Duet Health

Using Patient Generated Data Improves Patient Satisfaction

Are you currently struggling to keep your patients engaged and on track, or want to monitor symptoms occurring between office visits?

Duet Patient offers an easy way to securely monitor patients’ progress in their care program, from your computer. Patient’s simply fill our the Care Specific Journal in our Duet Patient Mobile and Web applications for factors including but no limited to Nutrition, Water, Activity Weight, Feeding, and Child Growth.

Patients who use these journals can set a customizable goal for themselves and record their daily progress toward meeting those goals. Each program comes with a set of reminders and notifications meant to encourage patients and recognize their accomplishments.

How Healthcare Tech Will Help Impact Your Change in Workflow in 2016

As we ramp up for the new year, let technology help improve the workflow inefficiencies throughout your day. 

Healthcare technology is trying to help solve challenging communication breakdowns by providing software applications for collaboration amongst healthcare professionals. The apps are being designed to take control of already difficult communication processes. Some of this is simply helping professionals find the correct information, but more importantly the technology will increase compliance amongst professionals as a HIPAA-secure communication tool for images, videos, messages, etc.

Duet Professional Software

The Healthcare Professional Communication Tool of 2016

Duet Health realizes the challenges and barriers associated with communicating within the Healthcare setting. Based upon our experience and successful launch of the Duet Professional Software Platform across multiple Health Systems in 2015, our turnkey solution offers the following features and functionality. 

Feature Examples:

Secure Communication (Secure Text)

On Call & Scheduling

Directories & Service Offerings

Care Algorithms & Protocols

Real-time Group Discussions

Research & Education

Continuing Medical Education

News & Updates

Rich Media Content

Videos & Podcasts

User Media Library

Care Calculators

Internal Integration

Analytics & Reporting

This is a great story from MobiHealth News about the (near) future in next generation healthcare technology.  What has been absent to this point is a collection of technology centric users across all demographics who are ready and willing to participate in these new tools. We are rapidly approaching the time when we stop talking about which demographics of patients use technology. Mobile technology has generally become ubiquitous and now the conversation should turn to the evaluation of which tools are the best and most impactful. 

MobiHealth News is reporting that 20% of ACOs are using Telemedicine - that is an awesome shocker! Great news. The best part is that telemedicine is being used in only small segments of the organization...too many health systems only try new things that immediately work across the entire system. To try and learn you have to start in segment and video conferencing with your doctor is such a no-brainer and huge win for patients everywhere. 

COLUMBUS, OH – AUGUST 6, 2014 - Duet Health today released its Patient Intelligence Index, a revolutionary patient engagement scoring system, giving healthcare providers more patient insight than ever before. The Patient Intelligence Index supports the delivery of patient care and connectivity with next generation mobile and web-based technology.

The Patient Intelligence Index (PII) is a comprehensive representation of a patient’s actions, measuring the depth and frequency of their engagement with medical content views, health care protocol views, informational and exercise video views, health journaling, completion of patient satisfaction quizzes and more. The PII demonstrates each patient’s comprehension of relative health information and their behaviors to take an active role in their health.

  The Duet Health Patient Intelligence Center visualizes each patient’s score, trending over time, for quick and easy review by care team members. Duet Health clients access this portal and easily view all of their patients’ behaviors as well as group and organizational overviews.

“The Patient Intelligence Index and the trending graph are the result of our team’s efforts, working closely with some of the best doctors in the country”, said Jeff Harper, CEO of Duet Health. “These client partners told us they wanted to change the dialogue with their patients. With limited time between patients, they wanted to be able to walk into a visit and say, “I can see you are not feeling well and last 5 journal logs are telling me why”. The ability to view a patient’s participation in their health and ability to capture patient activities and use this information as an actionable part of the patient care are expectations from the best care teams today, and will be for all healthcare in the future.”

 The Patient Intelligence Index is now active for more than 30k patients. The programs deliver personalized experiences for each patient, available as a mobile application and web portal. These patients are using applications branded for their healthcare provider and customized for that provider’s care delivery model – with a user experience and software tool that is powered by Duet Health.

 “Duet is using technology to create positive behavior change in patients”, said Harper. “This happens when patient’s and families are empowered with tools, education, and information helping them make decisions and provide direction consistent with their care team’s guidance. The PII was created as a direct feedback loop to the care team, which compliments existing Duet Health programs.”

