Rise Health Goes to Washington

Health-care transformation company based in Jacksonville takes its

custom-built application to sold-out Datapalooza and ACO Summit in D.C.

Bryan Mingle / Rise Health Contributing Blogger

The nation’s  Health Datapalooza  this year is billing itself as bringing “the rock stars of health innovation” to its June 5-6 technology-driven forum in Washington.

It’s not just a reference to Jon Bon Jovi, chairman of the Jon Bon Jovi  Soul Foundation.  The philanthropic rocker is expected to show up inside the capital’s convention center to align his foundation with the federal government’s contest to find mobile or Internet apps that connect resources to homeless veterans.

Rise Health Inc., an Accountable Care Organization enablement company based in Jacksonville, Fla., is bringing its award-winning and upgraded  technology tool  to demonstrate how an  ever-increasing  amount of patient data  can be utilized quickly to  benefit patients and their physicians in care coordination, producing quality outcomes.

Gino Tenace, Chief Operating Officer of Rise Health, and Jeff Harner, Chief Analytics Officer,  on Tuesday (June 5) are presenting Rise’s  health data application, known as the Patient Relationship Manager, in the demo titled  “Supplying Patient-Centered Intelligence to Solve Challenges for Primary Care.”

“The concept behind our application is relatively simple,” said Tenace. “Identify and aggregate as many data sources about the patient as possible, organize these data into a patient-centric manner and align the patient and their physicians around this data.”

The 2012 Health Data Initiative Forum, also known as Datapalooza,  is its  third and largest since it was created to encourage innovators to create health data applications that raise awareness of health system performance and spark community action to improve health. Organizers this year comprise a team of experts from health care, information technology, government and business sectors. Keynote speakers include Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Todd Park, U.S. Chief Technology Officer.

Soon after they pack up their convention floor booth, Rise leaders will head to the city’s Grand Hyatt hotel for the National ACO Summit sponsored by the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at Brookings and the Darthmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Tenace will lead a panel on June 7 in a discussion on “Identifying High Risk and Vulnerable Populations.”

A breakdown  of the Medicare population in the Jacksonville region shows more chronic disease prevalence  -- particularly in the areas of heart disease, diabetes, COPD and hypertension -- than national averages.  On average, Jacksonville patients have 36.7 visits spread over 10.3 doctors in their last 6 months of life.  That is 7.1 more visits spread across 1.5 more doctors than the average market. 

ACOs are being recognized and formed as a promising new payment model to successfully realign the current payment system of health care through outcome incentives. They are built on a model of coordinated care to ensure that patients, especially the chronically ill and the elderly, receive the right care at the right time, avoiding unnecessary duplication of services and prevention of medical errors.