Hospice and home health might not always be the first areas of healthcare that conjure up technological disruption, but Konnact Bloom, a Portland-based startup, is looking to change that notion with its mobile EMR.
The company, founded in 2012, was recently awarded a $1 million innovation grant from the Oregon State Coordinated Care Organization to use its EMR in a pilot with Oregon hospitals on chronic disease management, after having begun with three of the Northwest’s biggest hospice organizations over the last 18 months.
Tapping into the hospice setting wasn’t easy given the different, more personal care delivery practices, spokesman Rajeev Krishnan said, but the market is ripe for innovation. While hospice and palliative care might not come with the same complications of, say, hospital readmissions, issues like medication tracking and dosages are a key part of the process. Digitizing that element, and the work flow for providers, can have a measurable impact for the patient and the healthcare organization.
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“We learned a lot about the challenges,” Krishnan said. “The challenges may be smaller, like vitals tracking. There’s not much of a need because people are coming for end of life care, yet there are things to track.”
The mobile-based EMR allows patients a simple means of communication with the provider, while also giving access to a patient’s history of care at any time. The EMR also tracks, documents and stores all exchanges between the patient and provider, including texts, biometrics, vitals, nutrition, medication and lab results, specific action plans for the patients and pain management, among other things.
It’s of particular relevance for the hospice setting, which isn’t as accustomed to the digitization of work flows given the nature of the work.
“They don’t use a lot of technology, so for them to get into the space of managing communications, initially there seems to be a barriers to adopting to communications. Even EMRs were a huge jump,” Krishnan said.
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As such, making the transition between patient, family member and provider more seamless can be a major boost to both satisfaction and efficiency .
The information can also be exported to any EMR, making it scalable for hospitals or physician groups focused on better coordination with chronic illnesses, Krishnan said.
“It helps productivity because the provider can now focus on patient care. The chores of clinical documentation are automated and transferable to an EMR system,” he said, adding that its pilot with the three hospice organizations showed an increase in productivity to the tune of 20 percent to 30 percent.
Konnact Bloom is in talks with a national hospice chain to pilot its EMR, and it recently completed a CMS-funded pilot for young diabetic patients with a Central Oregon hospital system.
The company is headed by CEO Krishna Rao and co-founders Greg Merten and Dr. Daryl Pohl. So far, the company has funded itself through friends and family and is beginning to explore raising venture capital to support its growth.
