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Human Science, Inc. Launches PatientCarenet.Org

Posted on: Thursday, 26 February 2009, 09:31 CST

Networking Site for Physicians Offers Secure Message Capability to Facilitate Instant Collaborative Patient Care

ROCKVILLE, Md., Feb. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Human Science, Inc. (HSI), a Rockville Innovation Center Incubator company, today announced the launch of an innovative software service that enables physicians to collaborate and coordinate patient care in a secure environment. PatientCarenet.Org connects community-based physicians with specialty physicians, hospitals and laboratories to allow simple, direct communication about shared patients throughout the referral, diagnosis, treatment and discharge processes.

Founded by Y.K. Son, PatientCarenet.Org, a division of Human Science, Inc., is the direct result of personal medical care experience. "Two years ago my wife had a severe accident and I spent months going from my family physician to specialists. It became clear to me that primary care physicians and specialists spent countless hours playing phone tag, leading to wasted time on hold, call backs, and multiple attempts to connect to share patient information. As a result, we developed a direct, secure, digital communication solution that is integrated to physician's own work flow in order to increase physician efficiency and response rate by reducing lag time for information exchange in patient care coordination," Mr. Son explained. "A doctor's time is the most important resource in health service. PatientCarenet.Org provides physicians and specialists within their own referral network a means to reduce time wasted and communication errors, and ultimately improve patient care."

Recent studies indicate that nearly 80 percent of physicians provide care in practices with fewer than five physicians, creating a silo effect: small systems that cannot exchange information with each other and incapable of reciprocal transactions. Yet inter-physician communication is critical to providing quality care especially for complex patients with chronic, high impact diseases. This outdated means of communication is inefficient for our current and future medical needs. To improve relationships with colleagues and collaborate among peers, today's medical professional needs a secure system to request key information, obtain status reports and test results and allow multi-directional information exchange.

"In today's world of chronic, high impact disease state, patients are seeing several doctors and there is a greater need of for shared data, diagnosis and treatment information. Immediate communication is needed or it can impair the quality of care," said Dr. Steven Schwartz, family physician in Potomac Physician Associates at Kensington Maryland, and Associate Dean of Informatics at Georgetown University School of Medicine. "The simple concept behind this technology is to use secure messaging to enable medical professionals to protect private patient information and communicate more quickly and efficiently to improve patient care. The added benefit is time savings for the physician and their staff."

To meet the challenges of collaboration, primary care physicians and specialists need tools that are compatible with our "silo" culture, busy workflow, and privacy laws. PatientCarenet.Org offers a unique and comprehensive solution to the problems many physicians share everyday. 1 of 10 patients in primary care needs to see specialties. PatientCarenet.Org provides physicians with social networking, secure digital communication and patient record sharing. "The professional networking site creates a virtual 'doctor's lounge,' allowing physicians to build relationships and engage in immediate and secure dialogue with colleagues," says Mr. Son. "In addition, we will continue to expand this platform technology to include virtual patient conferences and health information exchange (HIE). These digital exchanges can be linked to shared patient information and can be interoperable with electronic health records, using standardized Continuity of Care Record (CCR) formats."

"Doctors can communicate in structured contextual message dialogue form and can take advantage of free moments between patients, rather than wasting time playing phone tag and interrupting patient appointments to speak to a colleague on the phone," said Dr. Schwartz. "PatientCarenet.Org also prevents the loss of hand written notes, phone messages and faxes," Schwartz said. "Now specialists can send x-rays readings or lab test results along with a clear message as to diagnosis and treatment recommendations in one structured contextual message versus a series of mailings, e-mails and phone tags. And, if they have concerns about conflicting recommendations from multiple specialists, the primary care physician can communicate directly with those in their network to maximize efficiency of patient care and minimize misunderstandings."

The system, which began Beta testing in April of 2008, was officially launched in January of 2009 and currently has been adopted by more than twenty East Coast medical professionals from 7 large practices, 4 hospitals and 1 radiology laboratory. The service is free for doctors who refer others into their participating network. Or there is a minimal monthly fee applies to unlimited use of this secure social networking system after a trial period.

To learn more about PatientCarenet.Org and begin a free trial visit www.PatientCarenet.Org or e-mail yk.son@humanscienceinc.com.

SOURCE Human Science, Inc.

Source: PR Newswire

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