This project is a collaboration of Ringful Health (Principal Investigator), CHRISTUS St Michael’s Cancer Center (pilot site), and scientists from Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (Dr. Andrew vickers), University of Texas School of Public Health (Dr. Elizabeth Vandewater), and Texas State University (Dr. Ju Long).

The key idea behind this project is that cancer screening needs to be individualized based on each individual’s family history of diseases, life style, or even genetic makeup. As we have seen in recent public controversies about cancer screening guide lines, one-size-fit-all recommendations do not work for everyone. However, individualized screen schedule is also difficult to establish and for patients to follow. It is challenging enough for consumers to follow simple screening schedules — the non-adherence rate for complex individualized schedules would be much worse. This proposed project utilizes secure new communication technologies via consumer mobile devices, to help patients understand, adhere to, and report back their cancer screening tests.

Congratulations to the team, and we look forward to a fruitful collaboration that would result in better prevention of cancer!

Today, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the CHRISTUS St Michael’s Health System has been awarded $1,600,000 for an Integrated Nurse Training and Mobile Device Harm Reduction Program. Ringful Health provided the technology strategy and grant development support for this application.

CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System and its project partners were selected for the grant to implement the Integrated Nurse Training and Mobile Device Harm Reduction Program (INTM) in Texarkana, TX, according to Mike Finley, M.D., Chief Regional Medicare Officer for CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System.

“The INTM Program will help generate a potential savings of $3.5 million to CMS over the next three years by training nurses to recognize early warning signs of congestive heart failure (CHF) and sepsis among Medicare beneficiaries in nursing home facilities and patients in hospitals, who are vulnerable for certain preventable conditions,” said Finley. “We expect to experience reduced hospitalizations and readmissions due to CHF and sepsis, which simultaneously benefits patients and decreases costs. The INTM training, in combination with computerized clinical decision support systems loaded on mobile device tablets, is anticipated to result in a 20% reduction in readmissions from nursing home facilities for CHF and sepsis and fewer failure-to-rescue situations for those patients who are admitted to the hospital. The mobile devices, loaded with evidence-based protocols, will guide nurses through further patient assessment and actions once symptoms are detected. Ringful Health is a key partner in this effort helping support nurses with effective technology that enhances care.”

Kim Johnson, Ringful Health’s Chief Operating Officer stated: “We are pleased to be the technology partner on this project. We believe that we are entering a new era where technology can provide enhanced support to nurses who are on the front lines of providing quality health care and proud to work with an innovative organization such as CHRISTUS St. Michael to make this a reality.”

Dr. Finley continued, “We are excited to receive the opportunity to enhance training and care in the Texarkana area for patients who are among our most vulnerable population. Being selected for a health innovation grant speaks volumes about CHRISTUS St. Michael’s dedication to advanced health care for the citizens of the Texarkana region, a tradition that reaches back to 1916, when the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word were invited to Texarkana to open Michael Meagher Memorial Hospital. Moreover, we are honored to be selected as an innovator in the delivery of health care with our efforts to strengthen disease management while reducing costs.”

“Through innovations in care delivery, CHRISTUS St. Michael is working proactively to reduce health care costs while improving quality and increasing efficiency,” CEO Chris Karam emphasized. “Today’s announcement by the CMS Innovation Center will advance our ongoing efforts to build effective public-private partnerships, strengthen the nation’s health care system, and put care within reach for all Americans.”

About Ringful Health:

Ringful Health is the leader in providing patient-centered and evidence-based teamwork solutions to help hospitals and communities improve healthcare outcome, patient safety, and reduce cost through mobile and decision support technologies. Ringful Health is an early stage health technology company based in Austin, Texas.

