AliveCor said it plans to integrate its smartphone heart monitor with an electronic medical record platform for the 1st time.
The partnership with Practice Fusion brings AliveCor access to the more than 100,000 healthcare workers whp are already using Practice Fusion’s database. AliveCor’s mobile electrocardiogram, which just won FDA clearance for over-the-counter sales, can now transfer readings and related analyses directly into a patient’s medical record.
AliveCor is creating a dedicated app for primary care physicians using the Practice Fusion EMR to enable them to collect ECGs, request an analysis or "over-read" from licensed technicians or board-certified cardiologists and keep track of patients’ history over time. Doctors can purchase annual subscriptions to participate in the program, which AliveCor says will cost less than the price of a single device (listed at $199 on its website).
AliveCor has the only FDA-cleared mobile ECG available for both iPhone and Android devices. Practice Fusion offers the only free, cloud-based EMR that’s compliant with 2014 Meaningful Use rules.
The initial integrations amounts to a "very large-scale pilot" that AliveCor president & CEO Euan Thomson hopes will herald more partnerships, he told MassDevice.com.
"With a large deployment like this, we’ll learn a lot about how doctors use it, what they like about it," Thomson told us. "It’s all about the other services that you build in to take away the barriers to a valuable clinical program being built. We’ll figure out, as we deploy in this area, what those barriers are and the company can work on removing them."
AliveCor has marked some major milestones since naming Thomson CEO in August 2013. Last October the company announced an app tailored for Android devices. The OTC nod from the FDA came earlier this month.
Keep an eye out for our in-depth interview with Euan Thomson, digging into his move from the corner office at radiosurgery systems maker Accuray, his vision for his new job leading AliveCor and how that company hopes to transform itself from a device company into a data company.