 Duet Health clients use these tools at the Patient level, Service Line level, and Business Line level. “Population Health Management has not had specific patient input metrics because this data in a measurable format has not previously been available”, Harper said. “The PII delivers a measurable impact and change at a patient level and on a group of individuals, focused on their activation in the program.” 

About Duet Health 

Today, the RARE Campaign— for Reducing Avoidable Readmissions Effectively— announced that the hospitals participating in the program have reduced their readmission rates by 20% from their 2009 baseline.

  The RARE Campaign focuses on improving communication and engagement in 5 key areas, all of which are areas where DuetHealth offers solutions:

  Comprehensive discharge planning

Medication management

Patient and family engagement

Transition care support

Transition communications

  The participating hospitals, which together account for more than 80% of all readmissions in Minnesota, have reduced the total number of readmissions by more than 4,000 patients.

Now is the time for 21st century healthcare providers to adopt mobile health technologies. By utilizing mobile technology to educate and engage patients, healthcare providers can improve patient outcomes while simultaneously combatting the rising cost of healthcare delivery. As healthcare consultant Leonard Kish recently said, “the results we have thus far are nothing short of astounding. If patient engagement were a drug, it would be the blockbuster drug of the century and malpractice not to use it.”

Online access to medical information is redefining the roles of physician and patient. In the past year, 80% of Internet users and 52% of smartphone owners have gone online to look up health information (Fox, 2013). The Internet puts medical information, accurate or not, “in the hands of non-experts, both empowering and endangering today’s connected patient” (Buck, 2012).

This is especially relevant as the Affordable Care Act and Meaningful Use requirements are shifting healthcare’s reimbursement model from one predicated on the “do more, bill more” premise, which results in unnecessary and duplicate tests and procedures, to one based on value and positive health outcomes. Improving individual outcomes, already a difficult endeavor, becomes that much more difficult when patients are acting on incorrect information. 

The best way to ensure the accuracy of online medical information is to have control over it. The role of healthcare providers must evolve to meet the needs of the 21st century patient. In addition to providing traditional in-office care, providers must also provide care in the digital space. Accurate, accessible health information is especially important for treating chronically ill patients, because the decisions that most affect their health are the ones they make everyday outside of the supervision of a physician.

But exactly how much impact can patient engagement have on cost and outcome? The VA recently conducted a study on their Coordinated Care and HomeTelehealth program. The program uses communication technology that allows clinicians to provide care from a distance, with the goal of reducing hospitalizations and improving outcomes.

The study compared HomeTelehealth program participants against a control group. What they found was remarkable; the HomeTelehealth patients experienced 19.74% fewer hospitalizations, and the cost of primary care and nursing home care was reduced $11,521 and $76,145, respectively. Leonard Kish sums up the study: “Can you imagine if a drug reduced the need to go to the hospital by this amount? It would be malpractice not to use it.”

  Mobile technology adoption is growing at an incredible rate— 85% of U.S. adults now own a cell phone. What’s more, smart phone ownership is no longer the dominion of techies and college students; 45% of U.S. adults now own a smartphone, with no end to growth in sight. Clearly, the American consumer has welcomed mobile technology with open arms.

As this growth continues, it is important to consider the place of healthcare in the mobile space. A full 31% of cell phone owners report having used their mobile device to access healthcare information, up from 17% two years ago. This growth is lead by a diverse group of users: African Americans, Hispanics, people aged 18-49, and college graduates are the groups most likely to have used their phone to look up healthcare information.

This presents an unprecedented opportunity for healthcare providers. By utilizing mobile technology to communicate, educate, and engage their patients, providers can combat the rising cost of healthcare delivery. This is the result of clearer communication, convenient access to patient-specific medical content, and a decreased number of redundant patient interactions. Furthermore, a forward-thinking healthcare system could attract new patients through mobile engagement. 26% of cell phone users report having used their device to access healthcare information, despite not having any serious medical conditions. This speaks to the growing appetite for mobile healthcare content. By offering this content, a healthcare system could gain the attention of a user early in his life, thus increasing the likelihood that he would choose that system for future healthcare needs.