Background of CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System:

CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System, established in 1916 by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word as the Michael Meagher Memorial Hospital, today serves residents of Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. With a mission of “Extending the Healing Ministry of Jesus Christ,” CHRISTUS St. Michael provides patient-centered quality care through the Center for Joint Replacement, our designated Primary Stroke Center, a Level III NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), a Level III Trauma Center, as well as day surgery, open heart surgery, orthopedic surgery, vascular surgery, neurosurgery, cardiac/pulmonary rehabilitation, diagnostic radiology, therapeutic and wellness programs. CHRISTUS St. Michael is a recognized regional leader for surgery, heart care, heart surgery, and cancer care. The St. Michael Emergency Department treated over 70,000 patients in FY2011, more than any area ED, with care and compassion. CHRISTUS St. Michael is nationally recognized as a “100 Top Hospital” in 2011 and again in 2012 by Thomson Reuters, honored with a Women’s Choice Award as a trusted referral source among women in 2011 and 2012, named the #1 “Modern Healthcare Best Places to Work,” for large organizations in 2011, and most recently received “Magnet Recognition” from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, an achievement realized by only 7% of U.S. hospitals.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) announced today that team Ringful is one of 3 winners of its $130,000 challenge for its Aligned Forces for Quality (AF4Q) program. The winners were unveiled at the 3rd national Health Data Initiative conference at the Washington Convention Center.

AF4Q is RWJF’s signature effort to lift the overall quality of health care in targeted communities, reduce racial and ethnic disparities and provide models for national reform. In total, RWJF has committed $300 million to projects to improve the quality and equality of U.S. health care with AF4Q being the flagship program of the portfolio. It is the largest effort of its kind ever undertaken by a U.S. philanthropy.

The AF4Q Challenge launched on October 28, 2011 and asked competing developers to create applications that provide consumers access to comparative quality care metrics across the country. The Challenge saw a record number of entrants (55), and final 3 winners emerged after two phases of competition and real world pilots.

Team Ringful is a collaboration of Ringful Health (Dr. Michael Yuan), Consumer Reports (Dr. Doris Peter), Texas State University (Dr. Ju Long), and the Louise Batz Patient Safety Foundation (Ms. Laura Townsend). For this challenge, team Ringful developed and piloted an iPad solution to engage in-hospital patients to disseminate healthcare quality information, and to help patients engage clinician teams in the hospital. Team Ringful worked with AF4Q grantee, the Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality, during pilot phase of the challenge. The application is available from the Apple AppStore under the name Hospital Survival Guide.

According to team lead Dr. Yuan, the prototype application has already been used by hundreds of hospital patients during the pilot phase with very positive feedbacks. At least one large hospital has already agreed to deploy the solution to engage their surgical patients during their hospital stay.

“The solution we developed as part of this challenge not only disseminates information to patients, but also captures patient-reported healthcare quality information. The patients’ voice allows us to predict and address patient safety and healthcare quality issues early on. That is our key value proposition to healthcare providers.” said Yuan.

iMedicalApps posted the following review of the app: “Overall, this is a great application that takes complicated data and condenses it down to an easy to use format for patients. Patient’s don’t have to go through a magazine, or make haphazard searches on the internet, rather, they can find a great deal of content all within this app — easy to use, and presented in a simple fashion.”

You can read the full review here: http://www.imedicalapps.com/2011/08/consumer-reports-empowers-patients-hospital-ratings-app-iphone-ipad/

At Ringful Health we are happy to have the opportunity to work with a household brand such as Consumer Reports to advance our mission of engaging patients to take responsibility for their own health and wellness.

Stay tuned for more great products in the near future.

This first-of-its-kind app for MS offers individuals a convenient and effective tool to manage the ever-changing course of the disease. “I am proud that MSAA is able to offer this innovative application to the MS community. My MS Manager provides a one-stop shop for an individual to not only monitor their MS, but also has the capability to include overall health information”, states MSAA President and CEO Douglas G. Franklin. “It is exciting for MSAA to be utilizing this new technology allowing us to help more people in more places.”

My MS Manager allows an individual to input and store:

•  Comprehensive medical records

•  Contact information of your healthcare team

•  Descriptions of MS flare-ups, tracking their duration, frequency, and intensity

•  Information about side effects and effective treatment strategies

•  Important details essential to staying one step ahead of your MS

Michael Yuan, CEO of Ringful Health , is excited to be a part of this initiative to help the MS community. “We are happy to support MSAA’s efforts to educate and empower MS patients with tools that help them take more responsibility for their health and maintain continuous communication with physicians anytime and anywhere.”

