Madison Startup: Moxe Health Applications – Triage.me

Triage.me is a solution for one of the biggest issues within the U.S. healthcare system – unnecessary trips to the Emergency Room.  At the Milwaukee BuildHealth Hack-a-thon this idea was born from the challenge: “Reduce the number of ED (Emergency Department) visits for non-emergent care in Milwaukee County.”

We recently finished the second leg of our “Nibletz Sneaker Strapped Nationwide Road Trip.” We met Moxe Health’s CEO Dan Wilson while in Madison, his CTO was not available but I was able to find his description about how Triage.me works:

Providing people with the tools they need to find appropriate care everywhere saves everyone, hospitals and patients, money and time. Patients receive a SMS from triage.me post emergency room discharge.  By sending a text to triage.me with their problem and current address, we route the person towards the nearest clinic, providing the address and a link to directions (for smartphone users). Many clinics that work with the underinsured also often have variable hours and locations. We’ve made it easy for these clinics to update their hours and location via SMS so that we can better route triage.me users to locations.

This is a huge issue that faces the current health care system, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) estimates that 50% of the 121 million emergency room visits in 2011 could have been handled in a primary care situation.  The typical emergency room visit costs an average of $700 versus $150 for a primary care physician possibly reducing costs by $550.

We met Moxe Health’s Dan Wilson (CEO) while we were at Murfie HQ in Madison Wisconsin (coverage coming soon).  He began explaining where the idea for triage.me began and where they’ve presented so far.  It began at BuildHealth and a few weeks later they presented at Health Data Initiative: Health Datapalooza

A mere 50 days separated the two events and Dan blogged a few times about the experience:

Blog post 2…We’re now full steam ahead on triage.me and have some exciting things in store. Exactly 50 days after conceptual, triage.me will launch on June 5 for public use in Milwaukee and DC.  We’ve started mapping out ways to expand triage.me to make it even better.

Blog post 3…So, we had 4 weeks to design a booth and rewrite an entire product. Oh, and Mark was already committed to working 30 hours a week in Chicago. We called in whatever favors we could muster and got some wonderful help from Abby Larner reworking the front-end design. Aurora stepped in to help with the booth and drove one of their display boards across the city so we could pick it up.

Where are we now? Mark and I are fully committed to building triage.me into the platform we know it can be. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback and guidance over the last few weeks and there ia a lot of thanks due.

Stay tuned, this ride’s just getting started!

Triage.me was presented at the Health Datapalooza (video below).  Descriptions of both BuildHealth and HDI can be found below.

triage.me [Moxe Health] from HDI Forum on Vimeo.

BuildHealth is a context design for enabling collaborative conversation, engagement and accountability around the idea of good health.

Our definition of health is holistic: it is being physically, mentally, emotionally, economically, environmentally and socially balanced. With such a broad definition, the mission is currently focused on the Greater Milwaukee area in order to be effective. The core functions of the BuildHealth organization are facilitation and community alignment. Our intent is to avoid duplication of services, to overcome silo-ing and territorialization and to empower community at its most basic level. We believe each community already has what is needs to become accountable for its state of health.

Health Data Initiative’s: Health Datapalooza

The Health Data Initiative Forum III: The Health Datapalooza was held June 5 and 6, 2012, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The event brought together a diverse group of more than 1,500 data experts, technology developers, entrepreneurs, policy makers, health care system leaders, and community advocates to support innovative applications of health and health care data.

Links to Everywhere Else:

Moxe Health Applications triage.me

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Kansas City Startup: Cognovant Raises $500k For mPHR Pocket Health

A Kansas City startup called Cognovant launches last summer and has been working on a new, easy to use mPHR (mobile personal health record) application. Their application, called PocketHealth, is actually a suite of applications and is cross platform. The company has been saying for months that they will be launching on iOS and Android this month.

With the news that they just raised a $500,000 seed round, they should be that much closer to reaching their deadline.

