According to the Stanford Medicine News Center, demand for autism treatment is over eighteen times larger than the available supply of caregivers in the U.S. Combining that demand with a climbing prevalence in autism diagnosis – the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ) reported a growth of over 15 percent this year and still many individuals and families are left waiting for answers. Individuals with autism and their families require timely diagnosis and treatment but are often stopped by the barriers of distance, cost, and unavailability of experienced providers.
Boise Idaho based, Behavior Imaging® is one such prominent organization which eradicates all these barriers and relentlessly focuses on developing technology that increases disabled people’s access to care. The company has served over 20,000 clients in ten countries till date and has major clients such as the US Air Force, State Departments of Education, and other leading universities.
The company has also won awards from the Small Business Administration (awarded 2016 at the White House) and the Google/Autism Speaks award for its disruptive business model that allows families to share clinically relevant data from their homes to accelerate their child’s diagnostic assessment.
Story behind BI’s Inception
Ron and Sharon Oberleitner founded Behavior Imaging® in 2005. Since their son’s autism diagnosis in 1996 at the age of three, the challenges of receiving specialized care for those with intellectual disabilities hits close to home for the Oberleitners. To date, Ron and Sharon have dedicated their careers to assisting families and organizations, improving their accessibility to behavior health treatment through a unique asynchronous telemedicine platform – Behavior Imaging®.
About the Perceptive Leader
The CEO, Ron Oberleitner holds more than two decades of enriching executive management experience within the health industry including medical devices, telemedicine, and medical imaging solutions. His personal experience with autism and professional experience from the medical device, nonprofit, and research industries fuels a passion to help others by creating and expanding solutions for better diagnostic, assessment, and continuity of care for a variety of behavioral and mental health challenges. Besides, he brings an attitude of ‘why NOT our kids’ when it comes to using innovative technology to address difficult health conditions.
Ron believes that an ideal leader in the health IT industry be it telemedicine, digital therapeutics, or digital assessments, recognizes the current barriers and resist to change for disruptive patient engagement solutions. “This ideal leader works hard and tirelessly to overcome objections and demonstrate profound benefits through responsible research and compassion for both struggling patients and the well-meaning clinicians who serve them”, says Ron.
Unrivaled Services of BI
Behavior Imaging® works to take behavioral care beyond in-person assessment and treatment into a fully realized technological landscape. By using smart phones, video capture, and artificial intelligence, behavioral care becomes more efficient and cost effective for the people who need it most. BI products provide patients and their doctors/clinicians with the solutions for understanding autism and behavior health needs. The benefits are similar to the ways X-rays and MRI’s have allowed patients to show medical doctors broken bones and tumors.
NODA™ is Behavior Imaging’s evidence-based Autism diagnostic service platform that addresses many challenges hindering an earlier diagnosis. Behavior Imaging has led several National Institute of Health-funded research studies. The most recent study compared current in-person autism assessment practices with the NODA smartphone-based method. The research showed that the NODA method cut the average total time for an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) assessment in half – saving on average two months for families.
Fostering Employees with Active Work Environment
It is well said that, ‘Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation’. BI precisely follows this concept, which can be observed from its distinctive approach. BI employees regularly receive outside training in areas relevant to their position, paid for by BI. In few cases, they have direct hands-on experience with colleagues with disabilities who perform special tasks for the company. BI emanates a culture of ‘family first, Behavior Imaging second’ – which helps to attract and retain the right employees.
Foreseeing a Bright Future
Besides providing well-equipped and advanced work surrounding to the employees, BI leaves no stone unturned to stay abreast of the industry requirements. According to BI, an ace patient engagement solution provider should leave patients and their families/caregivers feeling empowered to take an active role in care. It also believes that, when families are concerned about their loved one’s health, BI’s patient engagement solutions should enable clinicians to fetch helpful information about their patients.
Today, the healthcare market is waking up to the benefits of capturing health data as it’s happening and sharing it with knowledgeable doctors remotely to get earlier diagnosis and guidance on treatment. In the next few years, Behavior Imaging plans to integrate artificial intelligence to help clinical professionals make quicker and better-informed decisions as they assess behaviors and recommend treatments.
