Movie tech comes home with Healthphone SaaS

The Lord of the Rings imaging technology we profiled in August is coming to market through a Software As A Service (SaaS) offering for visiting nurses called Healthphone. The Victorian Order of Nurses in Canada has piloted the system, which includes a tablet PC from Motion Computing, and it's now rolling out to other services there. A new Seattle-based company called Healthphone has been formed to market the system in the U.S. and elsewhere. The aim is to let home health workers manage  patients with chronic, difficult to heal wounds, such as the bedridden elderly and people with diabetes. Healthphone general manager Pam Fowler explained. 

"You get all the documentation, care plans, treatments, and images in one place. Other wounds are documented in the same patient profile. And you can look at the wounds over time. Many elderly patients have the same wounds for years. This improves the communication and heal rates, but it also helps with the patient seeing the progression and improvement."

The wound imaging technology being loaded into the tablets was originally created for the Lord of the Rings movies. It was used then to put clay figures of characters like Gollum into the filmmaker's computer system so they could come to life.

Now it's being used to turn digital pictures of wounds into accurate JPEG files which can be compared over time to chart the process of healing.

"The person who does the first assessment takes a photo," said  Brett Bowdon-Meade, U.S. product specialist. "This goes with the assessment. They can upload it over the Internet, and update the record in real time."

Then, added Fowler, "The Motion Computer has a wireless card. They can communicate with the home office, which allows instant authentication and consultation on the wound."

By selling this as SaaS, Healthphone puts its charges in line with Medicare reimbursements, which are a monthly fee per patient. Fowler estimated the cost at $4-5/day per home health care worker, plus the cost of the PC, which is amortized.

The system makes home visits more productive and can reduce mistakes, which Medicare says it will no longer pay for, said Healthphone CEO  Debbi Gillotti (right).

Payback can be quick and come in many forms. Patients spend less time in the hospital since in-home care is improved. Nurses can visit more patients. Errors are reduced, which means savings to the provider.

The system is EMR neutral, meaning it will work with any hospital computing system out there, and new applications are being developed for ostomy care and burns, said Gillotti. "Once we have the platform in place you can extend to those niches."

Fowler said Healthphone will also conduct an IRB study  aimed at creating specific protocols for using the product, along with reliable statistics on heal rates, reductions of stays and number of visits.

My talk with Healthphone came at the end of a long day which began when I almost ran into a neighbor's home health care worker, who was turning around in my driveway.

My neighbor's diabetes has already taken her feet, she is living with her elderly mother, but the health care worker was gracious about her day.

Next time we meet, I hope she's able to have one of these Healthphone systems. I'll explain its provenance, and maybe my neighbor will smile when the worker starts call it "the precious." Because my neighbor is precious to me.