PocketPatientMD: Universal Digital Health & Medical Record

PocketPatientMD is a digital health record platform linking all stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem, including patients and providers, Ministries of Health, pharmaceutical firms, device manufacturers, and insurers. PocketPatientMD enables real-time data aggregation and analysis to protect patients and healthcare workers, while integrating the cost of pandemic risk into healthcare planning.

Mark Wien, Founder and CEO of PocketPatientMD. Mark's career began in finance, later attending medical school. Mark traveled the globe viewing health systems firsthand, living in Africa for four years.

PocketPatientMD addresses several problems resulting from a lack of accurate, accountable health information in many populations and countries: costly care of varying quality; inconsistent compliance with best medical practice guidelines; lack of follow-up for health prevention and maintenance; and health systems lacking resiliency. Resilient, responsive health systems require timely access to accurate health information- where PocketPatientMD comes in.

Many countries lack reliable information on the overall health of their populations, including on disease prevalence and incidence. Patient compliance suffers, impacting all stakeholders: physicians, patients, health systems, Ministries of Health, insurers, device and pharmaceutical firms.

Providers often run out of supplies and medications. Pharmaceutical firms lack accurate information about drug demand, affecting logistics. Clinical trials and research lag.

Establishing a more robust, diversified health information management system-and encouraging use through user-friendly interfaces and design- PocketPatientMD protects populations by tracking and monitoring care. Health and economic resilience is improved- establishing baseline figures for cost and use of treatments, improving transparency and functioning of supply chains. In pandemic situations, this enables faster, more effective responses and better managed care. PocketPatientMD offers an interoperable, customizable system supporting all care, providing a more complete picture of health systems costs and costs of managing pandemic risk.

PocketPatientMD aims to serve all healthcare stakeholders-physicians, Ministries of Health, hospital networks, and other frontline workers including community health workers, midwives, pharmacists and lab technicians- so that they can provide better cost and quality of care, and remain well themselves. The platform also benefits insurers, pharmaceutical firms, device manufacturers, medical schools, medical students, and others in the healthcare ecosystem by helping to identify treatments, supplies, and protocols that will best address patients' needs. Its success is dependent on where care begins- clinical visits and the key physician-patient interaction and relationship.

PocketPatientMD provides support with videos and instruction manuals in multiple languages, remote trainings, and by continuing to build and establish relationships with physicians, Ministries of Health, and other health professionals on the ground in each country.

PocketPatientMD and its founder have traveled to and met with physicians, Ministries of Health, First Ladies and their Foundations, and other health professionals across Southeast Asia and most notably in over 35 African countries. On-the-ground training was provided, and the company received firsthand feedback directly from physicians and other stakeholders, and used what was learned to further customize and enhance the platform. We continue to engage these individuals and grow our network today.

PocketPatientMD provides a typically expensive and prohibitive platform to any provider or health systems at no cost, with customizable capabilities to ensure the needs and goals of any health system can be met.

The platform provides transparent, accountable, and real-time data and insights safely and securely to all users, and with the adaptability to ensure all local regulations and laws are met.

This information is able to be used to help improve the overall cost and quality of care of populations, improve patient compliance, expand research initiatives, and better access and procure important medications and equipment.

Healthcare is a top expenditure as a share of GDP for nearly all countries globally. This platform provides an opportunity to provide profound savings for individual countries and their populations, improving overall health, and the ability to build more resilient and transformative health systems through access to accurate, accountable, and transparent information.

PocketPatientMD will have a tangible impact because of its emphasis on where care actually begins, with the physician-patient interaction and relationship. Doctors are the drivers of health systems, and as seen with the pandemic frontline health workers are the real first responders. By emphasizing the benefits to them and with their support all other stakeholders within the healthcare ecosystem stand to benefit.

Being permission-based enables the platform to adapt to any population and allow varying access for any health workers. This includes community health workers and midwives who have more prominent roles in the provision of care in some of the most vulnerable areas and populations.

PocketPatientMD has already been able to prove this with support from a wide-range of providers and Ministries of Health, including some of the most hard to reach and least-accessible places and regions.

Being a customizable platform, PocketPatientMD can be a catalyst, working with all stakeholders including NGOs and other organizations who may be involved in initiatives around specific disease control or research, to increase their capacity and strengthen projects and evaluations to maximize impact.

PocketPatientMD plans to scale over the next one year by providing basic hardware (computers) and subsidizing data costs for a small number of clinics and hospitals in 3-5 countries where we have a presence or interest from private physicians and Ministries of Health. This will include providing a small number of computers, remote training, and on the ground support through our existing network. We hope to reach 150,000-250,000 patients across 3-5 countries within one year.

