April 09, 2024

San Francisco & Orlando, April 9, 2024 – In a significant move to streamline healthcare workflows and allow clinicians to focus on patient care, Augmedix (Nasdaq: AUGX), a leader in ambient AI medical documentation and data solutions, announced today that it has integrated with Andor Health, an AI-first cloud-based communication and collaboration platform for virtual care.

The alliance aims to harness the power of ambient documentation to transform the clinician-patient interaction landscape in mission-critical virtual care settings. As part of this collaboration, Andor and Augmedix will integrate physician clinical note creation directly within ThinkAndor® Virtual Visit capability for ambulatory with an AI-generated note available seconds after the virtual session.

Andor Health is changing the way care teams connect and collaborate with AI-instrumented and tailored workflows. At scale with health systems in the US, UK, and Canada, Andor Health’s AI-first platform, ThinkAndor®, delivers real-time actionable intelligence from electronic medical records, streamlining communication and collaboration workflows, accelerating treatment times, reducing clinician burnout, and fostering superior patient outcomes.

Augmedix, with its industry-leading platform, transforms natural conversations into organized medical notes, structured data, and point-of-care notifications. Renowned for liberating clinicians from administrative burdens, Augmedix uses ambient AI to create medical notes from clinician-patient conversations in various care settings, ultimately aiming to improve clinical, operational, and financial outcomes.

“This integration demonstrates Augmedix’s commitment to serve the broadest spectrum of specialties and care settings within the market,” said Manny Krakaris, CEO of Augmedix. “The Andor-Augmedix approach is focused on unobtrusive integration wherein the ambient documentation is part of the native virtual workflow and end-user experience paradigm. Deep integration will also enable optimized upstream audio ingestion that generates the highest quality downstream note output quality scores.”

“Andor Health, recently named the highest-rated Virtual Hospital Solution by BlackBook, is focused on helping health systems improve and accelerate clinical outcomes,” said Raj Toleti, CEO of Andor Health. “This integration with Augmedix will expand Andor’s flexibility to bring leading in-market capabilities that health systems already use into the virtual provider and patient experience. We believe health systems should have the option to leverage leading solutions for NLP-driven clinical note curation and to discreetly post those notes into the medical record without disruption for the clinical user via ThinkAndor®.”

As part of this collaboration, Augmedix and Andor will harness Google Cloud MedLM, launched in December of 2023. MedLM is a family of medically-tuned models for healthcare and life science industry use cases.

“This is an exciting time for digital health innovation, as the market flourishes with new GenAI solutions to meet the needs of providers in diverse care settings,” said Aashima Gupta, Global Director, Healthcare Strategy & Solutions, Google Cloud. “At Google Cloud, we are committed to forging an ecosystem of best-of-breed solutions through innovative partners such as Andor and Augmedix that leverage Google Cloud’s GenAI technology and share common commitment to provide an integrated experience for clinicians at the point of care.”

To learn more about Augmedix’s and Andor’s digital innovations, book time with Andor ([email protected]) or Augmedix ([email protected]) on April 9 through 11 at the Google Next conference in Las Vegas.

About Augmedix

Augmedix (Nasdaq: AUGX) empowers clinicians to connect with patients by liberating them from administrative burden through the power of ambient AI, data, and trust.

The platform transforms natural conversations into organized medical notes, structured data, and point-of-care notifications that enhance efficiency and clinical decision support.

Incorporating data from millions of interactions across all care settings, Augmedix collaborates with hospitals and health systems to improve clinical, operational, and financial outcomes.

Augmedix is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, with offices around the world. To learn more, visit www.augmedix.com.

About Andor Health

Andor Health’s mission is to change the way care teams connect and collaborate. Utilizing machine and human intelligence, their cloud-based platform transforms communication workflows and unlocks data from electronic medical records to provide actionable intelligence, improving clinician and patient experiences. Discover more at Andor Health.

Contact Information

Augmedix Investors:
Matt Chesler, CFA
FNK IR
[email protected]
[email protected]

Augmedix Media:
Kaila Grafeman
Augmedix
[email protected]

Andor Health Media Relations:
Jennifer Skitkso
Andor Health
[email protected]

April 08, 2024

TAMPA, Fla., April 8, 2024 (Newswire.com) - Black Book Research unveils leading innovators in virtual health solutions utilizing AI and ML, based on top customer ratings. A comprehensive six-month user survey covered 20 technology competitors providing enhanced collaboration and communication workflow tools.

The 2024 virtual care solutions survey on user satisfaction involved over 1,200 participants, including health system executives, physicians, clinicians, IT specialists, as well as administrative, IT, and finance leaders from 805 hospitals, affiliated practices, groups, clinics, and ambulatory facilities.

Black Book evaluates genuine client experience by assessing multiple key performance indicators, analyzing outcomes in OpenAI & GPT, Remote Monitoring & Visits, Patient Rounding, and Provider Team Collaboration.

Andor Health attained the highest user ratings in 14 out of 18 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), demonstrating exceptional performance in strategic alignment of client objectives, innovation, optimization, training, scalability, client relationships, trust, accountability, transparency, ethics, customization, marginal value adds, data security, patient privacy, customer service, and technology/process improvement.

"Andor Health is committed to pioneering AI to alleviate the strain on health systems. This recognition confirms the impact of ThinkAndor®, our AI-first platform, in transforming care delivery," said Raj Toleti, Chairman & CEO of Andor Health. "Our pursuit of scalable and effective AI-first technology highlights our dedication to advancing care delivery through the use of ambient AI for collaboration, documentation, & observation. We are proud of the results our customers are experiencing by leveraging ThinkAndor® at scale, including saving three hours per nursing shift per ward and improving ED throughput.”

Doug Brown, president of Black Book Research, stated, "Andor Health stands out as the top-rated virtual health collaboration solution among providers and networks, earning recognition for a second consecutive year and is in the top 1% of performing healthcare IT market newcomers out of over 800 emerging products in Black Book's rating by venture capital, equity, and investment banking firms."

According to the survey, 80% of healthcare systems' IT leaders expressed their organizations' active pursuit of implementing AI and ML solutions to enhance virtual health collaboration by Q4 2025, up from 71% in last year's polling.

The survey methodology and full listing of healthcare IT and services vendor rankings can be found at Black Book's website www.blackbookmarketresearch.com.

About Black Book™

Black Book Market Research LLC provides vendor-neutral archival solutions and healthcare IT users, media, investors, analysts, quality-minded vendors, and prospective software and services buyers with comprehensive comparison data of the industry's top respected and competitively performing solutions vendors. The largest user opinion poll of its kind in healthcare IT, Black Book™ collects over one million viewpoints on information technology and outsourced services vendor performance annually. Black Book is internationally recognized for over 17 years of customer satisfaction and loyalty polling, particularly in technology, medical equipment, services, and outsourcing industries.

Black Book™ founders, management, and staff do not own or hold any financial interest in any of the vendors covered and encompassed in this survey, including Andor Health, and Black Book reports the results of the collected satisfaction and client experience rankings in publication and to media prior to vendor notification of rating results. Vendors pay no fees to be included or participate in Black Book's agnostic surveying to provide buyers of healthcare technology and services with truly objective feedback from users.

February 22, 2024

Imagine a world where your child's healthcare is empowered by the most advanced technology, enabling swift, personalized, and efficient treatment from the comfort of your home. This vision is rapidly becoming a reality at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, thanks to an expanded partnership with Andor Health, a pioneer in artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for healthcare. Together, they are setting new benchmarks in pediatric healthcare, leveraging AI to transform the virtual care landscape.

Empowering Virtual Visits with Generative AI

At the heart of this transformative partnership is Andor Health's ThinkAndor platform, an AI-powered virtual command center designed to manage and optimize virtual care experiences. By integrating generative AI, Cincinnati Children's Hospital is now able to automate and expedite the virtual care process across diverse settings—be it clinics, homes, or community environments. This leap forward is not just about technology; it's about changing lives, offering increased access to those in need of intensive interventions and ensuring that children with complex health and social needs receive the care they deserve, precisely when they need it.

Enhancing Healthcare Outcomes

Jennifer Ruschman, AVP of Digital Health at Cincinnati Children's, underscores the significance of this partnership, noting how ThinkAndor has revolutionized the delivery of complex video visits. This advancement is pivotal, particularly for children facing intricate health challenges. The ability to deliver specialized care through virtual platforms not only improves health outcomes but also adds a layer of convenience for families navigating the complexities of their children's healthcare needs. This approach aligns perfectly with the objective of designing trust into genAI, maximizing benefits while ensuring the technology is a force for good in healthcare.

Meeting the Demands of Modern Healthcare

The drive towards integrating AI in healthcare is partly fueled by the pressing need to address the rising demand for medical services against the backdrop of limited clinical resources. Pritesh Patel, COO of Andor Health, articulates this challenge, emphasizing how generative AI can significantly enhance clinical workflows and operational efficiency. By embracing virtual health, Cincinnati Children's is not only preparing for the future but is actively shaping it, ensuring that every child receives the highest standard of care. This initiative also reflects a broader trend, as discussed in the Implementation Science journal, highlighting the potential of AI to advance implementation science, improve healthcare equity, and ensure sustainability.

In the end, the partnership between Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Andor Health is more than just a technological leap; it's a beacon of hope for families and a template for the future of pediatric healthcare. By harnessing the power of AI, they are not just treating diseases but are nurturing healthier, happier futures for children across the globe. This story, emblematic of the potential of human ingenuity when combined with cutting-edge technology, is just the beginning of a new era in healthcare—one where every child, regardless of their circumstances, has access to the best possible care.

November 10, 2023

A roundup of the week's most newsworthy health industry press releases from PR Newswire, including the FDA approval of Eli Lilly's drug to treat obesity.

