AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Digital health start-up CareHive is using its artificial intelligence-powered, digital health platform and clinic navigation team to partner with healthcare providers, health plans, and employers to achieve better patient outcomes and cost containment. It does so by integrating its sophisticated virtual care technology and clinical navigation with patients’ existing medical providers.
“CareHive is disrupting the status quo of fractured care and high healthcare costs by utilizing data-driven clinical navigation to guide patients as we collaborate with healthcare organizations,” said Ronald Dixon, MD, CareHive’s Chief Executive Officer and architect of CareHive’s robust virtual care platform. “We’re charting a new course — ‘hybrid healthcare’ — where the nexus of AI-technology and virtual clinicians are supporting in-person care to deliver the greatest value.”
Hybrid Care Delivery System
Healthcare providers, health plans and employers have struggled to curb climbing healthcare costs. A recent survey revealed personal medical debt climbed to $140 billion in unpaid medical bills last year, up from $81 billion in 2016. The cost of care is impacting medical decisions with about half of U.S. adults saying they or a family member put off or skipped care in the past year because of the cost.
Dixon describes the current healthcare system for patients like “medical pinball” — where patients bounce around from medical care to medical care, with each hit costing more health care dollars. He notes that chronic disease management represents more than 80 cents out of every healthcare dollar spent. “We need to realign healthcare around responding to, preventing and treating chronic disease, and using technology to improve navigation and clinical care, if we want to ever curb healthcare costs,” said Dixon.
CareHive’s data-driven technology platform and tools help clinicians more accurately diagnose and manage patients’ chronic medical issues from diabetes to kidney disease to congestive heart failure. The technology gets “smarter” over time, as more data is recorded, providing clinicians with robust tools from which to navigate patients.
The platform also incorporates asynchronous digital communication common to users, plus personalized health condition and medical questionnaires, to proactively collect information from patients (such as blood pressure or blood sugar) and allow patients to reach out at any time with questions of their own. CareHive offers the level of customer service and convenience that patients are used to in other areas of their life where technology enables numerous options for communicating and connecting. Virtual engagement with CareHive clinicians is streamlined and integrated, with clinical navigators guiding patients appropriately to avoid expensive points of care like Emergency Departments, freestanding ERs and urgent care centers, and keeping the care episode connected to their medical home.
Already, CareHive has partnered with numerous customers, including the large physician medical practice Premier Family Physicians and the national retail chain Whole Foods Market, among others, proving its capabilities to enhance patient care while lowering care costs for these partners.
“CareHive provides seamless, integrated and caring communication with our clinicians and patients, ensuring that our practice remains the centralized medical home for our patients – even when patients experience after-hours medical needs,” said Dr. Kevin Spencer, President and CEO of Premier Family Physicians, a CareHive partner.
Said Dr. Dixon, “We’re not in the business of just treating patients’ medical issues. We’re in the business of helping people get better and stay well, offering the right dose of healthcare at the most meaningful moments. It’s the type of care we need and want — population health that’s human-centered and technology-enabled, anytime and anywhere.”
To learn more about CareHive and its virtual care platform, visit carehive.com.
About CareHive:
CareHive’s vision is to perfect the convenience and clarity of healthcare. To learn more, visit carehive.com.