Over the course of the next three years we hope to grow our presence to reach a significant number of providers, and work with pharmaceutical companies and device manufacturers to assist with the procurement of medications and equipment targeting specific illness and areas of need. In the post-pandemic area extra emphasis will be around women and children's health, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), cancer, and vaccinations as medication compliance, health presentation, and maintenance has been greatly impacted and reduced as a result of the strain on health systems due to COVID and the reduction in non-essential care. We also hope to provide medical training, education, and build in additional algorithms to improve quality of care.

We hope to reach over 1million patients within the next three years.

PocketPatientMD measures impact and success a few ways. The initial metric is growth: based on total number of physician users and patient records. This helps support and illustrate the value of the platform and need among health workers. In our pilot phase from March 2020 to November 2020 the number of records grew over 750% with regular users in a half dozen countries.

The second is centered on showing measurable results. This is be achieved by showing how the platform helps to deliver and meet the needs or specific objectives for physicians, health systems, or larger organizations. This can be as specific as controlling or screening for specific illnesses, to improving the cost and quality of care by reducing wasted resources, improving logistics and supply for medications and devices, and increasing the number of patients that can be seen each day while reducing wait times. 

PocketPatientMD has already seen success in improving the number of patients doctors can see each day by accessing accurate health records. The platform was also successful in contact tracing for COVID19 in one country, and showed a 50% improvement in morbidity and mortality for COVID19 in one month in another, through improved monitoring of patients.

The two biggest barriers for PocketPatientMD are infrastructure and financial challenges.

Providers and provider institutions often face obstacles surrounding acquiring hardware like smartphones and computer, and connectivity either through internet or cellular data. 

PocketPatientMD is able to overcome these obstacles in two distinct ways. First, by having an offline version that enables users to utilize the platform without internet connectivity or access to cellular networks. When a user then has connectivity any information input on the platform is able to be uploaded and stored.

The second obstacle is financial. PocketPatientMD plans to provide a small number of computers and devices to a select number of providers and hospitals in a few countries to help catalyze a few initial pilots. Additionally, PocketPatientMD plans to subsidize data and internet costs to help reduce the capital requirements for pilot implementation.

Securing additional financing will also enable PocketPatientMD to expand its team, ensuring additional on the ground support and assistance, and expanding the technical team to be able to make customizations and technical changes more quickly for our users.

PocketPatientMD serves on an Africa CDC Health Information Exchange Task Force. PocketPatientMD is affiliated and working with several Ministries of Health, First Ladies Foundations, private hospital networks, and health information organizations as well.

PocketPatientMD is applying to The Trinity Challenge because it is one of the few challenges that provides the necessary financial support and structure that can help us achieve our growth objectives as a company.

Being for-profit, there are few opportunities for funding outside of traditional capital raising that provide the funding size we need to implement our 3-year strategy and to access the tools and resources to grow as a company and support our users on the ground. PocketPatientMD has largely avoided applying for grant funding, since many challenges don't provide the tools we need for success. 

There are not many US companies focusing on healthcare in many of the countries we have our fastest growing footprint. This is due to both language barriers and the saturation of NGOs involved in smaller, more segmented projects in these regions. PocketPatientMD hopes to provide the capital and resources we need to continue to expand and accelerate our growth the way we have since our inception. We hope to build on our relationships and experiences, and continue to grow our company based upon what we have learned meeting with these doctors and other stakeholders. The Trinity Challenge provides this opportunity.

There are multiple Challenge Member organizations that could be potential partners for PocketPatientMD, many whom we have already had substantive discussions with. 

Gates Foundation is one example. Given the numerous health projects they support, PocketPatientMD's electronic medical platform can provide infrastructure for supporting health projects in many countries, at no cost. This allows Gates Foundation to redirect significant grant funding typically devoted towards development and programming costs, and put it towards other initiatives they support, while allowing PocketPatientMD to engage with the physician user base we target.

Google is PocketPatientMD's primary cloud provider. We would be interested working with them on providing connectivity and cloud storage options for our users on the ground.

Optum provides opportunities to collaborate to provide more targeted insurance options and insurance in new markets, and improved patient compliance. Pharmaceutical firms, including GSK, enable us to work together to improve sourcing of medications and logistics, and identifying candidates for drug trials.

Lastly, McKinsey and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation would be great partners in helping us and our partners on the ground-- including Ministries of Health and hospital systems-- to interpret, understand, and put data to use for maximum impact and benefit.