With thousands of press releases published each week, it can be difficult to keep up with everything on PR Newswire. To help journalists covering the healthcare industry stay on top of the week's most newsworthy and popular releases, here's a roundup of stories from the week that shouldn't be missed.

The list below includes the headline (with a link to the full text) and an excerpt from each story. Click on the press release headlines to access accompanying multimedia assets that are available for download.

1. FDA Approves Lilly's Zepbound™ (tirzepatide) for Chronic Weight Management, a Powerful New Option for the Treatment of Obesity or Overweight with Weight-Related Medical Problems

"Far too many hurdles continue to prevent people living with obesity from accessing obesity treatments that could lead to significant weight loss," said Mike Mason, executive vice president and president, Lilly Diabetes and Obesity. "Broader access to these medicines is critical, which is why Lilly is committed to working with healthcare, government and industry partners to ensure people who may benefit from Zepbound can access it."

2. 90% of Women aren't prepared for menopause. Knix wants to change that

Conceptualized by Knix Founder and President, Joanna Griffiths, The Invisible Period is an artistic manifesto style campaign created to shine light on perimenopause - the invisible period that more than half the world's population experiences but don't talk about.

3. NYU Langone Health Performs World's First Whole-Eye and Partial Face Transplant

The surgery included transplanting the entire left eye and a portion of the face from a single donor, making this the first-ever human whole-eye transplant in medical history and the only successful combined transplant case of its kind.

4. Emory Healthcare collaborates with Andor Health to provide virtual inpatient monitoring using AI technology

ThinkAndor® harnesses generative AI to unlock data stored in various systems including ambient listening and real-time visualization -- to detect common safety risks, such as falls, self-harm and elopement.

5. New Hospital Safety Grades from The Leapfrog Group Find Improved Infection Rates Following Major Spike During COVID-19 Pandemic

This cycle, nearly 30% of hospitals earned an "A," 24% earned a "B," 39% earned a "C," 7% earned a "D" and less than 1% earned an "F." Utah is the state with the highest percentage of "A" hospitals in the country this fall.

6. St. Joseph's Hospital to Open First Proton Radiation Therapy Center in Tampa Bay Area

Proton therapy delivers precise radiation treatments to cancerous tumors, using protons instead of X-rays to better target cancer and reduce the amount of radiation exposure to healthy tissue. As a result, patients report few side effects and have a lower risk of secondary malignancies.

7. quip Launches Custom-Fit Mouth Guards and Whitening Solutions

Users will simply take their detailed impressions at home, mail them back, and quip will send the user a custom Night Guard, custom Sports Guard, or Whitening Kit (with custom trays + 14-day treatment), with a protective storage case.

8. Eko Health Announces Large-Scale Deployment of AI Heart Disease Detection Technology

The current gold standard to detect heart failure is a blood test (NT-proBNP) that when ordered alone, initiates a long pathway that often fails to achieve early diagnosis and treatment in those who need it most. This novel deployment can potentially improve heart disease outcomes for millions of people in communities across the UK.

9. The Arab International Women's Forum and Pfizer launch 'DEI by Design' report with recommendations on embedding diversity into MENA health

"We believe that the recommendations delivered by the 'DEI by Design' series will pave the way for tangible change, ensuring that women at every level of healthcare – from grassroots workers to senior executive leadership – are empowered, recognised, and celebrated for their growing role at the forefront of health innovation, research and discovery," said AIWF President & Founder Dr. Haifa Al Kaylani.

10. On/Go Launches Sniffles™: A First-of-its-Kind Solution to Take Care of Whatever's Got You Sniffling

On/Go's Sniffles™ helps users sleep better, reduce fever, get congestion relief, soothe an itchy throat, calm dry and chapped lips, relax, and even boost the immune system with an all-in-one solution of medication, at-home testing, and immediate access to 24/7 expert medical care, anytime anywhere.

11. Aplos Medical Achieves a Major Milestone in GERD Treatment with Omega PF™

The Omega PF™ device heralds a paradigm shift in GERD treatment. Being the first of its kind, the device seamlessly combines a dual-modality treatment; it not only controls reflux but ensures a natural, uncompromised swallowing process for the patient.

12. Designs for Health Launches Innovative Probiotic Toothpaste, PerioBiotic™ Silver

Similar to the role of probiotics in the gastrointestinal tract, beneficial oral bacteria may help maintain dental and oral health. Purified silver may support overall oral wellness, CoQ10 may help support gum health, and grape seed extract may help healthy inflammatory support.

November 6th, 2023

Emory Healthcare Partners with Andor Health to Enhance Patient Safety with Virtual Observer Technology

Emory Healthcare, the leading academic health system in Georgia, has joined forces with Andor Health to introduce cutting-edge virtual patient observer technology in its hospitals. This collaboration aims to address fall risks and enhance overall safety for patients in the hospital setting. By leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced monitoring capabilities, Emory Healthcare aims to provide an additional layer of supervision and care for patients.

Transforming Patient Care with ThinkAndor®

Andor Health, a company specializing in AI-powered virtual care experiences, has developed ThinkAndor®, a platform that empowers care teams by providing relevant clinical content. This platform utilizes generative AI to analyze data from various systems, including ambient listening and real-time visualization. By harnessing this technology, common safety risks such as fall incidents, self-harm, and patient elopement can be detected early, ensuring prompt intervention.

Piloting Virtual Sitter Technology

Emory Healthcare plans to pilot the virtual sitter technology, beginning in November, at two of its hospitals. This technology will enable remote monitoring of at-risk patients in medical and surgical floors, as well as in emergency departments. With hospitals across the nation facing staffing shortages, the introduction of AI-enabled virtual observers allows healthcare professionals to focus on direct patient care while ensuring continuous monitoring and safety interventions for vulnerable patients.

New Opportunities and Enhanced Patient Outcomes

The partnership between Emory Healthcare and Andor Health opens up new possibilities for transforming clinical paradigms and improving patient outcomes. By leveraging innovative technologies such as generative AI-based virtual sitting and ambient monitoring, healthcare systems can reduce operational burdens, mitigate staff shortages, and optimize costs. Emory Healthcare plans to invest in Andor Health’s virtual patient observer technology in 32 inpatient rooms in the first year, with an additional 50 rooms planned for the second year of collaboration.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is virtual patient observer technology?

Virtual patient observer technology utilizes artificial intelligence and advanced monitoring capabilities to remotely supervise and provide care guidance to at-risk patients in the hospital setting.

How does the virtual sitter technology work?

The virtual sitter technology employs AI-powered virtual observers who work alongside registered nurses in a control center. Using voice activation technology, these virtual observers interact remotely with at-risk patients, providing reminders and guidance while alerting on-site staff of any safety concerns.

How can virtual observer technology enhance patient safety?

Virtual observer technology enhances patient safety by providing continuous monitoring and early detection of common safety risks, such as falls and self-harm. This enables healthcare professionals to intervene promptly and ensure the well-being of patients.

What are the benefits of AI-enabled virtual observers in hospitals?

AI-enabled virtual observers in hospitals alleviate staffing shortages by assuming the role of patient sitters, allowing healthcare professionals to focus on direct patient care. These virtual observers offer 24/7 monitoring and supervision, ensuring patient safety at all times.

How does Emory Healthcare plan to leverage virtual hospital capabilities?

Emory Healthcare aims to leverage virtual hospital capabilities, such as virtual sitting, to effectively observe patients while optimizing staff resources. By incorporating AI and virtual collaboration experiences, Emory Healthcare seeks to enhance patient care and deliver quality outcomes.

October 9th, 2023

Orlando (Fla.) Health is expanding its virtual care capabilities by launching AI-powered virtual nursing.

The health system will use ThinkAndor's virtual hospital platform to automate nursing workflows, according to an Oct. 9 news release from Andor Health.

The platform will curate automated triages for patient registration, in-patient nurse engagement and discharge planning.

The platform will also provide assistance to all nurses and can configure EMR-driven signals to automate intervention opportunities, according to the release.

September 15, 2023

Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital is expanding its use of a virtual hospital platform to inpatient settings after using it in its medical intensive care unit.

The health system is using Andor Health's ThinkAndor virtual hospital platform. The platform connects to Tampa General's EHR and allows staff to virtually invite clinicians and providers to provider-to-provider consultations, according to a Sept. 12 news release from the hospital.

The platform can also virtually invite family members, caregivers and friends to consultations, as well as observe a patient's clinical progress.

"Virtually enabling the patient room creates opportunities for the entire team to deliver world-class care in an innovative hybrid manner," Jason Swoboda, director of innovation at Tampa General, said in the news release.

The health system has been using the platform in its medical ICU and will now expand it to its medical and surgical environment.

September 11, 2023

Orlando Health is the latest hospital system in the region to start virtually monitoring at-risk inpatients.

In the program, which began July 18, a trained patient safety attendant— also called a sitter— watches a patient in their room constantly through mobile cameras with video chat software. The technology allows the sitter to supervise patients at risk of falling or other injuries, speak to patients in order to provide safety reminders and alert a patient’s in-person clinical care team when they need to intervene.

It’s in use at four hospitals throughout the system.

“Our goal is to truly try and make Orlando Health the safest place for care and the easiest place to deliver it,” said Kelly Edmondson, vice president of nursing and patient care.

The tech has the potential to tackle a serious problem. Up to 1 in 3 inpatients enter a state of delirium that can strip them of their ability to care for themselves and result in injuries, the most common being falls, according to Cleveland Clinic. Every year, 700,000 to 1 million patient falls occur, resulting in around 250,000 injuries and up to 11,000 deaths, according to a 2019 research review published in Clinics in Geriatric Medicine.

