Post-pandemic, the healthcare industry has been transformed in just two years by the decades. We are already in the new normal, and most healthcare solutions providing companies are trying to bring back the old mentality into the new normal. They have not only accepted the status quo but are happily embraced it.
Still, few are challenging the status quo to benefit physicians and the patients they serve. InfoBionic is the leader when it comes to not only challenging but breaking the status quo.
A digital health company, InfoBionic, is completely transforming the efficiency and economics of ambulatory remote patient monitoring processes and cardiac diagnostic services by optimizing clinical and real-world utility for the users that need it most – physicians and their patients. It is the only full disclosure transmitter on the market, evolving the telemetry model by digitally transforming it into a futuristic virtual healthcare environment.
In an interview with Insights Care for its edition of ‘10 Best Patient Monitoring Solution Providers 2022,’ InfoBionic’s CEO, Stuart Long, said, “As healthcare moves away from the traditional fee for service model, our unique Software as a Service (SaaS) solution positions the practice to better adapt to and compete in a value-based system.”
Stuart was appointed CEO of InfoBionic in March 2017, underscoring the company’s commitment to widespread market adoption of its transformative wireless remote patient monitoring platform for chronic disease management.
With over 20 years of experience in the medical device market, Stuart brought a great deal of expertise in achieving rapid commercial growth for InfoBionic.
Given below are the excerpts from that exclusive interview.
Please brief our audience about InfoBionic. Kindly tell us the source of inspiration for starting the Patient Monitoring Solution company.
InfoBionic was co-founded by an electrophysiologist, Dr Jeremy Ruskin, who founded the first EP lab in New England. The big problem he wanted to solve was the multiple devices for multiple different tests, the many systems that siloed information, as well as the many different report formats.
The problem was compounded by the fact that there were multiple vendors needed to monitor all test types. He wanted a single system that could make data available on demand during the study and eliminate the vast inefficiency of multiple devices, systems, reports, logins, and vendors.
Tell us more about the products that make InfoBionic stand out from the competition.
We stream ‘full disclosure’ data, meaning 100% of the heartbeats 100% of the time. We use curated AI to not only continuously improve the cloud-based processing for arrhythmia but use it also to assist in the organization and presentation of data.
How does it help people? This is easy; we have proved a dramatic decrease in time to diagnose the problem, thus leading to treatment or intervention faster.
This dramatically improves the quality of care and the patient’s care experience while simultaneously reducing cost by gaining speed to access, review, diagnose and treat patients.
In fact, on numerous occasions, lives have been saved by the quick intervention of their cardiologist using our solution.
Which are InfoBionic’s contributions to advancing the patient monitoring solution industry. Also, what are the latest products developed by InfoBionic?
It would be folly to say something positive about a disease that has killed nearly one million people in the United States and over six million people worldwide.
However, one factor cannot be denied about this horrendous COVID-19 pandemic: It has changed healthcare for the better—an increase of 6,000% in telehealth visits and a pivotal shift toward hospital-at-home care, among other changes. With these developments, innovative technology—especially in remote cardiac telemetry—has surged.
When InfoBionic was founded more than a decade ago, we reimagined accepted norms for cardiac arrhythmia detection with a full disclosure model built upon the principles of unwavering quality and continual innovation.
Today, we’re carrying those same pillars forward as we make yet another bold foray into the future of virtual healthcare.
To ensure that all levels of acuity can be monitored in a virtual care environment, InfoBionic has just introduced the first continuous virtual telemetry platform: The MoMe™ ARC Platform.
Built with the same standards of quality and innovation that have earned them the trust of cardiology leaders, the MoMe™ ARC Platform hands power back to clinicians while enabling them to step confidently into virtual care.
Please brief us about your journey in the industry and how you have made InfoBionic excel in its niche market.
I have been fortunate to have worked directly with cutting edge products in my career. First, there were digital video clips in cardiology (shifting away from videotape cassettes).
Then the first movement of cardiac DICOM images and video from floppy disk, then across a network. The switch from radiology film to filmless (aka PACS), then to client-server network systems (in healthcare) to fully web-based, from paper base insulin dosing to AI-driven dosing. And now, we have started with the first cloud-based remote arrhythmia monitoring that streams data on demand.
We’ve excelled not only with a surgical like go-to-market strategy, yet we’ve also solved some big clinical challenges that have plagued the industry for decades. Think of it like snail mail, floppy disks and fax machines compared to Dropbox, FedEx, Amazon and instant or on-demand digital delivery.
What is your opinion on the necessity for patient monitoring solution providers to align their offerings with the latest technological advances, especially when it comes to catering to ever-evolving healthcare needs?
As with any technology that can sustain itself for longevity, it is either adapted or faded away. If the last few years have taught us one thing, it is that healthcare is changing. Care models are transforming.
Providers are doing more in a virtual setting than ever before. Reimbursement paradigms are shifting to put value first. And clinicians are challenged to navigate all of this without ever losing focus on the patient. To support this new world of healthcare, telemetry must also adapt.
In your opinion, what could be the future of the smart health-monitoring devices and apps industry post-pandemic? And how are you strategizing InfoBionic’s operations for that future?
The pandemic did a lot for accelerating change in healthcare. It is as if we went through a time warp and came out on the other side ten or even 20 years into the future. The needs changed, and it caught the market at its very infancy of being able to adapt. I can only imagine what this would be like ten years from now.
Much like the hospital IT and departmental systems of the late ’80s and early ‘90s evolved from paper to now a robust and very maturely integrated system of systems, so too will we see the early ‘digital’ efforts evolve.
Today it is the wild west of systems. Hundreds of companies will all bring innovative solutions to the market. We’ll continue to see a variety of ‘best of breed’ solutions coming to market with new and improved ways to capture, communicate and drive better outcomes.
This will, in turn, drive market consolidation, just like we saw in the early electronification of hospitals. We’ll definitely see the push for the hospital to home transition unification as well as the broadly accepted CMS Hospital at Home programs flourish.
As an established leader, what would be your advice to the budding entrepreneurs and enthusiasts aspiring to venture into the patient monitoring solution industry?
Patient monitoring or not. In healthcare, the ‘ology’ is fairly similar in how you address it. You must solve a problem, increase efficiency, drive out cost and improve care, all without disrupting the already massively complex workflow of clinicians.
A great product is nothing without the people who can solve the problem – solving a problem and finding the right people are the most important things you need to start.
- Find your passion and do that. If you do what you love, it’s not work, it’s a cause. There is never overtime; there is just never enough time. Yet somehow, the time is limitless and completely forgiving.
- Do not stagnate — else, you get left behind. Always keep a beginner’s mindset, no matter how much you master. You’re always at the beginning of the next level, no matter your level
- Have fun — stay optimistic — if you’re not laughing and having fun, it is not your passion.
- Fail often and fail fast — treat failure as a goal. Learn how to pivot or persevere. The road to success is littered with failure. Embrace and learn from it, and then do not repeat it.
- Do not accept the status quo. If it is not broken, try to break it.
How do you envision scaling your company’s services in 2022 and beyond?
We were founded and purpose-built to collect patient data and monitor in the highest level of quality possible in remote care.
We are unwavering in our mission to continue bringing innovation and quality to the long-term evolution of virtual care, starting in the hospital itself to anywhere a patient might go once they leave the hospital.
