Behavioral health has been a growing area of interest for digital health. But most companies have avoided clinical settings, particularly psychiatric hospitals. Philadelphia company InvisALERT Solutions is developing a workflow tool using a wearable-based patient monitoring platform to improve safety for psychiatric inpatients.
In an interview, InvisALERT CEO Peter Nagy said the idea is to avoid patient falls, self-harm, and assaults. The standard of care for psychiatric units in hospitals is bed checks every 15 minutes, but staff tends to keep records using a pencil and clipboard. InvisALERT seeks to give a digital upgrade to psychiatric hospitals with a mobile monitoring system. The system is also designed to reduce medical costs of treating this patient population when things go wrong.
“I have spent a lot of time with psychiatric facilities and they care about their patients but they don’t have the tools t0 support their jobs,” Nagy said.
Market Trends to Watch for Health Systems and Their Specialty Pharmacies
The future looks bright for the integrated specialty pharmacy model – for health systems, providers, and most importantly, for patients.
Nagy founded InvisALERT in 2014. But since the business joined the University City Science Center’s Digital Health Accelerator last year, Nagy said the company has developed a second generation of the wearable patients use and has raised more than $600,000 from investors. He noted that among InvisAlert’s priorities are ramp up market penetration and drive adoption.
The company has attracted the interest of health systems such as HCA and Kaiser Permanente within the past couple of years. InvisAlert also did “an extensive series of pilot studies” over the summer, Nagy said.
Other companies that have targeted clinical settings include OneDocWay (acquired by Genoa) and MindCare Solutions, both telepsychiatry businesses. Regroup Therapy addresses behavioral health staffing needs. Quartet Health developed a care coordination tool to seeks to improve collaboration between providers, health systems, and behavioral health managers.
Photo: Bigstock