It’s standard practice for hospitals to hire in-person safety sitters to stay in at-risk patients’ rooms 24/7, and the hospital will continue to do this in situations where someone is at moderate or high risk of self-harm, Edmondson said. But in some cases, putting a stranger in a patient’s room agitates them further, Edmondson said.

“We are still able to able to accomplish the goal of ensuring their safety … while still allowing them to have the protection of privacy and dignity,” she said.

Virtual sitters are trained to recognize when an in-person sitter may be necessary, Edmondson added.

One of the hospitals implementing this tech, Orlando Regional Medical Center, saw a patient kill himself last spring. Edmondson said the decision to use this software was not motivated by that incident.

“That unfortunate situation really was not associated with our desire to move forward with this platform. Again, this platform is really for a patient that we know can be safe with reminders, and so we’re using this platform for, mostly, a confused patient population,” Edmondson said.

This technology was developed by Orlando-based software company Andor Health, and the program has been in the works for over a year. It’s just one of many innovations that have come after demand for remote health care took off during the COVID-19 pandemic, and, like other new health technologies, virtual monitoring appears to be here to stay.

Orlando Health’s virtual sitter program will soon be joined by a virtual nursing program that is planned to launch in September, Edmondson said. Virtual nurses can go a step beyond sitters and provide patient care and answer medical questions. The hospital chain also began a program in February that takes virtual monitoring to another level by offering hospital care at home.

AdventHealth Central Florida began using virtual sitters and nurses to help watch hospital inpatients over a year ago.

August 07, 2023

Charleston-based Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) has announced its collaboration with Andor Health, a virtual care company that utilizes ChatGPT, to bolster its decentralized telehealth network.

MUSC will implement the ThinkAndor Virtual Command Center, a comprehensive platform that facilitates virtual visits, virtual hospital services, virtual patient monitoring, virtual team collaboration, and virtual community collaboration. The objective of adopting a decentralized model is to enhance healthcare accessibility and establish educational alliances, as stated in a news release by Andor Health on August 7.

Patrick Cawley, the CEO of MUSC Health, expressed that as the sole comprehensive academic health system in the state, their mission is to safeguard and optimize the health of all South Carolinians. Cawley emphasized the institution’s commitment to innovative thinking and the development of new care delivery approaches. By prioritizing telehealth solutions, MUSC Health aims to broaden access to care in underserved regions of the state and expand the availability of specialized services tailored to meet the community’s needs.

This partnership with Andor Health highlights MUSC’s dedication to leveraging cutting-edge technology and digital platforms to revolutionize healthcare delivery. By incorporating Andor Health’s ChatGPT-powered solution, MUSC aims to enhance remote patient care, enable seamless collaboration among healthcare professionals, and foster stronger connections between healthcare providers and communities.

The ThinkAndor Virtual Command Center is anticipated to play a crucial role in achieving MUSC’s goals by enabling secure and efficient virtual care delivery across various healthcare settings. With this decentralized approach, patients and healthcare providers can connect remotely, reducing the need for physical visits and overcoming geographical barriers. This transformation holds significant promise in revolutionizing healthcare access and improving patient outcomes in South Carolina and beyond.

Macrh 06, 2023

Andor Health, the company reinventing virtual health as a platform, accelerates Health First’s virtual rounding program by extending the program to support virtual nursing.

Physicians and nurses are experiencing burnout leaving health systems overburdened and hospitals at capacity. Due to staffing shortages, hospitals are struggling to admit/discharge patients in a timely matter negatively impacting a patient’s length of stay. Forward-thinking health systems are solving these issues by implementing a unified, scalable virtual health strategy. ThinkAndor provides a cohesive platform that leverages OpenAI & healthcare trained GPT that help orchestrate clinical workflows and curate appropriate clinical context to meet the rapidly changing needs of health systems.

ThinkAndor Virtual Rounding is configured to enable a highly optimized and scalable virtual nursing capability that is hardware-agnostic and workflow-driven. Launching directly from the EHR, ThinkAndor brings in shifts & schedules from a variety of systems to allow for on demand virtual nursing capability.

Health systems that have implemented ThinkAndor for virtual nursing have increased nursing capacity 3 times, have access to 1,600 nurses on the ThinkAndor network for burst capacity, and have established virtual nursing for admissions, discharges, dual medication verification, ICU monitoring, and other service line options. Additionally, nursing staff can quickly pull in specialty clinicians based on availability and shift schedule for immediate remote consultations for urgent interventions such as ED triage, telestroke, and telepsych.

Easily deployed, ThinkAndor leaves existing clinical workflow untouched and makes it easy for ancillary services to leverage this capability. Now nurse managers, case managers, clergy, and other non-clinical services can connect virtually providing the patient with emotional and spiritual care.

“Last year, we experienced a need for virtual nursing and rounding solutions in our ICUs. We were able to quickly solve for this with Andor, who was already partnering with us on other use cases. Since then, we have done thousands of successful virtual nursing rounds,” commented Doug McKee, MD, CMIO of Health First. “Now, we are expanding our virtual rounding and looking at the many other virtual use cases the Andor platform can facilitate. The Andor team has served as both a vendor – and strong partner.”

Macrh 03, 2023

Andor Health announced Friday that its virtual health platform ThinkAndor, which leverages OpenAI and healthcare-trained GPT models, is helping to accelerate the virtual rounding programme at Florida-based health system Health First by extending the programme to support virtual nursing. Andor CEO Raj Toleti explained that by applying these technologies, and integrating them into a patient's electronic medical record (EHR), "a first-of-its-kind decentralised virtual nursing can be delivered to health systems in a tailored, hardware agnostic, contextual and just-in-time manner."

Hospitals are struggling to admit and discharge patients in a timely manner due to staffing shortages, but Andor believes "a unified, scalable virtual health strategy" can help health systems solve these problems. By adopting OpenAI and healthcare-trained GPT, the company says its ThinkAndor platform helps manage clinical workflows and curate clinical context to meet health system needs.

ThinkAndor uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide a configurable experience that allows clinical staff to identify and route virtual requests to on-shift and available providers. The hardware-agnostic platform, which launches directly from the HER, is able bring in shifts and schedules from various systems to enable on-demand virtual nursing.

According to the company, health systems that have implemented ThinkAndor for virtual nursing have boosted their nursing capacity three-fold and have access to 1600 nurses on the platform's network. It added that health systems are also using virtual nursing to carry out admissions, discharges, dual medication verification, ICU monitoring, and other tasks. The technology also allows nursing staff to bring in specialty clinicians for remote consultations for urgent interventions such as triage, telestroke and telepsych.

November 21, 2022

UCSF Health Hub and the Digital Health Awards team announces the ten Best in Class winning companies, 40 Rising Stars, three Rising Star Champions and two Hall of Fame inductees for the 2022 Digital Health Awards.

The winning companies were chosen from more than 1,200 submissions based on a rigorous judging criteria. In the first round of judging, the priority was on reviewing every aspect of qualification, including customer validation, market traction, scope of problem, level of differentiation, clinical impact, clinical validation, ease of use, and cost saving.

In the second round, for Best in Class track, the focus is on scope of problem, level of differentiation, impact on target users, market traction, and level of validation. For the Rising Star track, the focus was on scope of problem, level of differentiation, impact on target users, market potential, and level of validation.

Here is a look at the winning companies and individuals include

Clinical Diagnostics Tool

Best in Class: TytoCare

Rising Stars: Atropos Health, CardioWise, Inc, Ilara Health and Mediktor

Consumer Prevention

Best in Class: Interwell Health

Rising Stars: Kit.com, Gabbi, Intellihealth and Outcomes4Me

Consumer Wellness

Best in Class: Lexie Hearing

Rising Stars: Jasper Health, Nymbl Science, Smart Nora and Rosy Wellness, Inc.

Employer Prevention & Wellness

Best in Class: Virta Health

Rising Stars: Diagnostikare, Digbi Health, LiveMetric and TunedCare

Mental & Behavioural Health

Best in Class: Akili Interactive

Rising Stars: Oui Therapeutics, Mantra Health, Tiatros Inc. and Wise Therapeutics

Remote Diagnostic Tool or Device

Best in Class: Biofourmis

Rising Stars: Clearstep Health, Limber Health Inc., Spect Inc. and Strados Labs

New EHR Innovation

Best in Class: Innovaccer

Rising Stars: AvoMD, Lumeon, Particle Health and WellBeam Inc

Patient Cost Savings

Best in Class: Clarify Health Solutions

Rising Stars: HealthMe Technology, Turquoise Health, Samaritan and Sempre Health

New Health Application Of AI

Best in Class: ImmuneAI

Rising Stars: Bayesian Health, Biome Analytics Inc, GEn1E Lifesciences and Waymark

New Telehealth Innovation

Best in Class: Science37

Rising Stars: Andor Health, Bold Health, Pair Team and ZEPHYRx LLC

Rising Star Champions

Atropos Health, Bayesian Health, Jasper Health

Founders Hall of Fame

Kate Ryder, Founder & CEO of Maven Clinic

Rushika Fernandopulle, CIO of One Medical, Founder of Iora Health

November 13, 2022

Andor Health is accelerating the pace of innovation for health systems by enabling virtual on-demand services, including ThinkAndor which enables health systems to provide their patients with optimized and efficient access to virtual on-demand services. Those services are mental/behavioral health, virtual emergency department and emergency department triage, virtual nursing, and virtual sitting.

“ThinkAndor has been an essential piece to our unified approach to virtual health. As we were operationalizing our virtual health strategy, it became apparent that our siloed technologies were disjointed providing unpredictable experiences for our patients and providers,” explained Sr. Vice President Sunil Desai MD, president of Orlando Health Medical Group. “We needed a unified approach that could provide world-class experiences that our patients are accustomed to.”

