I spoke with Matt Mattox, Co-Founder and VP of Products at Axial Exchange last week to learn more about Axial’s patient engagement software. They are currently working with 13 health systems, encompassing 70 hospitals – I downloaded the University of Colorado Health app as an example.
The app makes it easy to search for physicians in your vicinity under your health system, track and manage medications, as well as monitor changes in your body – anything from migraines to glucose readings. All of this information (plus more, like syncing your Fitbit), is consolidated into one place.
Matt believes that medication management is the most important feature of the app. “Not adhering to medication is a $100BN+ problem. We believe that if there is an adjustment to meds, the patient should know at once, and be reminded to change his intake.”
So how is this app different from other ones on the market? Matt gives an example, “If a patient has congestive heart failure and is using a weight tracker – his physician should know when there is a spike in weight. When that patient visits his care provider, we make it easy to create and share a formatted report of his health data so his physician can see what’s going on.” On the provider side, hospitals also have access to an analytics dashboard where they can monitor engagement.
As a patient, you might be using an app by Axial Exchange already and not even know it. The company doesn’t promote itself; instead Axial works with health systems to market the app to patients.
I asked Matt if giving a doctor too much patient data could be a bad thing. “We try to make the information count. For example, if a patient has diabetes, there are really only a few important things he needs to remember – don’t drink carbs, don’t eat foods you can buy in a convenience store or gas station – we try to boil down health information into actionable advice. On the tracker front, we don’t anticipate that all our patients will pour over their kidney function data and every lab value, but our providers do want to know if they are sleeping well and if they are taking medications on time and following a diet. Our goal is to focus on sustainable engagement, where clients know that the app is part of the prescription and they use it daily to manage their health.”
Axial is working on designing a disease management application as well, which will offer a clear set of learning and tracking objectives for self-managed care. I’m very excited for Axial Exchange’s growth, and hope the app comes to my health system soon. They truly offer the analytics and services needed to create successful patient engagement and promote healthy living.
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