We've been watching DSHI, especially their FreeMD offering. Here's the interview with their President, Dr. Stephen Schueler:
ANSWER: In our health care system, the patient decides if and when he or she needs care. Although doctors control a large part of the health care process, it is patients that initiate the process. As an emergency room physician, I recognize that most people don’t know when, or where, to seek care when they are sick or injured. This problem isn’t limited to the emergency room, but occurs regularly in urgent care centers and physician offices.
Consumer confusion causes two problems for the health care system and for patients:
Care is not delivered at the most optimal place: The most popular example is the over-use of emergency rooms by patients with non-urgent problems, which contributes to overcrowding. At the same time, patients may inappropriately visit the doctor’s office with a heart attack or stroke.
Care is delayed: A delay in care for high-risk symptoms increases morbidity and mortality.
In 1989, my goal was to solve this problem by creating a computer program that could perform symptom triage. With this software, patients could safely decide what to do when they were sick. In 1990, we released “Home Medical Advisor” on 5.25 inch diskette: our first self-triage application. By 1994, it was issued on 3 CD-ROM’s, had sold over 2 million copies, and had won numerous awards. In 1996, we released a consumer version that ran as a web service. These were the early days of the web and we failed to turn it into a profitable business. Later that year, we released a version to support symptom triage in nurse call centers.
Over the past decade, our triage application has processed millions of patient encounters under the scrutiny of physicians. In 2005, we began work on FreeMD, a web service that would use our proven triage application. In short, FreeMD is a solution to a problem we identified 20 years ago.
2. How is FreeMD.com different from the major health portals?
ANSWER: Today, most health portals do one thing: locate and display text and graphics. Most have a similar user interface and deliver content from 1 of 6 major suppliers. Don’t get me wrong, the information is great and these sites are important, but the greatest opportunities to transform health care will come from services that change how care is accessed or delivered.
FreeMD is an application that emulates an intellectual process performed by physicians: triage. More specifically, it’s an expert system that performs a risk assessment, by analyzing symptoms and past medical history obtained during an interview. FreeMD has been marketed as a virtual doctor because it has successfully “virtualized” an important physician function, and delivers it as a personalized service.
FreeMD is a service that provides expert advice on when and where to access care. Armed with this knowledge, consumers utilize health care resources more effectively. By creating a personal health record, FreeMD facilitates communication between patients and their providers.
3. How will you drive audience to FreeMD.com?
ANSWER: As people discover the utility of this unique tool, we hope they will share it with their family and friends. We also plan to provide the service to companies, hospitals, and physician groups looking to offer consumer-directed health tools to their employees and patients.
For the past year, the University of Central Florida has been using a co-branded version of FreeMD, which allows students to make appointment requests across the web. This reduces phone interruptions in the clinic and allows the clinic to schedule visits at the most appropriate time. Just knowing that FreeMD will detect serious health problems and re-direct them to the emergency room relieves “in-box anxiety.”
4. What is the current status of the Telecare project in the VA?
ANSWER: DSHI Systems is proud to be the number one provider of triage applications to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. For the past 7 years, VA Telecare nurses have used this application to provide services to 17 million veterans in 34 states. This comprises 95
Click here to see how the technology is used by the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
5. Has your experience with FreeMD.com led you to any ideas on how you want to change or enhance the product?
ANSWER: It’s still a little to early to draw any real conclusions, but a couple of interesting things have surfaced.
We originally thought that people would use the triage service only when they were uncertain about whether they needed to see a doctor. However, a significant number of people are using it as a pre-visit evaluation, in order to prepare for a scheduled appointment.
Many have requested some way to locate physicians in their area. Since the triage results include specialty recommendations, we are looking at connecting them with local providers.
Our plan is to add a major new feature to the site every 6 months.
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