ThinkAndor’s trailblazing digital front door improves access to care by orchestrating and integrating all aspects of virtual care. With easy integration into comprehensive health records, ThinkAndor digital front door improves patient access and right-sizes needs and volumes across lines of service by creating visibility, navigation, and access for patients. Health systems that have implemented ThinkAndor capabilities have experienced the following:

• 64% reduction in unnecessary emergency department (ED) visits by navigating patients to virtual urgent and primary care
• 36% reduction in left without being seen (LWBS) rates in the ED
• 18 minutes reduction per patient in door-to-disposition times
• 2X increase in ED capacity
• Improved patient safety and outcomes across all patient types/diagnoses with 5% of total virtual volume identified as near misses and decreased in-hospital mortality
• 23% increase in patient satisfaction scores
• 24% median reduction in readmissions and return ED visits with post-discharge follow-up and virtual patient monitoring
• 98% of clinicians report a better overall experience and improved efficiency

“ThinkAndor digital front door capabilities increases efficiency by leveraging Epic MyChart and unifying what was being done with disparate technologies,” Desai added. “Patients and providers now have access to consistent, AI-powered experiences in any setting and our facilities have increased capacity with existing resources.”

Health systems can bring cohesive experiences to patients as well as simplify experiences for clinicians, which alleviates burnout and address staffing shortages. ThinkAndor’s robust digital front door capabilities, including intelligent adaptive triage, enable health systems to increase access to care while balancing demand across service lines to properly scale resources amid the staffing challenges facing the healthcare industry.

ThinkAndor digital front door enables a concierge approach to digital encounters where an AI-powered virtual assistant guides participants through virtual health encounters creating experiences consistent with how patients traditionally interact with care teams. These optimized experiences can be seamlessly integrated into existing electronic medical records (EMRs) and patient portals. Health systems that layer their EMRs with ThinkAndor digital front door capabilities can configure ideal patient and provider experiences across care settings without increasing hospital burden.

November 11, 2022

TriHealth will use Andor Health's remote patient monitoring system to elevate its telehealth ecosystem.

The platform, ThinkAndor Virtual Patient Monitoring, will help the Cincinnati-based system monitor patients against tailored care plans and virtually connect with patients directly from a unified care team dashboard, according to a Nov. 10 press release from Andor Health.

"We started with Andor by building our remote patient care service, which helps us care for patients managing chronic conditions in between office visits. Next up — modernizing the way we offer scheduled and on-demand telehealth visits," said Nick Kostoff, senior manager of telehealth at TriHealth. "Efficiency, ease of use and quality reporting are critical aspects for those who use or support these care models. The ThinkAndor partnership/platform will help us better deliver on these crucial components, as we strive to create operationally excellent telehealth programs that are highly adoptable for our patients and providers."

November 10, 2022

Andor Health is accelerating the pace of innovation for health systems by enabling virtual on-demand services. ThinkAndor® enables health systems to provide their patients with optimized and efficient access to virtual on-demand services like mental/behavioral health, virtual emergency department and emergency department triage, virtual nursing, and virtual sitting. Health systems can bring cohesive experiences to patients as well as simplify experiences for clinicians, which alleviates burnout and address staffing shortages. ThinkAndor’s robust digital front door capabilities, including intelligent adaptive triage, enable health systems to increase access to care while balancing demand across service lines to properly scale resources amid the staffing challenges facing the healthcare industry.

ThinkAndor® digital front door enables a concierge approach to digital encounters where an AI-powered virtual assistant guides participants through virtual health encounters creating experiences consistent with how patients traditionally interact with care teams. These optimized experiences can be seamlessly integrated into existing electronic medical records (EMRs) and patient portals. Health systems that layer their EMRs with ThinkAndor® digital front door capabilities can configure ideal patient and provider experiences across care settings without increasing hospital burden.

ThinkAndor’s trailblazing digital front door improves access to care by orchestrating and integrating all aspects of virtual care. With easy integration into comprehensive health records, ThinkAndor® digital front door improves patient access and right-sizes needs and volumes across lines of service by creating visibility, navigation, and access for patients. Health systems that have implemented ThinkAndor® capabilities have experienced the following:

• 64% reduction in unnecessary emergency department (ED) visits by navigating patients to virtual urgent and primary care
• 36% reduction in left without being seen (LWBS) rates in the ED
• 18 minutes reduction per patient in door-to-disposition times
• 2X increase in ED capacity
• Improved patient safety and outcomes across all patient types/diagnoses with 5% of total virtual volume identified as near misses and decreased in-hospital mortality
• 23% increase in patient satisfaction scores
• 24% median reduction in readmissions and return ED visits with post-discharge follow-up and virtual patient monitoring
• 98% of clinicians report a better overall experience and improved efficiency

“ThinkAndor® has been an essential piece to our unified approach to virtual health. As we were operationalizing our virtual health strategy, it became apparent that our siloed technologies were disjointed providing unpredictable experiences for our patients and providers. We needed a unified approach that could provide world-class experiences that our patients are accustomed to,” explained Sr. Vice President Sunil Desai MD, president of Orlando Health Medical Group. “ThinkAndor® digital front door capabilities increases efficiency by leveraging Epic MyChart and unifying what was being done with disparate technologies. Patients and providers now have access to consistent, AI-powered experiences in any setting and our facilities have increased capacity with existing resources.”

By leveraging ThinkAndor® digital front door capabilities, hospitals looking to implement a strategic virtual health program can unify virtual health across all settings enabling consistent patient and provider experiences. To learn how you can achieve more with AI-powered virtual experiences, visit Andor Health booth 1527 at HLTH Nov. 13-16.

November 08, 2022

Orlando (Fla.) Health is partnering with digital health company Andor Health to install the ThinkAndor digital front door system.

Patients using the new digital front door will be guided to virtual urgent or primary care by an artificial intelligence assistant. The interactions between patients and AI assistants can be integrated into Orlando Health's EHR system.

ThinkAndor leads to a 64 percent reduction in unnecessary emergency room visits, according to a Nov. 7 Andor news release.

"ThinkAndor digital front door capabilities increases efficiency by leveraging Epic MyChart and unifying what was being done with disparate technologies," Orlando Health Medical Group President Sunil Desai, MD, said. "Patients and providers now have access to consistent, AI-powered experiences in any setting, and our facilities have increased capacity with existing resources."

September 20, 2022

The online educational events taking place during Telehealth Awareness Week explore strategies and tactics that improve access to quality telemedicine services.

The American Telemedicine Association has gathered a number of speakers to share their expertise on integrating virtual care into healthcare delivery.

ATA is taking the week to encourage telehealth solution providers, hospital systems and medical practices, patient advocacy leaders, policymakers and other stakeholders to examine hybrid care models that include in-person and virtual care.

The Telehealth Awareness Week educational series aims to share new resources and elevate the voices of patients and healthcare professionals who depend on telehealth to receive and deliver care.

Each session has multiple speakers, including doctors and nurses, C-suite executives, operational directors, academics and others.

The virtual series that began Monday continues today with discussions on aging, home testing use cases and reimbursement, and increasing equity in mental healthcare access.

On Wednesday, sessions address patient care, policy, big telemedicine experiences, recruiting and retaining diverse patients for clinical trials by leveraging the internet of things with telehealth and how to reach patients with limited WiFi access.

The series concludes Thursday with conversations on asynchronous telehealth, how digital healthcare transformation affects patient access and remote monitoring.

Register for each event individually.

ATA has also compiled resources contributed by organizations dedicated to supporting broader access to telehealth and is featuring guest bloggers to address learnings in virtual care model development.

Telehealth not only facilitates patient access to care, but can also help alleviate the burnout experienced across the healthcare profession.

The fast rise of telehealth during the pandemic resulted in new technology deployments, but what has not kept pace are strategies to address burnout caused by telehealth triggers, according to Marlene McDermott, vice president of therapy services at Array Behavioral Care.

"Telemedicine gives us the opportunity to reimagine how we leverage this finite number of resources to the fullest potential, while also acknowledging that to keep the number of existing providers, we have to keep them happy and mentally healthy," she told Healthcare IT News in August.

Virtual care can help address the access issues caused by physician shortage with education and resources that help cultivate intentionality with both patients and the clinicians that use the tools.

"Virtual care is no longer simply the use of telehealth. It must be an all-encompassing strategy that includes traditional virtual visits, but also acknowledges the importance of a deep strategy surrounding virtual rounding and telesitting, virtual patient monitoring and hospital at home and team & community collaboration," said Raj Toleti, CEO of Andor Health, in an ATA Telehealth Awareness Week blog post.

May 20th, 2022

Sickkids’ emergency department is reporting unprecedented wait times amid a rampant and rare springtime cold and flu season. Shauna Hunt with the virtual triage tool to help guide parents and ease the crowds.

April 20th, 2022

Charleston, S.C.-based MUSC Health University Medical Center partnered with health IT company Andor Health to use its AI virtual assistant for its virtual health services.

ThinkAndor AI Virtual Assistant configures contextual workflows for virtual health experiences, curates relevant clinical content into the visit experience and allows clinicians to initiate collaborations with other care team members, according to an April 20 press release.

"ThinkAndor is giving us the opportunity and flexibility to leverage virtual health in innovative ways across our health system, creating efficiencies in virtual care delivery models," said Emily Warr, MSN, RN, administrator for the Center for Telehealth at MUSC Health. "By implementing ThinkAndor, our clinicians can provide quality virtual care to our patients."

The AI assistants will also allow the health system to receive and curate clinical content to support quick decisions and accurate billing.

April 20, 2022

Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC Health) has partnered with Florida-based health IT company Andor Health to improve telehealth sustainability.

