Connect for Healthcare links long-term care providers, families
MedCity News
8.18.10 | | Columbus, Ohio
Neil Moore found himself repeatedly frustrated when he tried to call for updates on how his father-in-law was doing while in a nursing home.
Either calls would go unreturned, or staffers didn’t have enough time to talk, leaving Moore and his family in the dark about his father-in-law, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. “It didn’t make sense that we weren’t being proactively updated on his status,” Moore said.
Unlike many others who’ve faced the same annoyance, Moore — a 20-year veteran in the field of health information technology, including a stint with Becton, Dickinson and Co. — was in the position to do something about it.
About two years ago, Moore started Connect for Healthcare, a company aimed at solving the communication problems he experienced with the nursing home. The company’s subscription-based service allows for status updates via e-mail, text message or the Web to an unlimited number of family members or friends. The updates feature “wellness metrics” (Is Mom eating? Sleeping? Walking?) that can be customized to reflect specific questions or concerns of family members.
The company sells its service to a range of health providers, including nursing homes, home health companies, rehabilitation centers and hospices.
Connect for Healthcare, which has three full-time employees, has enjoyed some early success, but its biggest break could be just around the corner. Moore won’t say how many providers are customers, though he did specify that the company has clients in six states. But two recent deals could pave the way for bigger things.
First, the company recently completed an integration of its service with Resource Systems, an Ohio-based firm that develops clinical documentation software called CareTracker for long-term care providers. Not only does the integration give Connect for Healthcare access to 2,500 potential new customers that use CareTracker, it automates status updates based on the values of CareTracker’s clinical data. “That’s a huge deal for us and a great opportunity for CareTracker clients,” Moore said.
Larry Triplett, president of Resource Systems, said he’s been approached a couple of times in the past decade by companies that developed software similar to Connect for Healthcare but whose offerings were “too clinical and too quantitative.” Ease-of-use for both providers and families is what sets Moore’s software apart, Triplett said.
“The simplicity of it is what’s helping him get some traction,” Triplett said.
Second, Connect for Healthcare about a month ago began a pilot program with “one of the largest assisted-living providers in the U.S.,” which Moore declined to identify. If the provider likes what it sees, it could begin rolling out Connect for Healthcare’s service to its “hundreds” of facilities across the country.
Moore hopes to land $500,000 in investment funding that the company would use to build its sales and marketing team. The company recently qualified for a state tax credit aimed at making technology start-ups in Ohio more attractive to investors, so that, also, should lift its prospects.
But if the pilot program with the major provider is a success, that may be all the help Connect for Healthcare needs to get investment dollars flowing its way.
