Dr. Eve Cunningham is group vice president and head of virtual care and digital health at healthcare system Providence and founder of MedPearl. And Providence is preparing to spin off MedPearl.
MedPearl is a platform designed to support physicians at the point of care by providing them with best-in-class actions and curated patient data. MedPearl’s primary function is to improve clinical decision making, particularly in care transitions between primary care and specialty care.
The technology is particularly valuable, Cunningham says, in managing the referral process to specialists, which is often fraught with complexity and inefficiency.
The problem MedPearl wants to address is the overwhelming amount of information that physicians are expected to manage. With medical knowledge doubling approximately every three months, the amount of information can be paralyzing.
MedPearl is here to help with this problem of “too much information” by presenting relevant data and actionable insights at the right time – helping physicians make informed decisions more efficiently, Cunningham said.
Healthcare IT news sat down with Cunningham to talk about the spin-off and the future of this powerful healthcare information technology.
Q. You are preparing to spin off MedPearl from Providence. How does this process work, what do things look like? Do you have a timeline?
A. MedPearl has been in use at Providence since mid-2022 and is proving to be of tremendous value to our physicians and patients. MedPearl significantly reduces physicians’ cognitive load and administrative tasks, specifically by reducing after-hours work by two hours per month.
This increase in efficiency gives physicians more time for direct patient care, maximizing productivity and cost-effectiveness within Providence. That is why we are exploring the idea of commercializing this technology to make it widely available to all healthcare systems in the future. We have a great team working on this road and I’m sure we’ll have more to share on this topic in the coming months.
Q. What are the objectives of the spin-off?
A. The primary goal of all our commercialization efforts in Providence is to focus the dynamics of the free market and associated financing on solving the most pressing barriers to healthcare system transformation. Our model is to innovate, create and deploy new technology within Providence. And once it’s proven, make it widely available through commercialization.
This allows the industry as a whole to reap the benefits of this innovation – and spreads the costs associated with continued innovation among many.
Commercialization allows innovative technology to be available not only to large systems like Providence, but across all types of healthcare delivery settings – especially those that support underserved, rural and vulnerable communities. It fits so well with our mission.
Question: From your expert position, how do you see clinical decision support evolving in the future?
A. Technology like MedPearl that supports clinical decisions at the point of care can revolutionize the quality of care by standardizing information for physicians. Clinical decision support offers tremendous opportunity to improve the quality and standardization of healthcare, filling a gap that has existed for far too long.
With the advent of new technologies, we can now look forward to more developments in this area, which is incredibly exciting. At the same time, this must be done safely, taking into account various risks and regulatory requirements, such as those of the FDA for software as a medical device.
A good analogy for this is the evolution of technology in aviation. Pilots once controlled all aspects of flying manually, but now pilots rely heavily on technology for decision support. Likewise, physicians will become increasingly dependent on advanced technologies to manage the large amounts of data they encounter.
We still need pilots, and we will still need doctors. Technologies like MedPearl will support decision-making at the point of care, and we can expect similar developments to help surgeons and other healthcare roles. Clinical decision-making tools will continue to encourage physicians in their work.
Q. And what are some trends in workflow optimization going forward?
A. Today, doctors, patients and healthcare providers are faced with the challenge of switching between multiple applications, complicating workflows. Future efforts will focus on integration to address this problem. The goal will be to unify disparate applications and workflows, reducing the need to switch between multiple platforms to optimize workflow efficiency.
Workflow optimization will become increasingly important as healthcare system leaders think strategically about the interaction between different technologies. For example, environmental technologies, clinical decision support systems, electronic health records, and patient engagement platforms will need to be seamlessly integrated.
This strategic, systematic approach is an opportunity to pave the way for everyone involved in healthcare. This takes a lot of hard work and input from people on the front lines, doing the work, to provide the feedback needed to create the ultimate workflow machine.
We believe that MedPearl has a tremendous opportunity to optimize physician workflows, thereby easing the path and burden that physicians face today.
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