EMERYVILLE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vituity and Inflect Health today announced the launch of Healthful, a new company dedicated to delivering highly personalized support and guidance to patients. Healthful is the first startup to spin out of Inflect Health, Vituity’s innovation hub.
Healthful’s proprietary patient navigation platform is among the first to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to help team members accurately determine the needs and resources for the patients who will benefit most from care navigation. This technology also helps Healthful build personalized care plans for each patient.
Healthful’s team of patient navigators helps mitigate social and economic barriers to care by seamlessly guiding patients and families through the healthcare ecosystem. This results in high-quality healthcare with minimal waste, inefficiency, and patient frustration.
“Each patient has unique needs and challenges, such as transportation, financial assistance, or appointment scheduling,” says Rick Newell, MD, Chief Transformation Officer at Vituity and Chief Executive Officer at Inflect Health. “Healthful breaks down those barriers by having patient care navigators deliver personalized, concierge-level support to those who need it the most. This results in appropriate utilization of care, lower costs to insurers and health systems, and, most importantly, end-to-end support for patients.”
Healthful represents Vituity’s ongoing investment in patient-centric solutions that improve experience, equity, access, and outcomes. The startup was inspired by Vituity clinicians across the country who noticed that their patients needed direct support and guidance to navigate the ins and outs of the complex healthcare experience.
“Healthful leverages evidence-based substance-use patient navigation for transformative results,” says Elizabeth Keating, Program Director at CA Bridge. “Thanks to high-quality care navigators, we’re witnessing the impact of this innovative model, driving clinical outcomes, facilitating follow-up treatment, and improving patients’ lives.”
How Healthful Works—And Achieves Great Outcomes
Healthful patient navigators connect with patients who are transitioning home from an acute care visit. The process starts with a needs assessment for both the patient and caregivers. Navigators then guide the patient to the resources needed to produce a holistic and satisfying healthcare journey. This process ensures that the patient and their caregivers receive concierge-level support.
Drawing upon Vituity’s 5,000 clinicians at 400 practice locations, Inflect Health implemented pilot programs to demonstrate the benefits of patient navigation services. A navigation pilot at a major health system in Illinois resulted in a 53% decrease in emergency department revisits for high utilizers six months post-navigation and garnered excellent feedback from patients. Similar pilots navigating substance use disorder and transitional care patients also achieved outstanding results.
Based on these early successes, demand for patient navigation is growing. “Multiple variables and barriers are impacting each patient’s care journey, and often, patients need help understanding them,” says Andrew Smith, Chief Innovation and Operations Officer at Vituity and President at Inflect Health. “Care navigation addresses this with direct personalized support.”
About Healthful
Healthful equips patients, families, and care teams with tools they need to achieve optimal health outcomes. Developed by front-line providers at healthcare delivery hub Vituity, our AI-assisted solution helps people seamlessly navigate the complex medical landscape by identifying and removing socioeconomic barriers while connecting them to high-quality, cost-effective, personalized support. Healthful is based in California; visit us online at Healthful.care, LinkedIn, and Twitter @HealthfulNav.
About Inflect Health
Inflect Health gives guidance and financial support to early-stage healthcare/health-tech startups with promising solutions to improve the lives of patients and providers. As the innovation hub for Vituity, a physician-owned partnership, Inflect Health has access to nearly 5,000 doctors, clinicians, and other key industry players. By connecting innovators to capital, physicians, and patients, Inflect Health is a catalyst for innovating health technologies that improve all our lives. Inflect Health is based in the Bay Area with offices across America; connect with us online at InflectHealth.com, LinkedIn, and Twitter @InflectHealth.
About Vituity
Vituity is a physician-owned and -led multispecialty partnership that has been raising the standard of care and transforming how, when, and where care is delivered for 50 years. Our patient focus and commitment to clinical excellence are the driving forces behind our 5,000 doctors and clinicians that care for nearly 8 million patients across nine acute care specialties annually. Vituity is driven to continually transform healthcare through our collective passion for patients.
Learn more at vituity.com.
