We’ve covered BioIntellisense and its clinical grade BioButton wearable sensor several times in the past two years. We also wrote about Medically Home’s at-home hospitalization programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The two companies recently announced a partnership to provide care for people with serious or complex illnesses in their own homes. This consolidation, which they call a “strategic partnership,” is an example of how digital health companies with a part of the solution are filling the gaps with solutions from other companies, rather than trying to grow their own.
In this case, BioIntellisense brings the BioButton sensor device and BioCloud advanced data analytics to the table. The device captures data for heart rate, respiratory rate, skin temperature, activity levels, sleep, body position, and gait analysis. The data collected by the wearable aids clinical assessment of patients and assists prioritization of care and allocation of resources. The data can also help with clinical workflow efficiency in caring for patients and managing treatments. One of the partnership’s goals is that care teams using the data analytics can intervene proactively rather than waiting for something to go wrong or get worse.
Medically Home focuses on decentralizing at-home care for patients with chronic, complex, and high-risk diseases and conditions. Medically Home employs technology-enabled services to allow patients to live in their own homes and get clinically sound care equal to in-hospital care. “As hospital capacity pressure mounts, this strategic collaboration further accelerates Medically Home’s platform reach and growing ecosystem of health systems and payers nationwide,” said Pippa Shulman, Chief Medical Officer for Medically Home.
Any story about telehealth these days has to acknowledge that telehealth services are in jeopardy as state and federal emergency regulations expire. According to a study of telehealth outpatient visits by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Epic Research, telehealth visits accounted for just 1% of all outpatient Medicaid visits in late 2019. During the pandemic telehealth outpatient visits for Medicaid patients grew to 40% of all mental health and substance disorder visits and 11% of all other outpatient visits. If public health emergency (PHE) telehealth coverage expires on federal or state levels, telehealth growth may pause or even decline.