For more information on My MS Manager , or any of the programs and services MSAA provides, please contact Amanda Bednar, public relations manager at (800) 532-7667, extension 122 or via email at abednar@msassociation.org . You may also visit www.msassociation.org/mobile to learn more about My MS Manager .

About MSAA
The Multiple Sclerosis Association of America is a national nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to enriching the quality of life for everyone affected by multiple sclerosis. MSAA offers programs and services including a toll-free bilingual Helpline (800-532-7667); informative publications including a magazine, The Motivator; website featuring MSi online educational videos; equipment distribution ranging from grab bars to wheelchairs; cooling accessories for heat-sensitive individuals; MRI funding and insurance advocacy; educational events and activities; Networking Program; Lending Library; and more.

About Ringful Health
Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Ringful Health is a leader in providing patient-centered and evidence-based teamwork solutions to help hospitals and communities improve healthcare outcome, patient safety, and reduce cost through mobile and decision support technologies.

About Multiple Sclerosis
The most common neurological disorder diagnosed in young adults, multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system. This disorder damages or destroys the protective covering (known as myelin) surrounding the nerves, causing reduced communication between the brain and nerve pathways. Common symptoms include visual problems, overwhelming fatigue, difficulty with balance and coordination, and various levels of impaired mobility. MS is not contagious or fatal.

Come to Tampa, FL between May 1-3 to see some of our latest demos that we have never shown before!

HIMSS and most vendors are still giving lip-service to patient engagement. Rather than seeing a slow rise in discussing how to engage consumers via HIT, this issue is something that few vendors bother mentioning and when they do, it is still with the old message of how to market to consumers with these types of tools rather than engaging consumers/patients as part of the care team.

That is inline with our observations. Like most enterprise IT departments, hospital IT is set up to address operational issues — not to provide strategic insights into the hospital’s overall goals. So, it is quite natural that they are very deep in building and certifying their EHRs to get government money these days. As a conference of healthcare IT and their vendors, the HIMSS rightfully reflects this.

However, that does NOT mean that the hospital clinical executives are oblivious to the challenges of ACO and patient engagement. In fact, hospitals are already under a lot of financial pressure to reduce un-scheduled re-admissions within 30 days from discharge. That is very ACO-like if you ask me. They have to do it through patient engagement. So, how do they do it? The IT department is too busy with EHR deployment! Many hospitals we know are taking the most expensive and potentially wasteful approach — hiring nurse case managers to follow up EACH PATIENT.

At Ringful Health, we thrive to build solutions for hospitals to better and more efficiently engage their post-discharge patients. Our solutions uses multi-modal communications to reach patients, incorporate evidence-based guidelines and contents, leverage automated rules and workflow engines, and fits into existing hospital teamwork frameworks (e.g., TEAMSTEPPS, HPI/HPC).

If you are a hospital executive clinician looking for a solution to better engage post-discharge patients, please get in touch with us!

From last year’s SXSH to this year’s official health track in SXSW, healthcare IT, especially consumer driven healthcare, has become an increasingly important theme of the massive SXSW conferences. See below for the health track talks on

Sunday, March 13th
Monday, March 14th

Notice that all the talks on the 13th are in the Hilton Hotel, which is right across street from the Convention Center. I actually liked the hotel location better — it is more intimate and better furnished.

If you are coming to town, please drop us a note (email: michael AT ringful dot com) and we will show you some some local austinite favorite places to go to!

BTW, I will be speaking at SXSW this year again in the “Mobile Future 15″ sessions. My topic is How to get your app approved, which draws from own extensive experience battling Apple, BlackBerry, and Verizon app stores. It is 3/14 (pi day!!) 4:45pm at Ballroom E in the Austin Convention Center. Drop by when you get a chance!

The data comes from an analysis of Good Technology’s user base, which includes more than 4,000 enterprise customers, whose iPad deployments range from one to more than 1,000 iPads.

Read more from Molly Merrill at Healthcare IT News.

Read more from Sara Jackson at FierceMobileHealthcare.