May 1st, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Expert Interviews
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I recently interviewed the CEO (Bill Reed) and SVP (Stuart Segal) of AllOne Health at the World Health Care Congress. Their enthusiasm for mobile technology rivals Better Health’s own Dr. Alan Dappen. Will mobile technology get people more engaged in healthy behaviors and assist with disease management? I hope so.
Dr. Val: What is “All One Health?”
Reed: All One Health provides a bundle of customized offerings to small employers – including insurance and health and wellness programs. We provide the same kinds of benefits that large insurers offer to large employers except we spend a lot of time analyzing the specific needs of small companies before initiating a health program for them. Some small companies have employees with diabetes-related challenges, and others might be more concerned about asthma. We also use predictive modeling (health risk assessments) to help the companies customize preventive health strategies for their employees.
Engagement and compliance are very important in bringing about substantive changes in healthcare – and good health can be incentivized by employers. All One Mobile is our means for connecting patients (or employees) with health coaches and nurses, which we believe is critical for affecting lifestyle changes.
Dr. Val: What does your “menu of services” look like from the employee’s perspective?
Reed: Each employee begins the relationship with a health risk assessment (HRA). That HRA recommends programs for the employee based on their risk factors, and prioritizes the top three things for them to work on. There are performance trackers linked to employer incentives for health improvements and the programs are available via the phone so that employees don’t have to be in front of their PC to interact with their health coaches. We have proactive outbound calling with an opt out feature. We believe that the mobile phone is critical for encouraging consistent participation in health programs. Our services center on phone-based reminders and personal relationships with coaches.
In the near future we’ll include blue tooth technology to have patients upload data from their home monitoring devices for their coaches to review. This is a more proactive approach to health management.
Dr. Val: And Stuart, tell me about the All One Mobile program for the Department of Defense (DOD).
Segal: The DOD was having difficulty with follow up care for military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with traumatic brain injuries (TBI). Once they returned to their communities, it was very hard to reach them. All One Mobile won a contract with the army to provide constant messaging services to soldiers with TBI because they need regular reminders to keep their rehabilitation on track. Army case managers can push out questionnaires to soldiers and depending on how they answer, the case manager might be triggered to give them a call while they have the phone in their hand. So the phone-based communication tool is the primary tracking device for soldiers who return to the US with TBI.
Dr. Val: What are the educational qualifications of your coaches?
Reed: Registered nurses, dieticians, and psychologists.
Dr. Val: And what if the patient needs to see a doctor?
The coaches are trained to refer patients to their doctor when it appears that they need it. We can also track their prescription patterns and send the patients a “gaps in care” letter to remind them to fill their prescriptions. Non-compliance with medications is a major problem that All One Health can address.
Dr. Val: How would a doctor use All One Mobile?
Segal: We’re currently working on making EMRs accessible via phones – so that no matter where a physician is, he or she can review patient records and track their progress remotely.
Dr. Val: Or better yet, when one doctor is taking call for her group, she can have access to patient records so that when she’s called in the middle of the night, she’ll be fully informed about the patient problem list and understand the context of the concerns much better.
Segal: Yes, and All One Mobile can be used in the Emergency Department setting – so that when patients are discharged home, they receive 30 days of our service. The hospital can send them their lab results (that were drawn in the ER) and easily contact patients to bring them back in if necessary. In addition the patients can take photos of their wounds, for example, and have the physicians see how they’re progressing.
Dr. Val: Any closing thoughts?
Reed: This kind of health communication is incredibly convenient. Patients don’t need to carry around a smart card, a thumb drive, or a paper record. They’re already carrying around what they need – their own cell phone. And almost everyone in the US, regardless of economic class or age, has a phone.
April 28th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Expert Interviews, Health Policy
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Sam Solomon over at Canadian Medicine, did a great job of introducing our recent interview. Please check it out.
Educated in Nova Scotia before she moved to the United States to do degrees in biblical studies and medicine, Dr Val Jones is now one of the most popular physician bloggers. Her work has appeared in MedPage Today, Revolution Health, a now-defunct blog called Dr. Val and The Voice of Reason and, most recently, her own internet company Better Health.