MUSC Health is one of two federally recognized National Telehealth Centers of Excellence (COE), a designation given by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA). COEs are public, academic medical centers with successful telehealth programs and high annual volumes of telehealth visits. They also establish programs to provide virtual care services in medically underserved regions, particularly those with high rates of poverty and chronic disease prevalence. COEs further serve as centers for telehealth research and resources.

As part of its efforts to bolster telehealth services, which span 300 sites across its network, MUSC Health is deploying Andor Health's ThinkAndor AI Virtual Assistant. By using ThinkAndor, MUSC Health aims to enable clinical efficiency, enhance virtual health operations, and improve virtual experiences for patient populations long term. Through the platform, MUSC clinicians will be able to collect information that can support decision-making and billing as well as initiate virtual conversations with patients and other providers.

Dig Deeper

• Microsoft, Nuance News May Signify Next Era of AI in Healthcare
• Johns Hopkins Leverages Microsoft AI for Precision Medicine
• Microsoft Revs Up Healthcare Artificial Intelligence Projects

"ThinkAndor is giving us the opportunity and flexibility to leverage virtual health in innovative ways across our health system, creating efficiencies in virtual care delivery models. By implementing ThinkAndor, our clinicians can provide quality virtual care to our patients," stated Emily Warr, administrator of the Center for Telehealth at MUSC Health, in the press release.

The new partnership with MUSC Health comes soon after Microsoft announced a collaboration with Andor Health in March to extend virtual care services.

According to the press release, ThinkAndor is secure and HIPAA-compliant, allowing care teams to collaborate and share data with community providers and post-acute care teams. It also states that through Microsoft Teams and Azure Health Data Services, ThinkAndor will be able to connect to multiple device endpoints, including Windows-based, iOS/iPad, Android/tablet, and existing devices within an organization.

"Andor Health is leveraging the power of the Azure Health Data Services to bring together medical data from across all device platforms. As health systems transform the future of telehealth, Andor is helping health systems configure tailored care and enhance patient experiences," explained Heather Cartwright, vice president, Health & Life Sciences Cloud and Data, Microsoft, in the press release.

This partnership is just one effort Microsoft has engaged in to extend virtual capabilities for healthcare systems after the launch of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare in 2020. The Microsoft Cloud product suite is designed to boost patient engagement, encourage health team collaboration, and improve clinical and operational insights.

Microsoft also added new virtual care features to its Teams platform last month, some of which include on-demand scheduling, appointment monitoring, and patient triage information collection. During the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, spikes in telehealth use resulted in increased use of teleconferencing platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Microsoft reports that between March 2020 and November 2021, the monthly use of Teams by healthcare systems increased by 560 percent.

Thursday, May 13th, 2021

Based on Big Tech's recent acquisitions and investments in digital health, tech market intelligence platform CB Insights predicts where Big Tech could go next in a recent report.

Six takeaways from the report:

1. Big Tech acquisitions reached a five-year low during the pandemic, but investments continue to trend upward. Google had the most number of investments throughout the pandemic with 16, followed by Amazon with 14.

2. Google is the most active Big Tech company in acquisitions and investments, focusing on health-related investments.

3. Since the start of the pandemic, Big Tech has moved to acquire three health IT companies: Orions Systems and Nuance by Microsoft and Fitbit by Google.

4. The pandemic accelerated Google's existing focus on healthcare. The tech giant backed conversational AI and mental health companion Wysa and precision oncology library Tempus. It also participated in funding rounds to care platform Cityblock Health and health insurance provider Oscar Health.

5. Google has invested in about 50 health IT companies since the start of 2020, including Olive, Verily Life Sciences and Tempus.

6. Microsoft has invested in four health IT companies in the same time period: 1910 Genetics, iLoF, Innovaccer and Andor Health

Video visits as a form of family visits in the hospital are slated to continue, some experts assert, as a key method for driving patient satisfaction.

November 4, 2020

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, clinicians at Orlando Internal Medicine were faced with an impossible situation. The organization was going to have to shut down family visits for the sake of patient safety, but leadership knew this was going to tank patient satisfaction.

“We deal with some really sick patients and we had to shut everything down overnight,” Pradeep Vangala, MD, an internist at Orlando Internal Medicine, told PatientEngagementHIT. “It was a very difficult decision, both for us and our patients, as well as families who could not see the loved ones. And then we had a big problem. More of a consequence of that, which is inability or difficulty communicating with family members, which obviously is a really important aspect of the patient care, so that got severely interrupted as well.”

Vangala and his team at Orlando Internal Medicine, which treats patients across the care continuum from acute settings to long-term care to outpatient practice, were not alone in this decision. Data shows that most organizations had to make some sort of change to their family visitation policies as part of the COVID-19 lockdown in March.

Per figures in Michigan, nearly every organization made at least some type of change to family visitation policies. Some organizations limited visitors to only one family member and for only certain types of visits, while others implemented a tight family visitor lockdown.

Anecdotal evidence shows that this was the story across the country, including in Orlando. Vangala and his team began with a strict prohibition on family visitors before opening up to only one visitor per patient. Now in November, Orlando Internal Medicine allows more visitors who are subject to coronavirus screening, donning of face coverings, and restrictions within the physical space of the organization’s hospitalist groups.

But in the beginning, these family visit shutdowns were deeply upsetting for everyone, Vangala said.

“I remember family members would come and visit their families, especially the ones that are there on the first floor, and would literally come and visit the family members through the windows,” he recounted. “But all this comes from the concept of zero harm. You don't want to do anything that in any way would harm the patient. That is of paramount importance.”

“But it was very heartbreaking and we were really hoping that we could start the family visits back as soon as we could,” Vangala added.

The boom of telehealth would prove to give Vangala and his team the respite they’d been hoping for. Just as video visits were proving essential in continuing patient access to care at the onset of the pandemic, they would also be helpful in connecting patients—and their clinicians—to family members and loved ones while the organization’s doors remained closed.

“If there is a silver lining to the whole COVID-19 pandemic, it’s the advancement in medical technology and the telemedicine platform. COVID-19 really acted as a catalyst,” Vangala said. “And that way we're very happy because in the short run, we were able to still connect with family members, get patients to connect with family members.”

The company will use the funding to build out its team and to expand outside of the US

Virtual care platform Andor Health raises Series A from Microsoft

December 2, 2020

Thanks to the COVID pandemic, virtual care and telemedicine are having their moment in the sun, as conditions have made seeing a doctor in person unfeasible. Companies in those spaces are becoming very interesting to investors as well, including Andor Health, a company that combines machine learning and AI with human intelligence to help care teams connect and collaborate with each other.

The company, which provides an AI virtual assistant that delivers data from electronic health record (EHR) in virtual health sessions, announced earlier this week that it raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from M12, Microsoft's venture fund.

"Andor Health has identified a need for technology enablement of virtual health and has developed best-in-class enterprise software for Virtual Heath Enablement powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning-based technology. We believe this is essential to create a sustainable virtual health platform for healthcare organizations," Raj Toleti, CEO of Andor Health, told me.

"This investment from M12 will help us continue to fulfill our mission of helping healthcare organizations care for patients better through automation, communication, and collaboration features that improve workflows and deliver healthcare providers into the new era of virtual health."

Andor Health currently has two products; one is AndorNow, which enables providers to reach patients with physician-approved educational and advertising content. It acts as an interactive media system that delivers customized, on-demand patient experiences throughout the patient journey, from pre-care to the point of care through post-care interactions.

The other product is called ThinkAndor, which uses AI and machine learning technologies to enhance the patient and provider experience by taking data from EHR into virtual visits, using natural language processing for voice dictated notes and recommending tasks to be pushed into the EHR, using bots to drive configuration of virtual visits, and enabling post-visit triggers and notifications to clinicians and care team members.

The company has four pillars, Toleti explained: virtual health enablement, virtual team collaboration, virtual community collaboration and virtual rounding. For virtual health enablement, for example, that means the platform manages the pre-care, where the ThinkAndor concierge bot configures on-demand requests, appointment scheduling and onboarding.

"The Andor platform is able to configure first of its kind virtual health experience for patient and provider experience that is able to mimic an actual face to face visit on a virtual platform. This type of virtual visit orchestration is only possible with the AI and ML capabilities instrumented within the Andor Platform," he said.

The virtual team collaboration aspect is used by team members in acute care, ambulatory care, and post-acute care teams, while virtual community collaboration allows for full ADT (Admissions, Discharge and Transfer) compliance with things like patient consent, team collaboration and consults between attending and primary care physician.

Finally, with virtual rounding that means monitoring and tele-mentoring facilitates workflows for care teams, including helping providers manage their patients both in the hospital and at home. The platform is also able to be used as an educational platform to help residents and remote surgeons learn remotely.

"This single, integrated solution introduces efficiencies, reduces the overall cost of care, reduces physician burnout, improves patient satisfaction as well as their health outcomes," said Toleti.

Andor's partners include providers, life sciences companies, insurance companies and pharmacies. It currently has over 10,000 contracted providers and hospitals, and over 5,000 contracted inpatient beds, with customers that include two of the five largest payers, and the largest pharmacy globally.

In terms of ROI, ThinkAndor has increased productivity of clinical and administrative staff by 3x, resulted in a 40 percent reduction in abandonment rate of virtual visits and tele-mentoring visits, has had a 97 percent success rate in patient feedback, experienced lower than average waiting room times at 4.6 minutes per patient, and improved to an average of 16.4 minutes of direct one-on-one interaction with a physician or care team member.

The new funding that the company has will be used for accelerating sales and marketing by expanding into new markets out of the U.S. Additionally, the funds will also be used to invest in enhanced R&D engineering. Andor is also planning to add over 170 jobs in the Orlando, Florida area.

