Month: July 2017

Last week, Patientory CEO Chrissa McFarlane presented Patientory as a finalist in the 1776-MedStar #Patient2Consumer Challenge in Washington, DC. Although we did not win the grand prize, we received the next best thing. recognition!

In the end, the judges named Patientory an “Innovation Mention.” That means we get the opportunity to propose a future pilot to MedStar Health in collaboration with other strategic partners. It’s an honor, and we’re delighted by their recognition of Patientory’s promise.

Out of hundreds of entrants, Patientory made the cut as part of the final 15 challengers. Thank you to MedStar Health and 1776 for providing this opportunity.

Like most people, we too have come away from interactions with the healthcare system all too often feeling exasperated and angry. When comparing personal and professional experiences, the root causes immediately have become clear: healthcare is not personal and there is no central depository of our own health information.

First, it’s important to take a wider perspective and understand the 3 challenges plaguing our healthcare system:

1. The system currently lacks any sort of centralized depository for personal health information (PHI). Without this depository, PHI is unevenly distributed, frustratingly duplicated among care teams, and needlessly cumbersome to access.
2. Patients do not own their PHI. In an environment where patients and caregivers are being asked to coordinate among larger care teams, this has led to frustration, decreased quality of care, and increased hospital readmissions (which also lead to more fines for hospitals)..
3. Technology to safely secure PHI is largely absent, unable to scale, or has proven ineffective. This has led to record fines, increased costs, and increased vulnerability to cyberattacks such as ransomware.

Patientory aims to answer these challenges with a system that works for both patients and doctors:

• Patientory’s mobile app allows patients to create an individual profile. On this profile, they store their medical information on a secure, HIPAA-compliant blockchain platform. Then they can connect with care providers as well as other patients who have similar health issues or concerns. This allows patients greater control over their overall health across multiple care teams, both inside and outside the hospital.
• Doctors (and their healthcare organizations) use Patientory to get the patient’s complete and up-to-date medical history. In addition, Patientory utilizes blockchain to keep PHI secure, mitigate damaging data breaches, and even execute smart contracts at every stage of the patient care billing and payment cycle.

While many have come forward to support our optimistic vision of a more personal healthcare system, others have sprung up with a skeptical eye. How can you expect to succeed, they ask, when others have already failed? There are four ways to answer this question:

• The timing is right.
  For healthcare organizations, the situation is growing increasingly fraught. Ransomware like WannaCry are no longer relegated to the relative obscurity of info security blogs. Instead, news about ransomware is loudly broadcasted on mainstream global news outlets like CNN and the BBC.
• The technology is finally mature.
  Instead of having one central administrator act as a gatekeeper to data, blockchain deploys one shared ledger spread across a network of synchronized, replicated databases visible to anyone with the authorized access. It is virtually impossible for a cyber criminal to hack one block in the chain without simultaneously hacking every other block in the chain’s chronology. This makes blockchain incredibly appealing to not only store a patient’s entire health history, but determine who should have access to it.
• We take a different approach.
  We have deliberately chosen a path that does not require healthcare IT executives to impose a new solution or dispose of their legacy capital investments. Instead, our system is a bridge that seamlessly integrates with existing EMR systems such as Meditech, EPIC, Allscripts, and Cerner. In addition, we leverage smarter technologies such as machine learning and AI to help provide better care treatment plans, which promote better health outcomes.
• Patients are demanding to own their own data.
  From Fitbits to fitness apps, a plethora of products have ushered in the age of the quantified self. Patients – both healthy and ill – are accustomed to owning their health data and are now demanding healthcare organizations unlock their silos. Our app lets patients create a universal profile to keep track of their entire health history. The will provide an easy and hassle free way of tracking doctor visits, medical bills, personal medical information, insurance, immunizations and pharmacy medications. All of this information can then be shared with other providers, labs and diagnostic services.

Join the Mission
We invite you to join our mission to make healthcare more personal:

• Let’s empower patients globally by giving them access to their health information.
• Let’s connect patients with their many caregivers for improved health outcomes.
• Let’s give doctors and healthcare organizations the safety and security of lower risk of cyberattacks and lower costs.

By doing all of this, we not only make healthcare more personal, but improve quality of care and well being for all.

We are pleased to announce that Patientory has been named as a finalist in the 1776-MedStar #Patient2Consumer Challenge in Washington, DC on July 13, 2017. Out of hundreds of entrants, Patientory made the cut as part of the final 15 challengers. We will go to head-to-head with other startups to convince a panel of judges whose ideas will most shape the future of health.

The winning startups will receive prizes and the opportunity to incubate ideas or further develop their companies as part of MedStar’s Innovation Lab cohort.

UPDATE: See the results here.