Now is the time for 21st century healthcare providers to adopt mobile health technologies. One-half of U.S. adults now own a smartphone. This percentage has nearly doubled in just two years, and the growth is driven by a diverse group of users. By offering mobile content, healthcare providers can reduce costs and attract new customers. Forward-thinking healthcare system would be well served to invest in the mobile space, enabling them to meet the 21st century patient where he wants to be met: online, anywhere, at anytime.

Arguably one of the biggest motivators behind the Duet Health model has been to achieve one thing: patient education. 

"There are a couple of changes that are happening that are forcing big health organizations and everybody to have to educate patients like they’ve never done before," said Jeff Harper, CEO of Duet Health. "Nobody could’ve predicted that there would be this much emphasis on education, there never has been in the past."

The idea that patient education is important is not a new one. 

An article by Kristie Jernigan for General Medicine at suite101.com stresses the importance of patient education says "patient education benefits the patients, health care community, insurance companies and taxpayers. Making a patient knowledgeable gives them the power to succeed."

The article also outlines the tangible benefits of patient education. Not only do patients benefit with "the result of better health and an improved understanding of how they need to live to continue to have good health," Jernigan points out that "the medical staff, health care facilities and insurance companies also benefit by having a reduced number of unnecessary hospitalizations and ER visits.

That fact ultimately impacts and benefits all taxpayers (state and federal)."

Patient education benefits taxpayers. Seems like all the reason one would need to buy into the idea, right? 

Another article written by George L. Spaeth, MD, FACS, in September, 2011 dives deeper into the issue, saying "a doctor is first and foremost an educator," and that "while there are thousands of volumes written on patient education, very few of them have any impact on patient behavior."

Why is that? We've already established that patient education is wildly important. Why is there this gap between the importance of patient education and the actual process of educating a patient? 

Two of the big changes happening in health care are the creation of “accountable care organizations,” and “meaningful use.” 

"You have to educate patients in a meaningful way towards their course of care," said Harper. 

These implementations are a start towards better patient education, but the question is how. Spaeth raises the question, how do physicians, already pressed for time, go about doing that? 

Harper thinks Duet Health may be the solution to providing better patient education.

"If (for example) you were pregnant, doctors used to hand you a booklet and say hey, here’s what’s wrong with you, we’ll walk you through it. It’s jam-packed with information for you on what happens during pregnancy," said Harper. "Now with Duet Health, your doctor can hand you a sheet of paper and say just download the app."

Harper realizes the process of implementing Duet Health into a doctor's everyday practice won't be easy.

"Moving from a booklet to a sheet of paper to you and I seems simple, to them it’s a total paradigm change in how they do business," he said. 

While the process might not be easy, Harper knows the benefits of having a better educational system in place for patients outweighs the struggles.

“We know how vital what we’re going to do is to the overall health and wellness of people," he said. 

In the meantime though, we at Duet Health want to hear from our readers. 

What types of educational materials do you provide for your patients? 

How do you go about the process of educating your patients? 

What do you think could be done to improve this process? 

Do you think Duet Health would be a valuable addition to your practice? 

Something big is happening in health care. “Health care has always focused on what’s wrong with you, and how you got there,” said Jeff Harper, CEO of Duet Health, a Columbus-based mobile software development company. “Duet Health is focused on what happens next.”

Harper and his team of mobile software developers believe they can change the health care industry with their new Duet Health products.

According to a study done by the University of Wisconsin, patients forget 80% of medical information their doctors tell them before walking out of the office. This is a problem Harper and his team is trying to fix with Duet Health.

“What we’ve created is this entire platform for big health systems or small practices to have the same tools so that any doctor with a practice could have the same tools that a big health system has,” said Harper. “And then we can deliver content to patients.”

Andy Sparks, product manager of Duet Health, said the way they view patient care is connecting it to their course of care, as well as their doctor.

“We’re moving towards a completely connected experience from when you’re in the office, to when you’re out of the office; this device becomes your connection to your doctor, and to doctors that’s really exciting.”

Harper explained two big changes happening in health care are the creation of “accountable care organizations,” and “meaningful use,” which requires the education of patients in a meaningful way towards their course of care.

“Nobody could’ve predicted that there would be this much emphasis on education,” he said. “You’re never going to cure some patient's problems, but you can really tackle a lot of issues just by making sure people are educated.”