Along with the investment, Priyanka Mitr, Principal at M12, joined the Board of Directors at Andor, while Microsoft/M12 now owns a minority stake in the company.

"Priyanka brings three years of B2B SaaS investing and prior experience serving on four growth-stage company boards to her Andor Health board directorship. Priyanka has a deep understanding of the healthcare ecosystem; she completed scientific research fellowships at Harvard Medical School and conducted macroeconomic research on global healthcare economies of scale via Harvard’s David Rockefeller International Experience grant," said Toleti.

Going forward, Andor's vision is to be the leader in an integrated AI/ML-based conversational virtual health platform globally.

"What I envision for the future of healthcare is the focus on collaboration capabilities between clinicians and their patients. More patients are putting their trust in the hands of their clinicians, and clinicians feel much more connected with their patients through virtual technologies," Toleti told me.

"By using AI-integrated virtual health platforms in our healthcare systems, this is helping to build sustainability and promise that although technology is changing, care clinicians provide their patients is consistent."

Pandemic-era burnout: How physicians manage crushing workloads and IT demands

In the third feature story in our burnout series, physicians discuss the stressors of 2020 and offer helpful tips on how their peers can combat burnout.

October 12, 2020

To see all of the feature stories in the Burnout in the Age of COVID-19 series, click here.

When the subject of burnout in healthcare is raised, perhaps the highest profile victim is the physician. Without doubt, they are under a lot of stress – especially during a pandemic where they are regularly making life and death decisions.

But it’s not just the huge workload that COVID-19 has brought with it, and the sometimes terrible decisions that must be made. It’s also routine stressors like administrative work and the IT used to do it. IT can add stress, and it can also alleviate stress. It just depends on the application, how well it has been crafted to meet clinician needs, and whether physicians like it. Electronic health record systems are a usual suspect for stress, though they can help, too.

This is the third feature story in Healthcare IT News’ Burnout in Healthcare During the Age of COVID-19 series. It focuses on what causes physician burnout and how successful doctors are in fighting the stress that leads to burnout. This feature follows the first two, one on healthcare consumer burnout and the other on healthcare CIO burnout.

Following are the experiences and opinions of six medical doctors from various backgrounds and healthcare provider organizations, including Atrium Health, Compass Medical, Garza Medical Group, Orlando Internal Medicine and Saint Peter’s University Hospital. The physicians discuss the stressors of 2020 and tips for their peers throughout the industry to help avoid burnout.

The stress of patient workload during the pandemic

Healthcare IT has played a huge part in medical care during the pandemic in the form of telemedicine. This virtual care took off as states went into lockdown and people wanted to avoid being near other, potentially infected people.

“Our health system largely was designed to operate under the circumstances where patients were expected to physically travel to us and receive healthcare, or in rare instances healthcare physically would go to a patient’s home through visiting nurses and house calls,” said Dr. Dhrumil Shah, a family physician and chief medical information officer at Compass Medical, an ambulatory primary care practice in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts. “Delivering 20-40% of care virtually as part of nationwide change is something none of us expected to happen this rapidly.”

Patient workload stress has been affected largely from three aspects: when, how and where to receive or provide care, he added.

“Being an ambulatory primary care practice, we realized the impact of these stress vectors immediately as we physically closed some of our departments, virtually closed all waiting rooms and applied administrative controls at all front doors of our buildings,” he explained. “The number of physical appointments reduced drastically, and telephonic triage exploded well before telemedicine regulations were made available to facilitate reimbursements and before mechanics of telemedicine were in place.”

Immediate impact of this pandemic on pre-existing burnout largely was felt as a shock and as uncertainty around the lack of scientific guidance available to carry out duties as a provider of care, he said.

“One way we mitigated this at Compass Medical was by creating a pool of administrative clinical leaders to provide 24/7 support for all of our physicians and clinical team members on rapidly evolving COVID-19 protocols as point-of-care practices were changing,” Shah explained.

“Our case medical management team, under the leadership of our chief medical officer, became a rapid response team that all clinicians relied on in the beginning, which tremendously helped us reduce burnout and allowed point-of-care teams to focus on redesigning patient workload from physical to virtual models of care and from reactive to proactive by applying population health insights.”

Proactively changing appointments to virtual visits when appropriate and rescheduling preventive visits when feasible allowed physicians’ schedules to accommodate the rapidly increasing demand of telephonic triage-based same-day appointments, he added.

“My burnout as a physician is partly measured in response to my professional satisfaction achieved via practicing good medicine at the end of my daily routine,” Shah stated. “During this pandemic, having a team around me making sure we get back to what matters the most – practicing good medicine – was crucial to avoid what could have been an exercise of emotional exhaustion if done in isolation.”

Bottom line: A team is what helps physicians avoid burnout and bring joy to the practice of medicine, he said. If a physician did not have a team before the pandemic, they certainly have one now if they still are practicing, he added. “Perhaps it just needed to be realized through this crisis,” he said. “Balance of life, support of professional teams and practice of self-awareness is the key to preventing burnout.”

Ever-changing information

There are many unknowns related to COVID-19, and over the course of the pandemic, information has been fluid. As physicians provide care for large volumes of patients across ambulatory, acute-care, long-term acute care and skilled nursing facilities, staying on top of ever-changing details that need to be communicated to patients, colleagues and peers about care and treatment has been very important, said Dr. Pradeep Vangala of Florida’s Orlando Internal Medicine.

“We deal with the stress brought on by the workload in a number of ways, all of them supported by technology in some way, from staying informed, collaborating with teams and the community, and sharing information with patients,” he said.

Another point of stress is ensuring that patients have detailed instructions when they leave the hospital, he said.

“Due to non-compliance or misunderstanding care instructions, patients are being put back on the schedule to be seen in a very short amount of time,” he said. “To ease this challenge, patients should be properly advised during their visits. New technologies integrated with our communications tools are making coping with this focus area at scale easier and helps relieve the associated stress.”

Optimizing workflow, reducing burden

Clinician burnout is real: It’s critical for healthcare organization leadership to call it out and acknowledge it; only then can it be addressed with measures that not just deal with the issues but creatively reduce and prevent factors that contribute to burnout, said Dr. Rasu Shrestha, executive vice president and chief strategy and transformation officer at Atrium Health, which has 39 locations in its health system, anticipating approval for a deal in October that will bring that number up to 55 hospitals.

“I am a firm believer that you cannot yoga your way out of burnout,” said Shrestha. “While it is critical to focus on clinician wellness, I spend a good bit of my energy trying to address the factors that contribute to the burnout in the first place. These include optimizing workflow challenges, reducing administrative burden, and formulating creative care models that emphasize care team coordination and person-centered care.”

Additionally, it’s important for clinicians to be self-aware and mindful, he said.

“I find new strength every time I think about our mission to improve health, elevate hope and advance healing for all,” he explained. “I am at one with this mission, and that provides me the resilience and vigor needed to work with my teammates to truly address the core issues of clinician burnout head-on. It has been said that you should allow your passion to become your purpose, and it will one day become your profession. Aligning the passion, the purpose and the profession, hence, is critical.”

The giant leap forward in virtual health is punctuating the need for reliable, clinically accurate technologies to advance how virtual medicine is delivered.

September 29, 2020

Over the last several months, the COVID-19 pandemic has catapulted virtual health to the forefront of care delivery. This giant leap forward in virtual health is punctuating the need for reliable, clinically accurate technologies to advance how virtual medicine is delivered.

During this ‘new normal’, we are experiencing the power that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) bring to virtual health. These technologies are being used to enhance the provider and patient experience by transforming real-world care settings into virtual experiences that deliver peace of mind and reassurance that quality care can be delivered remotely.

Component of AI/ML: Pattern Matching, Cognitive Services and Natural Language Processing

In the virtual health landscape, we are seeing the AI and ML providing tremendous pattern matching benefits in four key areas:

• Virtual health enablement
• Virtual team collaboration
• Virtual community collaboration
• Virtual rounding

Pattern matching, a product of AI and ML, uses an algorithm that learns behaviors, and in turn provides care teams with more efficient ways to care for patients and increase care capacity to meet the high demand for virtual care.

Other key components of pattern matching and AI are cognitive services, such as voice recognition, that help infer the next step(s) in care. Proactive prompt patterns are used to cue providers with care suggestions or recommendations based on previous care with those patients or a provider’s care process. For example, if ordering labs is the first action item a physician takes in caring for their patient, the AI technology feature will notify the physician and ask to initiate it without the physician having to manually go into the EMR (electronic medical record) to place the lab order. The AI feature can then push clinical content, a requirement that must be reviewed prior to examining a patient, into the EMR.

How Does AI Change the Future for Virtual Health?

The future of technology is sustainability. With hospitals and health systems looking for long-term virtual health solutions, they are asking themselves: How long will this product last and will it evolve over the next few years? Can I trust that my patients will be better served through the use of AI and ML?

The goal for introducing AI and ML technologies in healthcare is to enhance the provider and patient experience. Without AI integrated in technology, we see healthcare teams adopt multiple products to complete workflows that involve virtual health enablement, virtual team collaboration, virtual community collaboration and virtual rounding. This is neither efficient nor productive. A single, integrated solution introduces efficiencies, reduces burnout, improves satisfaction and outcomes and reduces the overall cost of delivering care.

AI virtual assistant bots help in the onset stages for virtual health visits. Their role in first-stage patient virtual visits starts in the virtual waiting room. The greatest benefit of the AI bot is its effect on reducing the amount of time spent waiting to see a physician, while it automatically initiates many administrative tasks, such as patient intake and triage, e-consent forms and providing patients with educational content that would be very similar to an in-person experience. The assistance, in turn from this AI technology, reduces the workload for the administrative staff, who can then take on the increased care capacity for the physicians in the clinic.

