitioners and social workers.
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The current version of its service is a retail platform in which consumers pay about $20 to ask questions of registered nurses. The company continues to be in talks with how some payers and providers will use its platform. It currently has 60 nurses in its network.
“Essentially it is an outsourced platform or platform-as-a-service,” Maaghul said. “It would include nurses and doctors interested in becoming more actively involved in the community.”
Its members connect with consumers and patients seeking live consultations, disease management, remote monitoring and diagnosis. It will work with payers and health systems around the globe seeking collaborative telemedicine and home health model solutions.
Another component of the service is that consumers would have access to a personal health record contained in a wallet that they could give permission for their doctor and family members to access.
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At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
Although nurses are involved with telemedicine there are relatively few companies that give them a high profile. Those that do tend to focus on home health services.
PointNurse recently became the first healthcare startup and one of five companies to join Swarm, an incubator/crowdfunding group based in Palo Alto that uses BitCoin technology. Swarm raised $1 million last year and set up an incubator for startups using blockchain technology.