Harper said one of the challenges in building the app was taking on the responsibility of handling patient relationships.

“We’ve learned about patients, we have a trusting and respectful relationship, and we treat our patients like gold,” he said. We know that not every outcome in health care is a positive one, so we’ve taken a very conservative approach because we want to trust that patient relationship and we want to embrace it.”

The medical community is already taking notice of Duet Health. Dr. Jennifer Dyer, MD, MPH, a pediatric endocrinologist and the chief medical advisor at Duet Health, said she got involved with Duet Health because of the emphasis placed on the doctor/patient relationship.

“It helps doctors have their patients be more engaged, and if something is really convenient because the phone is always with them and they’re really actively excited about being more involved with their health care, that helps doctors,” she said. “And I think it primarily helps doctors by being a good tool for patients.”

The app hit stores on Friday, February 24 and will be available for iPhone, iPad, and Android. Doctors will be able to purchase it for the flat rate of $480 a year; regardless of how many patients the doctors have using the app.

Harper said his company has worked for the past two years learning about patients through focus groups and other feedback systems, listening to them, talking with them, and otherwise spending an exhaustive amount of time learning about how patients are educated.

“Patient education is not a simple business, and we took a year before we rolled anything out because we wanted to make sure it was right,” he said.

“We know how vital what we’re going to do is to the overall health and wellness of people.”

Duet Health is a Columbus-based mobile software development company founded in 2009 focused on building the industry-leading mobile tools that use technology to deliver customer-focused experiences to any business.

   For more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Jeff Harper, please email [email protected]. 

Dr. Jennifer Dyer, MD, MPH, who describes herself as a "stylish pediatric endocrinologist," is also known as something else to more than 6,000 followers on Twitter: an EndoGoddess. "Everybody with diabetes calls their doctor their Endo," she says, "and one of my little patients who calls herself a pink lady, she’s really just adorable and cute and sparkly, she’d always call me an EndoGoddess because I liked to be sparkly, too. So it just kind of stuck."

The name EndoGoddess has since inspired a massive Twitter following, a blog, and most recently an app tailored specifically to diabetes patients created in part by eProximiti, the same guys who are developing Duet Health. 

Dr. Dyer says the idea for the app came from the simple realization that teenagers like texting...a lot. 

"I had just read an article in a peer review journal called Pediatrics that was about how teenage liver transplant patients that were facing having to have another liver transplant actually remembered to take their medicine better when they got texts," she says. "And I thought it was really powerful because it saved quite a few liver transplants which is a humongous deal, so I thought well, maybe that would help with diabetes."

"I decided to text my patients so I texted them from my phone without any app or anything, and they did do better with their medicine. Their diabetes report card as I call it, it actually improved quite a bit, and for any kind of clinical trial or anything having to do with diabetes, it would be like a massive headline about the improvement that it made."

The EndoGoddess app, available now at the app store, allows you to record your glucose, dietary carbs, and insulin levels. The more consistently it is recorded, the more points you earn that can eventually be put towards buying songs on iTunes. The app also allows you to set reminders to record your data, view your history, and share your data.

It may seem like the app is tailored more towards a younger generation, but Dr. Dyer says tech-savvy patients of all ages have been using the app. Tracking your insulin levels in exchange for iTunes songs sounds like a pretty good deal to me. 

Dr. Dyer has already been hearing success stories from doctors who have patients using the app. 

"I actually just got an email from a physician in Portland, Oregon who has been recommending the EndoGoddess app to her patients Particularly her younger patients," she says. "And one of her patients who has had Type 1 diabetes for several years has just been really hating it, and when this doctor told her patient about this app, her face lit up."  

"It's just the fact that it’s part of something she loves, which is her phone. It actually allows her to integrate her diabetes into something that she loves, and that can make her be healthier."

"So not only is the girl, the patient, doing better, but the doctor was really excited to have a tool in her toolbox to offer this girl that understandably doesn’t want to have diabetes, but something that could give her joy. It’s rewarding on so many levels."

The idea of having interactive healthcare information right at your fingertips extends beyond just EndoGoddess. The Duet Health app coming at the end of the month is just another example in a growing industry. Mobile health in general is still a fairly new idea, but it's something Dr. Dyer is very excited about. She encourages more doctors to give mobile health a chance. 