Staff productivity has increased for health institutions by more than three fold when the AI virtual assistant bot is configured in the patient’s virtual care visit. Whether care team members are inside or outside the organization, the AI virtual assistant bot is able to notify care teams on different steps within the care journey. For example, after the AI virtual assistant bot tells the platform that administrative intake paperwork is complete, real-time notifications are sent to the physician and care team on what resources will be needed during the visit and that the patient is ready to be seen. This type of communication channel has resulted in a decrease by almost 30–40% in abandonment rates due to the automated patient onboarding experience.

How Does AI/ML Work with Built-In Communications Platform?

With many healthcare providers using collaboration hubs, like Microsoft Teams, in their workflows, they have yet to see the positive impact AI can have. With only a few simple voice or text commands, AI can bring about a patient’s information from the EMR directly into the collaboration channel, creating a secure chat functionality that allows patients to communicate with care team members while in the care setting. During the visit, a physician can invite care team members both inside and outside the organization without disconnecting or re-initiating the visit.

The AI feature can save providers on average 8–10 minutes per patient by pulling clinical context from multiple source systems, like the EMR, all by simply listening in and understanding what patient data, labs and even x-rays are needed at the time of the visit.

The current AI-integrated virtual health platforms on the market are the most up-to-date technologies we are seeing. Their impact to help combat physician burnout is a key benefit to why healthcare organizations are turning to automated virtual health technologies. As an example, one hour of patient care followed two hours spent on administrative tasks for each patient, leading to a great amount of stress and physician and staff burnout. This is an inordinate amount of time spent, which would be better utilized with an automated process that can take on greater care capacity.

Working in the AI and ML technology space, our future roadmaps will be focused on building a more comprehensive set of virtual team and patient collaboration capabilities. The current AI-integrated virtual health platforms are building sustainability for healthcare organizations and their patients, while also ensuring that regulatory compliance, including the most recent ADT Event Notification Conditions of Participation for CMS, is met each year.

Practice merges telehealth, AI and voice to decrease admin workload

September 08, 2020

Orlando Internal Medicine has also increased patient capacity via telemedicine, and now sees 23-25 patients daily after saving 8-12 minutes per visit.

Florida’s Orlando Internal Medicine had relied heavily on manual efforts to facilitate administrative tasks.

THE PROBLEM

Many of the challenges it was facing had obstacles that affected both patients and providers in the telehealth setting. For example:

• Physicians had to initiate virtual health sessions by manually calling their patients, which contributed to missed appointments and a resulting lower care-capacity.
• Medical assistants had to manually let physicians know that their intakes for patients were complete, instead of using an electronic notification process that would have facilitated the visit in a more-structured, time-efficient way.
• Physicians faced difficulty accessing lab results and other electronic health record content while on the call with the patient, which resulted in further delays.

“One hour of patient care followed two hours that were spent on administrative tasks, capturing and uploading patient data and documentation into the EHR and searching for and pulling up relevant information for each patient seen in the clinic,” said Dr. Pradeep Vangala, a physician at Orlando Internal Medicine.

“This inordinate amount of time spent on administrative tasks is an inefficiency that leads to an increase in stress and physician and staff burnout,” he said.

PROPOSAL

So the group practice turned to artificial intelligence and voice technology from health IT vendor Andor Health. Implementation was an expedited process; it took less than two weeks. The technology was able to scale with the increased number of patients that Orlando Internal Medicine was seeing virtually.

“Microsoft Teams provided the framework for virtual visits and ThinkAndor allowed us to push real-time clinical information to care teams and staff right to the Teams’ call using a configuration tool,” Vangala explained. “With the AI virtual assistant from Andor Health with the help of Microsoft Teams, we were able to create a workflow better equipped with the patient and provider in mind.”

The group practice previously had experiences with a number of other standalone telemedicine tools, forcing it to use multiple platforms to properly access information it needed for each patient. It was not a sustainable long-term strategy.

“The platform from Andor Health integrated with Microsoft Teams provides a much smoother experience,” Vangala said. “The implementation was quick, and it was easy to train our staff on. The clinical integration was unmatched and greatly aids our physicians in session during virtual visits. The internal communications chat function also drove our decision, since this helped to keep our care teams up to date on patient status reports and [was] a way for physicians to get care recommendations from other providers within the practice.”

MEETING THE CHALLENGE

The artificial intelligence aspect of the platform reduced much of the time that would have been spent on administrative tasks by delivering critical, context-sensitive intelligence from disparate EHR systems across multiple care settings, Vangala explained. The practice’s providers have immediate access to patient data, including labs, X-rays and other tests.

“This has created improved operational efficiencies for our care providers,” he said. “One example is dictation, saving our providers 8-10 minutes per patient that would have otherwise been spent writing progress notes on patient visits. Our physicians are now seeing an estimated 125 patients each week and they are spending more time consulting with our patients and less time on administrative follow-up.”

As a comprehensive physician practice caring for a large volume of patients across ambulatory, acute-care, long-term acute-care and skilled nursing facilities, it is Orlando Internal Medicine’s responsibility to effectively collaborate with patients’ entire care team, both inside and outside its practice.

“Care coordination should involve an active communication stream, where care team members are notified instantly following an update in their patient’s care, including any immediate actions,” he stated. “If a patient is seen at a facility with a different EHR system, the care team is still notified – this is one of the prominent features of the technology.”

RESULTS

Since implementing the technology, Orlando Internal Medicine’s administrative workload has been reduced almost 60%, leading to an increase in clinical care capacity and reducing physician burnout. The result has dramatically improved patient care outcomes, and, in the end, created greater revenue streams for the practice, Vangala reported.

“Prior to implementation of ThinkAndor, we were conducting less than 10% of our visits virtually, even during the height of COVID-19, since other telemedicine technologies we had tried were not able to keep up with the workflow of our practice,” he said.

“The ThinkAndor AI bot feature has helped us achieve a 5x success rate with patients by transforming the operations of our practice, including aggregating patient data and identifying the discrete signals, alerts and workflows that need to be managed.”

The practice now is seeing patients exclusively using virtual tools with hundreds of visits per month, and 23-25 appointments seen daily.

“Since implementation, we have seen an increased productivity of clinical and administrative staff by 3x,” he reported. “This translates to eight to 12 minutes of staff time savings per patient in a virtual visit, allowing us to increase our clinical care capacity and the amount of patients we are able to see with the growing demand, especially during COVID-19.”

Within three days of sending a survey for patient feedback, the practice has received a 97% success rate, highlighting lower than average waiting room times at 4.6 minutes per patient and 16.4 minutes of direct one-on-one interaction with a physician or care team member. All of these metrics are leading to higher patient satisfaction rates.

ADVICE FOR OTHERS

“Patient outcomes are the No. 1 priority,” Vangala advised. “When looking to implement a platform, healthcare organizations should understand how it can positively impact physician and patient experience in the long term. In the long run, this is a more efficient way to communicate between health providers and patients, and we advise selecting a platform that can enable a long-term, sustainable virtual health strategy for your organization.”

One way to do this is to ensure one is choosing a platform with built-in AI and machine learning functionality for patients of any age and language, with solutions such as translation services, he added.

“As institutions look for platforms that provide sustainable solutions, asking questions like, ‘Will the platform still be viable in five or ten years?’ is important,” he said. “It also should easily integrate with any EHR and ideally not be complicated, working with ubiquitous communications platforms like Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Overall, choosing a virtual health platform to meet your institution’s needs should not be a cumbersome process. It should efficiently provide solutions to the growing demand for patient services.”

Isleworth Golf and Country Club Uses AI, Virtual Assistants and More to Reopen Safely

August 20, 2020

Andor Health, the company known for harnessing machine learning and human intelligence to change the way organizations connect and collaborate, announces that Isleworth Golf and Country Club in Windermere, Florida has implemented the ThinkAndor® Employer Toolkit to power its employer back to work initiative– going beyond federal guidelines like temperature screenings for a more complete return-to-work program and to help prevent new outbreaks of COVID-19, including asymptomatic spread.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the temporary closure of millions of businesses, but as these companies begin the transition to reopening, they need tools to minimize the risk of outbreaks. This is why Isleworth, one of the most prestigious private golf club communities in the world, turned to Andor Health to help them manage a safe and successful return to normal operations.

Powered by artificial intelligence and voice technology, Andor Health’s ThinkAndor Employer Toolkit provides Isleworth with:

• Pre-arrival COVID-19 screening and education, and ongoing screening and monitoring of employees for continual safety
• Education on safe return-to-work protocols
• Virtual health enablement for contactless health assessments and treatment
• AndorBot virtual assistant to push critical communications for decision-making, and suggesting tasks and information to be saved back to the electronic medical records (EMR) system
• COVID-19 antibody test results tracking and monitoring
• Regular, automated contract tracing and exposure reporting
• Integration with HR and workforce management systems

“In order to more fully reopen safely, we have an obligation to our employees and Members alike to ensure they remain healthy as they resume activities,” said Wayne Sheffield, President and General Manager, Isleworth Golf and Country Club. “We cannot even think about approaching this ‘new normal’ without a way to handle the constant testing, self-assessments, vital communications, and reporting needed to support everyone through this process. ThinkAndor was easy to implement and helps us run all aspects of this re-opening smoothly.”

April 27, 2020

ORLANDO – Raj Toleti, CEO of Andor Health and serial entrepreneur, is no stranger to finding innovative technology solutions to some of the biggest challenges in healthcare.

On a virtual Microsoft Teams call during the COVID-19 pandemic, serial entrepreneur Raj Toleti brings up an interesting question:

“If we were doctors and nurses discussing a patient right now, how would we pull up the patient’s files for review?”