Last year, Dr Jones was accredited as a member of the National Press Club in Washington, DC, and has focused much of her recent reporting on health policy reform efforts. She still practises medicine part-time as a rehab specialist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Dr Jones is also a talented cartoonist and her cartoons‘ take on medicine displays a sharp, wry sense of humour.
This week, Dr Val agreed to answer some questions for Canadian Medicine:
Canadian Medicine: Did you know as an undergrad at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that you wanted to be a physician?
Click here for the rest of the post.
April 26th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Humor, Medblogger Shout Outs
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This post is republished from Paul Levy’s blog. Please feel free to repost and distribute to raise awareness of those who do not enjoy free speech:
Thanks to T at Notes of an Anesthesioboist for getting this going, a group of bloggers is holding a blog rally in support of Roxana Saberi, who is spending her birthday on a hunger strike in Tehran’s Evin Prison, where she has been incarcerated for espionage. According to NPR, “The Iranian Political Prisoners Association lists hundreds of people whose names you would be even less likely to recognize: students, bloggers, dissidents, and others who, in a society that lacks a free press, dare to practice free expression.”
Hearing reports like these has prompted us to do a ribbon campaign. Blue for blogging.
Please consider placing a blue ribbon on your blog or website this week in honor of the journalists, bloggers, students, and writers who are imprisoned in Evin Prison, nicknamed “Evin University,” and other prisons around the world, for speaking and writing down their thoughts. Also, please ask others to join our blog rally
April 19th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Policy, News
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I just got back from a blog workshop at the Canyon Ranch Institute in Tucson, co-led by yours truly and the lovely and charming Kerri Morrone Sparling of SixUntilMe. We had a wonderful time with the locals, acquainting them with social media terminology, and teaching them how to blog and Tweet. We were also immersed in their culture, which largely meant that I lectured (for the first time in my physician career) in yoga pants, and enjoyed small portions of food rich in fruits and vegetables.
A Javelina
Despite the arid, inhospitable environment, the Arizona desert is teeming with life. Quail, rabbits, lizards, javelinas, humming birds and woodpeckers, bob cats and coyotes – all roam around freely near adobe homes nestled between flowering cacti. The extraordinary liveliness of the desert takes the casual visitor by surprise, and the variety of scrubby plants, aloes, and cacti of every imaginable shape, size, and pricklyness is a horticulturalist’s dream.
Since I was on east coast time, I was willing to participate in the 6:30am speed walks in the desert each morning. The lovely landscape inspired reflectiveness in the walkers, though I was somewhat distracted by the roaming hoard of javelinas (very large peccaries who resemble wild boars, smell like skunks, are virtually blind, and live to eat flowering plants). The javelinas had new babies with them – described by one Canyon Rancher as “footballs with legs.”
In between workshop lectures, Kerri and I were treated to some spa services – (regular readers know that I’m a huge fan of massages) which were welcome respites from our very busy work lives. But best of all, we got to spend some time with Dr. Richard Carmona (who attended our workshop), and we discussed how social media could be the key to inspiring behavior modification in Americans who need to eat more healthily and get more exercise.
As beautiful as the Canyon Ranch is, the healthy lifestyle it promotes won’t reach beyond its own walls if they don’t engage people in ways that fit their budgets and time constraints. Now that 70% of Internet users are engaged in social media, and Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and online support groups are growing exponentially, there’s never been a better time to find ways to reach people with disease prevention messages and strategies. As Washington gears up to support preventive health initiatives as part of healthcare reform, innovative non-profits like the Canyon Ranch Institute can play an important role in helping us get America back on track in terms of weight management and fitness. Online communities like SparkPeople or the Canyon Ranch Institute could be one avenue for change.
Of course, if you can afford to vacation in Arizona, the place itself has a calming, therapeutic effect. If that’s not in the cards for you, you can still emulate the lifestyle in your own javelina-free environment. As I take my regular walks back in DC, I’ll be sure to remember those cute little footballs with legs, and wear yoga pants as often as possible during future lectures (if the NIH looks at me quizzically next month during my NLM presentation, I’ll just blame Rich Carmona).
