Kevin Keenahan, is the Chief Product Officer at Internet Well being and co-founder of Tissue Analytics, Inc., acquired by Internet Well being in 2020.
Internet Well being’s mission is to harness information for human well being. They provide EHR software program and predictive, actionable analytics for medical specialties, together with rehab remedy, wound care, residence well being and hospice and worker well being. Their options are trusted in over 23,000 amenities throughout the continuum of care, together with the nation’s main hospitals, expert nursing amenities, senior dwelling amenities, residence well being and hospice businesses and outpatient clinics.
Might you share the genesis story of how you bought concerned in wound care, and the way this resulted out of your graduate research at John Hopkins College?
Again in 2013, I began my Grasp’s on the Johns Hopkins Middle for Bioengineering Innovation and Design (CBID), which is an unimaginable program that provides younger engineers the prospect to rotate by way of completely different medical settings on the Johns Hopkins Hospital. I used to be lucky sufficient to see power and acute wound care throughout these rotations and located the house fascinating, which led me to spend extra devoted time within the wound heart at Hopkins.
By way of that have, I noticed there was an absence of innovation within the wound care trade, with most wound care therapies counting on outdated strategies and applied sciences to evaluate efficacy. I noticed this as a possibility to make use of my engineering coaching to create an answer for wound care administration that may facilitate higher information assortment and enhance power wound outcomes, main me to discovered Tissue Analytics in 2014.
Tissue Analytics, Inc., was then acquired by Internet Well being in 2020. Might you share some particulars about this second in time and why you selected to be acquired?
Internet Well being® Tissue Analytics makes use of machine studying to investigate wound photographs and mechanically measure therapeutic. The acquisition was extremely strategic for us as a result of it gave us a possibility to develop our attain and offered entry to a a lot bigger dataset for us to use to our machine studying strategies. Becoming a member of forces with Internet Well being additionally allowed us to leverage their established place available in the market and entry its community of healthcare suppliers, along with strengthening their inpatient wound care enterprise.
How does Internet Well being use machine studying for wound monitoring?
Internet Well being’s algorithms analyze thousands and thousands of photographs in seconds to mechanically measure a wound’s measurement and colorimetric composition. It’s 90% extra correct than handbook, ruler-based measurements, which have a 40% error price. This functionality results in a extra goal story of therapeutic to drive higher affected person care and outcomes. This know-how is the muse of our cellular wound imaging and analytics resolution, which makes use of synthetic intelligence mixed with a smartphone to measure, characterize and analyze a power wound extra precisely. Utilizing the information collected within the wound imaging course of, it additionally predicts whether or not a stress harm is in danger for deterioration, a very vital characteristic for hospitals that get penalized for hospital-acquired stress accidents.
Why is exact monitoring of wound measurement so vital in healthcare?
There are just a few causes. Exact monitoring allows clinicians to observe the therapeutic progress of a wound over time, make efficient therapy choices and estimate therapeutic occasions. By commonly measuring the wound, suppliers can decide if the wound is therapeutic as anticipated or if there are any indicators of stalled therapeutic. This helps suppliers make knowledgeable choices about the proper course of therapy and alter these care plans as vital. By offering a typical basis of therapeutic to your entire care workforce, everybody together with the affected person now has an goal measure of progress that’s shared throughout suppliers in addition to care settings.
What different varieties of analytics will be provided for wound care?
In our wound care EHR product, Internet Well being® Wound Care, we are able to provide highly effective predictions round amputation danger and complete wound therapeutic time. As well as, we provide a missed go to prediction indicator that flags sufferers in danger for lacking a go to. This allows wound care suppliers to intervene, whether or not they assist talk with the affected person instantly or double-book to make sure they don’t lose income or time spent offering care.
Internet Well being goes past wound analytics, what different varieties of companies are provided?
We additionally provide EHRs for full spectrum of rehab professionals, which embrace bodily and occupational therapists and speech language pathologists. Our rehab remedy EHRs serve personal apply clinics, hospital treatment items, hospital outpatient clinics, expert nursing amenities and assisted dwelling communities. Our outpatient and personal apply EHR comes with a affected person engagement suite, which helps clinics market their companies and have interaction their sufferers by way of digital interactive instruments and an automatic digital consumption course of.
In your opinion, why is the adoption of AI in healthcare so vital?
AI has the potential to enhance the accuracy and effectivity of healthcare operations, from prognosis and therapy to the automation of administrative duties. Algorithms can analyze huge quantities of knowledge and determine patterns that may be troublesome or inconceivable for people to detect, enabling extra correct diagnoses, extra personalised therapy plans, and higher useful resource allocation. It will probably even assist to cut back healthcare prices by streamlining processes and decreasing the necessity for handbook labor. It will probably additionally assist to enhance affected person outcomes by enabling earlier prognosis and therapy, decreasing the danger of problems, and facilitating extra personalised care. For instance, AI-powered wound care administration platforms may also help healthcare suppliers to trace wound therapeutic progress extra precisely, determine potential problems, and alter therapy plans accordingly. Healthcare suppliers can enhance affected person outcomes, scale back prices, and keep on the forefront of technological innovation within the subject with AI, so adoption is essential when you have not already utilized it.
Do you see a future for generative AI in healthcare?
Completely. AI may also help to enhance the accuracy and pace of prognosis, main to higher outcomes for sufferers. Generative AI can analyze a affected person’s medical historical past, genetic information, and different elements to automate the documentation course of whereas concurrently predicting which therapies are most probably to be efficient for that particular person.
Tissue Analytics initially had the imaginative and prescient of reworking the smartphone into a classy imaging and diagnostic platform for power wounds, to redefine how wound care is delivered. Might you share how your imaginative and prescient has advanced over time?
Following the acquisition by Internet Well being, Tissue Analytics has continued to develop its wound care administration platform, whereas additionally integrating its know-how into Internet Well being’s broader suite of healthcare options. This has enabled Tissue Analytics to develop its capabilities and embrace performance for predicting the deterioration of stress accidents within the hospital setting and mechanically capturing wounds that wrap round sufferers’ limbs, which we name circumferential imaging. Transferring ahead, the product will proceed to innovate with a give attention to identification, prevention, and administration of power wound circumstances by way of superior analytics options in all care settings.
Is there the rest that you just want to share about Internet Well being?
Internet Well being has a robust give attention to the specialised wants of healthcare suppliers. This focus allows Internet Well being to ship tailor-made options which might be particularly designed to fulfill the distinctive wants of suppliers, reasonably than providing a one-size-fits-all method. This understanding of specialised medical workflows places us in a singular place to seamlessly collect probably the most impactful, high-quality information and develop innovative AI instruments that can in the end assist us transfer your entire trade ahead.
Thanks for the nice interview, readers who want to be taught extra ought to go to Internet Well being.