DEARhealth has collaborated with global biopharmaceutical leader UCB to improve care delivery for patients living with epilepsy.
Image: DEARhealth collaborates with UCB. Photo: Courtesy of Raman Oza/Pixabay
The collaboration will focus on improving patient experiences and their health outcomes with the hope of reducing the overall medical costs and is built on DEARhealth’s software system to empower value-based disease management through Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered care pathways, integrated in the Electronic Medical Records (EMR).
“We couldn’t be more excited to partner with UCB at a time where care is transforming so rapidly. DEARhealth is collaborating with companies like UCB to share disease-specific knowledge and expertise in order to maximize value for patients and in epilepsy care,” said Daniel Hommes, MD PhD and Chief Executive Officer at DEAR Health.
DEARhealth’s proprietary platform aims to improve patient health outcomes and experiences while reducing healthcare costs. “In the first prototypic chronic disease, Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), the platform was assessed in partnership with a U.S. payer. It was demonstrated that the disease relapse rate as well as Emergency Department visits and hospitalizations were significantly decreased which had a huge impact on healthcare costs,” said Aria Zand, MD and Chief Product Officer at DEARhealth. The software being piloted for epilepsy will optimize care coordination within DEARhealth smart epilepsy care pathways, which are automatically risk-adjusted and enable patients to regularly share information and connect with their health care provider to enable more precise, rapid, and personalized interventions.
DEARhealth targeted epilepsy because it is one of the many chronic and mental health conditions that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, make up 90% of annual health care expenditures in the U.S. And while about 1-in-26 Americans will experience epilepsy at some point in their lives, many still suffer due to misconceptions and stigma surrounding their condition. In reaching out to UCB, DEARhealth looks to leverage UCB’s deep knowledge of the epilepsy patient journey and leadership in epilepsy research to develop new patient-focused solutions to be integrated with the patient electronic medical record (EMR).
“At UCB we are committed to helping patients living with epilepsy understand their options and make choices that allow them to reach their ideal,” said Mike Davis, Head of the U.S. Neurology Patient Value Unit at UCB. “This starts with supporting the patient-clinician relationship at the center of patient care. Tools like DEARhealth incorporate valuable educational and support materials into the EMR where they can be accessed by the clinician as part of a comprehensive patient care dialogue. This has the potential to change the way that patients and health care providers interact and encourage patients and their caregivers to play a more informed role in their treatment.”
DEARhealth is testing the software further in collaboration with UCLA’s Seizure Disorder Center to develop a next generation means for patients and their care providers to optimize epilepsy treatment through easier clinical monitoring and communication. DEARhealth’s healthcare platform provides the mechanism for patients to update their care providers seamlessly and for the patient and provider to jointly tailor treatment to reach the best outcome.
Source: Company Press Release