"Mobile health is really new, and when things are new, doctors are kind of 'hmm' about it, but I think we’re still waiting for it to really explode on the scene," she says. "It hasn’t quite exploded on the scene in the way that I think it will. And I think it’ll be kind of like, how did we live without the internet? It’ll be sort of like that obvious infiltration into our lives, but right now it’s not there yet."

"Ultimately the reason a physician would want to use it is because it makes their patients healthier," she says. "(Using mobile health apps) primarily helps doctors by being a good tool for patients."

"I’d love to see more doctors doing this, and being part of this, and celebrating that we can make things better for our patients and it makes things better for us as doctors."

"But you do have to take a leap of faith, it does take a lot of courage, but it is way worth it."

Picture this: You're actually feeling sick enough to go see your doctor, so you make an appointment. You sit in the waiting room next to a lady who sneezed on you and pray that she doesn't have something fatal. You put on the flimsy paper gown and awkwardly talk to your doctor about the weather as they examine you. Afterwards your doctor explains exactly what's wrong with you and how to go about getting better, and you nod enthusiastically, happy to finally find a solution to what's been ailing you. Then you take the prescription note, walk out the door, and...

...your mind goes blank. Wait, what did the doctor just tell me?

If this has ever happened to you, you're not alone. Patients typically forget 80% of medical information their doctors tell them, before they even leave the office.

There are a million other things on our minds so it's understandable, right? No big deal, right? Maybe...except when the information you just forgot is crucial to your health and well-being. 

So how in the world are you supposed to keep track of what your doctors tell you? 

That's where Duet Health comes in.

"Duet Health started with this app we built for this doctor in Orlando," says Andy Sparks, Director of Product Development at Duet Health.

"And somehow Jeff (Principal at Duet Health) got connected with him and he was like, 'can you build me an app? I have these wealthy patients that have gotten this iPhone thing, and they keep calling me and asking me the same questions; I end up wasting a lot of time on the phone saying yes that’s okay, no that’s not. Can you build me an app that just answers those questions for me so then I don’t have to be on the phone, and patients are more educated?' Jeff said yeah, sure."

Here's how Duet Health works: 

Once you download the app and open it up, you type in your name and your doctor’s name, then hit a “confirm” button which links you to that doctor. That relationship is linked now, so you can log in and see your doctor's picture, you can get directions to their office, you can get a phone number, etc.

Then, you go in and select a timeline. "Duet is very much centered around this idea of a timeline," says Andy. "It’s for people that have upcoming events or recent events, like having shoulder surgery. You walk through your timeline and it says hey, you’re nine days out, this is what you should be doing to prepare. Maybe it’s schedule someone to bring you to the hospital, or even as detailed as like 24-hours prior it says hey, you’re going into a surgery that requires full anesthesia so don’t eat anything, don’t drink anything except for clear fluids for the next 24 hours, if you do you’re going to have to cancel the surgery."

There's also medical content, a library of really, really simple medical information. Andy says the content is written at a 5th-grade reading level to make it simple to understand. "And the way that we get that content is we sit down five or six doctors and we get them all to agree on everything in the content," he says. "We figure if we get 5 or 6 doctors in a specialty to agree on something then it’s legit, because you can’t even get them to agree on giving you directions, let alone a piece of medical information. It’s really basic, simple stuff but we think that has value."

All the medical content links back to the timeline, which your doctor has complete access to and can even send you reminders, and there you have it. Simple and easy to use. 

So what makes Duet Health different from other healthcare apps out there?

"What we really do is we’re patient education, and it’s all around, it’s tied to your course of care and it’s tied to your doctor," Andy says. "It’s education and then it’s adherence. So when a doctor is saying hey, go home and I want you to do this exercise, they’re issuing you a course of care, they want you to adhere to that course of care."

The app also helps doctors to keep track of whether or not their patients are actually following their course of care.

"Right now there’s no way to prove that patients actually do that," Andy says. "Adherence and compliance is a really big deal because right now there’s no way to prove that patients actually do something. That’s the problem that we’re solving, and it’s something really exciting."

"We’re moving towards a completely connected experience from when you’re in the office, when you’re out of the office, this device becomes your connection to your doctor, and to doctors that’s really exciting."

