VerbalCare founder and CEO Nick Dougherty is pretty jazzed this week. It’s not just from the satisfaction of seeing through the launch of an app to improve the patient experience for non verbal patients such as people who have had a stroke after starting his company four years ago. It’s also that five months after it was acquired by Medical Specialties Distributor it has received some positive feedback from a variety of healthcare providers seeking to become early adopters of its communication platform as VerbalCare develops a version of the solution that’s more integrated with hospital care teams.
In a phone interview, Dougherty noted that the launch last week of its direct to consumer model app was one of its quieter integrations but it is already hard at work developing versions of the app that would be more applicable for a variety of patient and provider needs.
The app it launched is designed to help a nonverbal patient reach out to family members. The app can be used from the patient’s bedside. If the patient needs to see a family members, it can use the symbols to summon them or ask for specific things. It currently charges end users a subscription fee of $9.99 per month.
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It’s important that the patient owns their health information,” Dougherty said.
“They can connect with their caregiver an unlimited amount.” But the idea is that when hospitals and other healthcare facilities work more closely with VerbalCare, those facilities will cover the cost.
Asked for a hypothetical example of what a more integrated product would look like, Dougherty factored in supply chain needs.
“Right now you can have VerbalCare say whatever you want by moving the icons around. Let’s say a patient is an enteral feeding patient — eating through a tube.
When he or she starts to run low on the supply you have to order more. As it exists today, if paired with a care manager, they say, I need to order new supplies.
You can have this conversation and it is better than waiting 15-20 minutes on the phone.”
Theoretically, its platform could be used to just press a button to check how many cans of the feeding solution have been consumed. Care managers could also check the app to see how many cans patients are given through a reimbursement structure and the middle man could be cut out.
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“We are integrating the whole supply chain so it makes it a lot more seamless for patients and we’re reducing room for error,” Dougherty said.
He noted that its parent company is all about helping it provide value to customers. “They recognize how challenging it is to coordinate care so to have a platform that surrounds the patient and travels with the patient is of immense value. The opportunities are endless to build in integrations,” he said.
Its focus for much of 2016 will be on its early adopter program. It involves working with a group of diverse provider customers behind closed doors. They include small hospitals and pediatric hospitals, but they also include infusion companies and oncology clinics. Some of the providers have 118 patients and some service 18,000 patients.
Dougherty described the program as part product development, part testing.
Although its goal is to have VerbalCare provider products commercially available by the of the year, realistically that might be more like early 2017.
“It is exciting for us because we really get to see how the ecosystem plays with [VerbalCare].”
