I get pitched new products and services every day and it is pretty rare that I hear of something that is startlingly new. Informedika is just that – it addresses an old, old problem for practices in a new way. Continue reading for a very interesting interview with Informedika Founder and CEO Steve Yaskin.
Mary Pat: Tell us how Informedika came to be.
Steve: I am the founder and CEO of several high-tech companies in Silicon Valley and I’ve spent many years passionately solving problems using technology. In 2011 my attention turned to a problem that my wife, Dr. Inna Yaskin, faced in her medical practice every single day – the astoundingly inefficient process of ordering diagnostic tests and dealing with the results.
Electronic prescribing (E-Prescribing) was already becoming widely accepted due to the greater efficiency and accuracy of an electronic prescription compared with a hand-written one. But lab and radiology requisitions were still being handled using the phone and fax machine – a time-consuming, error-prone, and frequently unreliable medium. As a result, Dr. Yaskin and her staff were wasting a huge amount of time addressing errors and confusion – time that could be spent on patient care. So, I thought, if we can have E-Prescribing, why not E-Requisitions?
I set out to bring diagnostics into the 21st century, and founded Informedika, Inc. As well as building an innovative cloud-based solution for orders and results, partnerships with diagnostic service providers would be critical. Laboratories, radiology centers and genetic testing facilities were quick to see the benefits of E-Requisitions in addressing inefficiencies at their end too.
We soon realized that Informedika wasn’t just about features – it was about connecting healthcare providers to service providers and to each other in order to make healthcare delivery more effective, and ultimately improve quality of care. So Informedika became the Informedika E-Requisition Network.
Mary Pat: What exactly is an E-Requisition Network?
Steve: The Informedika Portal provides true bi-directionality for both requisitioning and processing diagnostic results, DME supplier ordering and mHealth device provisioning. This means we can offer labs (phlebotomy, pathology, genetics, and imagery) as well as Rx, wheel chairs and other DME, mHealth devices, and most kinds of information not typically available in EMR products today in “one pane of glass.” We deliver this free to physicians and other authorized clinicians.
Mary Pat: Your site talks about “seamless EMR integration.” Which EMRs does Informedika integrate with and how is it integrated?
Steve: For those EMR solutions that provide open APIs (application program interface), Informedika easily allows bi-directional data movement. Informedika has additional options to move information to EMRs that accept data in the following ways:
- Continuation of Care Document (CCD)
- “Drag & Drop” hotlinking
- PDF creation
- Secure Messaging Interface
Mary Pat: I see that radiology images can be viewed via your software – is that in beta or is that actually in use at a practice?
Steve: It is in use. In addition to radiology reports, the imagery is available in the Informedika Portal — this includes CT scans, MRI, Ultrasound, and, of course, X-rays. We use industry-standard DICOM to process imaging in our portal. No software is required to access the radiology imaging in Informedika portal.
Mary Pat: One of the problems physicians face is the duplication of records and results flowing into the practice. Does your system help to eliminate duplication of reports?
Steve: Yes, the Informedika Portal helps eliminate duplication of reports by using a central patient charting system. Our patent-protected patient-matching algorithm facilitates collecting data and providing access to the authorized users. Informedika detects possible duplicate orders as well, while presenting previously done results and studies.
Mary Pat: This is one of the most exciting concepts I’ve heard of recently – how long has Informedika been on the market?
Steve: Informedika soft-launched in the summer of 2012. We plan to make a little more noise this summer.
Mary Pat: What is the cost to physicians to use Informedika?
Steve: The Informedika Portal is offered free to clinicians: MDs, DOs, NPs, PAs, and soon pharmacists. We also provide access to staff at SNFs (skilled nursing homes), Assisted Living facilities and Home Health agencies to facilitate care coordination, electronic ordering and digital signing of the documents.
Mary Pat: Do you have any case studies on the savings that physicians can realize by using Informedika?
Steve: We are collecting these metrics now — we had conducted several studies with an initial group of primary care doctors and calculated monthly savings to be $4,000 per doctor per month. We also produce additional billing claims for participating practices for the Care Coordination. We calculated unbilled claims results as $100 per patient after they had been discharged from the hospital. Informedika produces additional revenue for physicians for the work they already perform while incentivizing them to take a more active part to prevent hospital re-admissions.
Mary Pat: Your product seems ideal for ACOs – do you have any ACOs using Informedika?
Steve: We are working actively with Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) across the country. In addition to processing requisitions and delivering results, each ACO requires specific workflows regarding high-risk patients and, of course, re-admission decision support. The Informedika Portal allows for these functions to be customized for each ACO. Additionally, Informedika e-requisitions use live compendiums, authenticate the user, and check for eligibility — these are all required under the new ACO rules. Most importantly, we offer Business Intelligence to ACOs allowing them to negotiate better contracts, distribute payments to participating physicians and close the leakage problems when physicians order diagnostics from non-preferred and potentially more expensive providers.
Mary Pat: Informedika sounds like the answer to a prayer for physicians, but I have to ask: why hasn’t anyone else been able to accomplish this before now?
Steve: We hear this question quite a bit and the answer is not complex. When we looked at the problem of diagnostic testing and results with fresh eyes and a Silicon Valley viewpoint — with no agenda other than providing information to physicians in the best way possible — we came up with a platform that is agnostic to legacy systems — in other words: we started with a blank piece of paper and built the system that pretty much anyone might specify if they were not already busy defending legacy applications.
You can watch their video here: “Informedika in 120 seconds”
For more information, contact Steven Sattler at (415) 722-7586 or visit the Informedika website at www.informedika.com.