The app is scheduled to hit stores by the end of February.

OhioHealth recently rolled out a new smart phone application for women’s health, connecting patients to their obstetric and gynecological care with a stream of pertinent information between physician appointments. The goal of the women’s health application is to educate patients about their conditions and enhance communication with their physicians. Developed by OhioHealth physicians in partnership with Duet Health, a mobile software products company with solutions in health care.  The Duet Health app provides expectant mothers with text, images and videos about all aspects of their pregnancies – from timely appointment reminders to screening test explanations. The firm chose the name Duet Health because “the whole concept is you and your doctor together,” said company principal and co-founder Jeff Harper. The application also includes information about menopause, fertility and other women’s health issues. It is available as a free download from the iTunes store or the Android Marketplace.

“This is something that empowers patients to be more informed when they arrive for their office visits,” said OB/GYN Andrew Bokor, MD, Grant Medical Center, one of the first physicians to offer the application to his patients. “It links them to our office phones, provides directions to the hospitals where we deliver and gives them information 24/7 at their fingertips about the stages of fetal development or common pregnancy-related problems such as hemorrhoids. I don’t think there is any way it won’t improve quality of women’s health care and outcomes.”

A home screen personalizes the content with the patient’s due date that helps determine the timing of updates about gestation periods and screenings.  A “memo pad” enables patients to record notes about issues they want to address at their next office visit. About 60 patients at Grant Medical Center and Riverside Methodist Hospital began testing the application in March. “Their response has been overwhelmingly positive,” Dr. Bokor said. “They like the idea that they can have instant access at any time to trusted information on their phones.”

Dr. Bokor served on a physician task force with Riverside OB/GYN’s Mini Somasundaram, MD, and David Bell, MD, to develop content for Duet Health.  “So many people are going to the web for health care information that is not always reliable, where it is hard to tell the difference between fact and opinion,” Dr. Somasundaram said. “The application guarantees accurate, evidence-based answers to questions such as, ‘what kind of medications can I take’ or ‘what kind of test am I supposed to have next week.’ “

Added Dr. Bell: “Patients like the idea they can have quick access to content directed by OhioHealth physicians about concerns such as diet and weight gain. One of the application’s best features for physicians is our ability to transmit important notifications to patients about tests at the correct points in their pregnancies.”

OhioHealth began offering the women’s health application to a limited number of obstetrics patients in March and plans to expand to all obstetric patients by mid-April.  They are also preparing applications for orthopedics, sports medicine and other specialties. “We wanted to go down this path because the growing use of smart phones by our patient population is one area of patient education we have not tapped into,” said Mrunal Shah, MD, vice president, Physician Technology Services. “OhioHealth is always looking for opportunities to leverage technology to improve patient care and this is just another way to do that.”

“The fact is that many patients forget about 80% of what they were told in their office visit,” said Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer Michael Krouse.  “Our goal is to be a trusted partner for better health, so we have to figure out ways to be available whenever the questions arise and provide timely information and reminders to our patients well outside the office visit.  Duet Health helps us deliver on that trusted partnership.”  Krouse emphasized that the Duet Health application does not exchange personal health information: “This is a HIPAA compliant application,” he said. “We’re very sensitive to privacy issues.”

Health Imaging and IT magazine in 2010 named OhioHealth to its list of the nation’s “Top 25 Connected Healthcare Facilities” for the third consecutive year. The healthcare data and consulting firm SDI recently ranked OhioHealth as one of the nation’s top integrated health networks. “Using health information technology to enhance the patient experience is what our initiatives such as the smart phone applications are all about,” said Krouse.

To learn more about the women’s health programs and services available from OhioHealth, please visit www.ohiohealth.com/womenshealth.

About OhioHealth Named by FORTUNE Magazine as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. OhioHealth is a nationally recognized, not-for-profit, charitable, healthcare organization serving and supported by the community. Based in Columbus, Ohio, it is a family of 18 hospitals, 23 health and surgery centers, home-health providers, medical equipment and health service suppliers throughout a 40-county area. OhioHealth hospitals in central Ohio are Riverside Methodist Hospital, Grant Medical Center, Doctors Hospital, Grady Memorial Hospital and Dublin Methodist Hospital.