With healthcare reform on the horizon and the increasing demand of online health experts to lower costs, one local startup, DialNurse, is responding to the need, and announced today their expansion with additional telehealth and mHealth offerings for private and public enterprises to incorporate this form of medical consultation into their employee healthcare benefits.
DialNurse, is a Mesa-based, on-demand telehealth and mHealth (mobile health) service provider that utilizes licensed and registered nurses to provide 24x7x365 medical consultation (English and Spanish) for a flat fee-their service is often less than an average insurance co-pay and currently service 43 states. DialNurse focuses on people who have high deductible healthcare plans, have no medical insurance, are living in remote areas of the U.S or simply want to remain anonymous for a medical consultation.
The nurses on staff have an average experience of 12 years, are based in the U.S., and to date have handled over five million patient calls. Plexlane+ is a parent company of DialNurse; DialNurse recently launched earlier this year.
“The overwhelmingly positive feedback we’ve received from our consumer customers indicated that the time was right to extend the benefits of DialNurse services to the business community,” said Gunjan Goel, co-founder and CEO of DialNurse. “During this critical period of healthcare reform, DialNurse is helping the medical infrastructure in the U.S. by addressing the not so urgent cases, thereby reducing the crowding in emergency rooms and doctor’s offices. Businesses using this proven service realize direct savings while providing convenient healthcare options for their employees or constituents.”
We sat down with CEO Gunjan Goel to learn more about DialNurse and how patients will benefit from mobile health.
Why do you think mobile health is important?
In this day and age where half the world uses a cellphone, where the expectation is that everything is available to use anywhere, anytime for less cost, it is imperative that the medical providers would need to look at leveraging mobile technology to not just improve patient/customer experience, but also find ways of delivering that healthcare cheaper.
What will generate growth for on-demand mobile health?
The competition on hardware between Samsung and Apple and on mobile software between Apple, Google and Samsung has spurred the growth of smartphone penetration globally. However, these advancements have not significantly spurred growth in mobile health. The fault is not all with the app developers, there is lack of vision amongst the entrepreneur community on how we can use mobile phones for the advancement of healthcare. There is also need for more angel and venture funding in healthcare along with changes in state and federal laws that would accept mobile health and telehealth as channels for distribution of healthcare. These changes would encourage hardware and software developers to pursue healthcare initiatives using mobile devices as the delivery channel.
How does mHealth benefit the patient?
Mobile phones and mobile apps have become a part of our daily lives. There are several activities in a medical practice that could be streamlined using mobile technology and result in positive patient experience. Here are some examples:
- Patients can access their personal information and electronic health records (EHR) through a mobile app. Although privacy concerns are often raised, we need to get past these reasons for holding on tight to EHRs.
- Let patients setup doctor appointments through their mobile device.
- One of the biggest frustrations for patients is waiting at a doctor’s office. Medical practices can provide updates on doctor wait times through a mobile app so patients can plan their schedule accordingly.
- Lose the pen and paper for check-ins. Check-in using the mobile app.
- Remember when you had to describe the symptoms to the doctor? Patients can now bring pictures to the doctor in their mobile phone or even upload them prior to the appointment so the doctor gets a chance to review them prior to their arrival.
- Pay using the mobile app.
- Finally, take the customer satisfaction survey thru the mobile app.
To learn more about DialNurse click here.