Atlantic Health System announced this month that it is adopting FeelBetter’s technology for polypharmacy patient management. Polypharmacy patients are those that use five or more medications simultaneously.
The health system — which provides care primarily in New Jersey but also in parts of New York and Pennsylvania — is now using the startup’s personalized medication management platform across its accountable care organizations (ACOs).
FeelBetter, based in Tel Aviv and Boston, was founded in 2018. The startup is designed to address a growing public health concern among senior patients — the fact that many of them have been prescribed multiple medications for simultaneous use. This paves the way for poor health outcomes, the increased use of health services and rising care costs, said FeelBetter CEO Liat Primor.
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The U.S. healthcare system’s flawed medication management protocols result in 275,000 deaths and more than $528 billion in avoidable costs each year, she pointed out.
“We believe the time has come to rethink medication management,” Primor declared. “We’re leveraging technology to deliver a more personalized, whole-patient approach to medication management — one that goes beyond a single illness, diagnosis or point in time and comprehensively focuses on each individual’s care journey.”
FeelBetter’s platform pinpoints patients at high risk of deterioration and preventable hospitalization due to suboptimal medication management and proactively suggests immediate, actionable interventions to reduce these risks, she explained. The solution also helps clinicians monitor patients’ progress and measure the impact of clinical interventions, she added.
For its new partnership with Atlantic Health System, FeelBetter will deploy its platform to flag patients at high risk of being hospitalized for polypharmacy-related reasons, recommend medication changes and monitor individual care journeys. Atlantic Health System will deploy the technology across three ACOs serving more than 100,000 Medicare beneficiaries and more than 420,000 patients with commercial insurance.
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FeelBetter’s target customers are organizations focused on value-based care, Primor said. The startup’s SaaS solution can help them improve resource allocation, quickly reduce the burden of preventable hospitalizations and increase the capacity of clinical pharmacists, she noted.
In Primor’s view, FeelBetter’s main competitors are Arine and Tabula Rasa.
“All our competitors are selling to health plans and integrating with claims while we are targeting providers and integrating both the EMR and claims,” she declared.
FeelBetter’s technology also “goes beyond a single point in time or disease,” Primor added. The startup’s platform encompasses both historical and real-time data to evaluate the whole patient and comprehensively convey a person’s health journey, she explained.
In addition to the Atlantic Health System news, FeelBetter will be announcing a few more health system customers in the coming months, Primor said.
Photo: grThirteen, Getty Images