Cognovant’s PocketHealth, will be free for individual users to download and use. The app captures data and allows users to manage their wellness. It’s built under the stringent medical industry standards. Cognovant has said that the application is based on international data standards and has the same foundation as a full electronic medical record.

Cognovant CEO, Dr. Joe Ketcherside, confirmed to SiliconPrairie today that they are still on track for a  launch in about two weeks after final testing is complete.

Beyond the base, free app, users will be able to download a multi-user “family” version which will give users the ability to manage multiple health records. They will also have an upgrade called PocketHealth PHR which will allow users to manage more complex health issues.

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Austin Startup: RxNetwork Launches Website To Find Best Local Prices On Prescriptions, App To Come

Austin based pharmatech startup RxNetwork has officially launched their consumer facing website designed to help people find the best possible prices on prescription drugs in their area. The site serves up both online and brick & mortar pharmacies by zipcode.

All you have to do is enter the prescription name, choose the right dosage and enter your zipcode. Once that information is entered RxNetwork searches local pharmacies whether they be stand alone or in big department stores like WalMart and Target, to find the best possible price for your prescription. Where applicable it also shows you the availability of a generic version of that particular prescription and the cost.

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With Two Startups In The Program, New Health Focused “WellTech” Incubator Launches In New York

There’s a new startup incubator in New York City hoping to help launch new businesses in the health and wellness sector. The WellTech incubator is based in New York’s Gramercy neighborhood and is headed by Peter Ellis who is the CEO and  one of the founders of SpaFinder the world’s largest spa and wellness resource.

Welltech is being financed by Ellis’ Jubilee Investments. Jubilee found it’s big success by being a first round investor in Gramercy One. Gramercy One offers cloud based business management solutions for over 5,800 spas, gyms and medical practices world wide. Gramercy One announced a $14.5 million dollar round of financing led by Steve Case’s Revolution Ventures, GroTech, TD Capital and Jubilee, last fall.

“The phenomenal success of SpaFinder and GramercyOne showed us that technology holds enormous potential for helping people lead healthier lives,” Ellis said. “New York City is home to some of the most creative innovators in both the technology and wellness sectors, and we look forward to working with them to take wellness-related technology and services to an exciting new level.”

Companies chosen to participate in the WellTech Incubator will receive $50,000 in seed capital to start their business, along with office space. They’ll also have access to GramercyOne and Spafinder executives for guidance and mentoring. There may also be future financing rounds in the cards from WellTech along with other introduced investors.

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Start Up Spotlight: Chicago’s Klutch Club, Health & Wellness Delivered To Your Door Monthly

Companies like Shoe Dazzle and Sole Society revolutionized a new concept for busy people. These two companies send their “club members” a new, stylish pair of shoes every month. The shoes are roughly based on questions you submit when you join and most users are finding they get very stylish shoes.

The “of the month club” industry has expanded to cosmetics, purses, and now health and wellness.  Klutch Club is a woman owned start up based in Chicago. Founder Julie Bashkin.

Klutch Club was built on Bashkin’s background as an engagement manager at McKinsey and Company. In that position she served packaged goods and retail clients and noticed that her clients were struggling to engage customers in a multi-channel way and hardly any had a digital presence.

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New Mobile Healthcare Start Up Gets $7.5 Million In Funding For Doctor Video Replays

Have you ever gone to a doctor’s appointment, and after waiting an hour in their waiting room and spending 8 minutes in the doctor’s care, gotten home just to forget what the doctor ordered? Well apparently this happens to a lot of people. That is the fundamental idea behind a new mobile healthcare start up called Jiff.

Jiff allows doctors to make quick video presentations based on recommendations with voice, video, charts, drawings and more. These video replays can be stockpiled for typical diagnosis or customized based on the doctors and patients needs. Than, the HIPPA compliant app can send the videos to the patient’s email address so they can review it later, over and over again.

Jiff hopes to solve the problem of follow up phone calls because the patient couldn’t recall the conversation, freeing up doctor’s time for follow up phone calls with further problems and complications and other ways of assisting patients.

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