Medical Practice Trends Authors

An article posted on ZD Net discusses a new online service that helps patients avoid being “non-adherent”, i.e. to take their meds. The American economy loses $177-300 billion per year because people don’t take their medicine properly.

Sean Teare is president of InnovationRx, a Massachusetts-based unit of a British company which aims both to cut the cost of nagging people to take their meds and improve the rate at which they do.

Will this new service work?

As to their business model, “We’re a subset of disease management. If you don’t improve adherence you can lose the impact of other changes. Health plans are looking for short term ROI, and we can show that.”

Even if you haven’t yet made the leap to full electronic medical records (EMR) implementation, chances are you’re already using a computerized system for scheduling, billing, or other administrative functions. And unless you only have one computer in the office, it’s likely that the computers are connected by some sort of network.

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Selecting a vendor to supply your IT network often feels like trying to buy a used automobile in another country. The most difficult part may be choosing a brand from an unrecognizable set of manufacturers. There are many choices to make, and although the common reaction is to look for the cheapest price, we all know that there are many other factors which play important roles in good decision-making.

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