Transforming healthcare — Austin digital health start-up CareHive creates hybrid approach to connected care, data-driven clinical navigation
Austin, Texas-based start-up, CareHive, is charting a new course for healthcare delivery — ‘hybrid healthcare’ — the nexus of AI-powered technology and virtual providers.
Explained Dr. Ronald Dixon, CEO of CareHive, “This is what virtual care should be — empowering clinicians with data to guide all patients, even those with complicated chronic issues, to the most appropriate care via text message, email, or virtual visit.”
How does it work? CareHive partners with healthcare providers, health plans, and employers to offer responsive, evidence-based virtual engagement with patients. CareHive clinical navigation teams are supported by a robust platform and respond to patients’ questions when they have them or proactively reach out based on physicians’ requests. The results — better patient outcomes and lower healthcare costs.
‘Hybrid Care’ to Lower Costs
Healthcare providers, health plans, and employers have struggled to curb climbing healthcare costs. A recent survey revealed personal medical debt climbed to $140 billion in unpaid medical bills last year, up from $81 billion in 2016. The cost of care is impacting medical decisions with about half of U.S. adults saying they or a family member put off or skipped care in the past year because of the cost.
Dixon describes the current healthcare system for patients like “medical pinball” — where patients bounce around from medical care to medical care, with each hit costing more health care dollars. He notes that chronic disease management represents more than 80 cents out of every healthcare dollar spent.
“If we want to ever curb healthcare costs, we need to realign medical care around responding to, preventing, and treating chronic disease — using both technology and clinical navigators to keep all patients’ care connected,” said Dixon.
CareHive’s platform gets “smarter” over time as more data is recorded helping its clinical navigators more accurately diagnose and manage patients’ chronic medical issues from diabetes to kidney disease to congestive heart failure.
Clinical navigators guide patients immediately and appropriately to get them the care and health information they need to help them avoid expensive points of care like Emergency Departments, freestanding ERs and urgent care centers. They also keep the care episode in-network and connected to their medical home, such as the PCP they see for their in-person care.
More Customer Service = Better Patient Outcomes
CareHive allows healthcare systems and medical providers to offer the level of customer service and convenience that patients are used to in other areas of their life — whether Amazon, Uber, or their grocery delivery service.
“Our clinical navigators are equipped with robust data to help patients when their existing doctors are unable, and our technology provides asynchronous touchpoints with patients to collect health information to assess ongoing risk in chronic scenarios. It’s the kind of care that doctors want to give to their patients, and the kind of customer service patients are used to getting in other areas of their lives,” said Dixon.
CareHive has already partnered with numerous customers, including the large physician medical practice Premier Family Physicians and the national retail chain Whole Foods Market, among others, proving its capabilities to enhance patient care while lowering care costs for these partners.
Said Dixon, “We’re not in the business of just treating patients’ medical issues. We’re in the business of helping people get better and stay well, offering the right dose of healthcare at the most meaningful moments. It’s care patients need and want — responsive, quality care partnered with the providers they trust.”
To learn more about CareHive and its virtual care platform, visit carehive.com.