The answer, many times, is that it would be impossible. Most healthcare providers’ electronic medical record systems (or EMRs) are not inherently built for team collaboration. EMRs are excellent repositories to capture extensive patient data over a period of time but they lack the tools to enable effective care team coordination. But collaboration in healthcare is critical; healthcare professionals need to be able to work together to provide care while pulling clinical data on-demand into collaboration platforms.

That’s why Toleti’s latest endeavor is Andor Health – a company looking to change the way healthcare professionals connect and interact with healthcare data. The company is working with Microsoft, Google and others to have its solution come out-of-the-box with tools like Teams and Hangouts. Andor is also able to work independently to ensure that care teams can collaborate efficiently.

Toleti shares an example, “With Andor Health’s technology, a care provider can set up an alert that notifies them of abnormal lab results instantly. Once a lab test is conducted on a patient, the care team needs to monitor the EMR manually to see if the lab test has been resulted and decide what action will be required.” This manual process can take up to 20-30 minutes in some cases.

“For critical lab tests like COVID-19, any delay is unacceptable.” says Toleti. With Andor, the care provider is notified in real-time of the abnormal screening result, saving precious time and even lives of those who may be exposed in an Emergency Department or other care setting.

Andor Health has already secured partnerships with the National Institutes of Health and Orlando Health. During the pandemic, the company is even offering discounted rates to hospitals and health systems that can’t afford to pay for the technology upfront. Florida House Bill 843 and the national interoperability rules are requiring hospital and health systems to notify community primary care physicians about admit and discharge for their patient populations. Andor is currently the only system that guarantees compliance to these regulations.

Toleti is no stranger to finding innovative technology solutions to some of the biggest challenges in healthcare. Before his journey as a serial entrepreneur, he was a master’s student and post-grad fulltime researcher for industrial engineering with a focus on simulation modeling for autonomous vehicles at the University of Central Florida (UCF).

“UCF is the leader in simulation in the areas of computer science and Artificial Intelligence.”, says Raj Toleti, CEO of Andor Health.

“And that’s a big reason that Orlando is rich with excellent research and development talent,” he explains.

Entrepreneurship runs in Toleti’s family, too, and the itch to innovate led him to start his first company – Cytura, a medical web content management & personalization software company that was acquired by Mobius in 2002.

“From coast to coast, here in the Florida tech corridor, we were able to recruit and train software engineers and technologists and build teams that were innovative enough to bring products to market first,” he says. This first venture, and the success of building a strong team, gave him confidence that Central Florida would allow him to pursue his passions in healthcare IT.

Toleti has successfully launched and exited three more companies. His next enterprise, Galvanon, introduced the first online bill pay software for healthcare customers, was acquired by NCR in 2005. PatientPoint took the customer experience a step even further, implementing check-in technology similar to airlines’ processes into the healthcare industry. It was acquired by Health Advice® Networks in 2012. HealthGrid combined population health management with patient experience to create a best in class patient engagement platform. It was acquired by Allscripts for over $100 million in 2018. In each venture, the guiding principle was about improving the customer experience, and not necessarily, the technology. And each new venture built upon the experience of the last.

Here in Orlando, we are able to leverage talent that knows how to craft the best customer experiences, such as from Disney, in order to design and create patient and provider self-service technologies.

“And if you can build an experience that works for the country’s largest healthcare providers, many of which are located in Florida, that technology can be used anywhere in the country,” he adds. “Building and testing healthcare technology here allows for a large and diverse sample population of users.”

Toleti’s love of innovation runs deep, and he currently serves as a Board Member of the UCF Foundation and is an active supporter of the UCF India Center.

“My personal goal is to create 2,000 more high tech jobs here in Central Florida,” he says.

And with the region’s fast-growing Lake Nona Medical City, new big data research at the UCF Medical School and the thriving collaborative ecosystem at AdventHealth, Orlando Health and HCA, that’s a dream that might just come true.

April 15, 2020

ORLANDO – Andor Health has announced the appointment of healthcare technology industry veteran Raj Toleti as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Toleti comes to Andor Health from Allscripts, where he served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the HealthGrid business unit. Previously, he was CEO of HealthGrid, which Allscripts acquired and rebranded as FollowMyHealth in 2018.

The company also announced the appointment of two senior executives to newly created positions:

• Joshua G. Briscoe, MD, as Chief Medical Officer to provide subject matter expertise as well as drive clinical product strategy for Andor Health’s care team collaboration platform. He also works as a board-certified emergency medicine physician at Orlando Regional Medical Center and Arnold Palmer Hospital, and serves on the faculty at Orlando Health and University of Central Florida’s College of Medicine.
• Noel Khirsukhani as Chief Growth Officer to drive revenue growth, sales strategy, channel partner enablement and go-to-market strategy. Before joining Andor Health, Khirsukhani served as Allscripts Vice President of Solution Sales and Partnerships for the company’s FollowMyHealth product line.

“We are honored to welcome Raj Toleti as our Chairman and CEO, along with Joshua Briscoe, MD, as Chief Medical Officer and Noel Khirsukhani as Chief Growth Officer,” said Andor Health President Marlin Hutchens. “These appointments, along with our new Strategic Advisory Board, position our company with the expertise to guide the continued development of our mobile clinical care team collaboration and communication platform to meet the rapidly changing needs of healthcare organizations.”

Andor Health also announced the appointment of the following healthcare and technology leaders to its Strategic Advisory Board:

• Dana N. Bledsoe, DHA, RN, FACHE, former President of Nemours Children’s Hospital and Enterprise Vice President Nemours Children’s Health System
• Aneesh Chopra, President and Co-Founder of CareJourney and former U.S. Chief Technology Officer during the Obama Administration
• Mark Crandall, Chief Information Officer at Consulate Health Care
• Scott Cuppy, Vice President of Industry Relations at Walgreens Health Services
• Philip Giordano, MD, Chief of Corporate Research Operations at Orlando Health
• Christopher Jordan, Corporate Director of Information Technology at Orlando Health
• Narendra Kini, MD, former CEO at Nicklaus Children's Health System
• Craig Mintzer, MD, MBA, Head Team Physician for Orlando Magic and Rollins College
• Vipul Patel, MD, FACS, Director of Global Robotics Institute at Advent Health
• Jay Rao, PhD, MS, Professor of Strategy and Innovation at Babson College
• Jordan Ruch, Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at RWJBarnabas Health
• Pradeep Vangala, MD, President and Founder of Orlando Internal Medicine

At Andor Health, our mission is to change the way care teams connect and collaborate. By harnessing artificial intelligence, machine learning, and voice and video technologies, our mobile platforms unlock data stored in disparate electronic medical record (EMR) systems to deliver real-time, actionable intelligence to care teams – both inside and outside of their enterprise. By optimizing communication workflows, our solutions accelerate time to treatment, decrease clinician burnout, improve operational efficiency, and drive better patient outcomes.

April 13, 2020

Some of the biggest names in health care and industry are teaming with local startups to tackle the needs of medical workers.

Two Orlando companies recently landed partnerships with Koch Industries and the National Institutes of Health to use their technology to enable nurses and physicians to treat coronavirus patients safer and quicker.

And that’s important as the virus continues to take a toll globally and locally. More than 1.8 million people have been infected and 118,000 have died as of April 13, according to Johns Hopkins University. That includes 20,600 cases and 470 deaths in Florida, according to the Florida Department of Health. Orange County has experienced at least 1,017 cases.

Here’s more on how these partnerships will broaden the reach of these companies.

Many hospitals across the U.S. are strained by the weight of the coronavirus pandemic, making accurate and rapid communication as important as ever.

And Orlando-based AndorHealth LLC has been recognized by a leading hospital as a company that can help with that. The health tech firm, founded in 2018, announced April 8 that its ThinkAndor platform will be deployed in the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

The platform can deliver data from electronic medical records to health care workers, such as electronically alerting doctors and nurses how many coronavirus patients are in a hospital or if a patient needs to be isolated and tested for the virus.

It's a big improvement over the current system, where workers search through electronic records, which can take more than 20 minutes, CEO Raj Toleti told Orlando Business Journal. “We wanted to bring together a system where data goes to the care team instead of care teams going to back-end systems.”

This deployment brings the number of hospital beds monitored by AndorHealth’s platform to more than 4,000 across the U.S., Toleti said. It’s the fourth local health tech startup launched by Toleti. “I don’t play golf. All I do is build technology companies.”

April 8, 2020

ORLANDO - Andor Health announces that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center will deploy the ThinkAndor® mobile platform to improve overall clinical research team collaboration and communication.

The NIH Clinical Center is one of 27 NIH institutes and centers on the frontlines of global medical research and discovery of new therapies to prevent and treat diseases such as cancer, COVID-19, diabetes, hepatitis, and HIV/AIDS. The NIH Clincial Center has about 1,600 clinical research studies in progress.

The NIH Clinical Center will implement the ThinkAndor® mobile care team collaboration platform to push critical signals from electronic medical record (EMR) and patient engagement systems to help streamline and simplify clinical operational workflows for clinical studies. For example, the NIH will use ThinkAndor to deliver real-time notifications such as COVID-19 education, screenings and configurable emergency notifications to staff and patients.

"Andor Health is extremely proud to partner with the prestigious National Institutes of Health Clinical Center," said Andor Health President Marlin Hutchens. "Our ThinkAndor mobile platform will deliver critical, real-time notifications to NIH research teams, care providers and clinical trial subjects to enhance overall operational efficiency and clinical care team collaboration and communication."

Powered by artificial intelligence, voice and video technologies, Andor Health's ThinkAndor platform delivers critical, context-sensitive intelligence from disparate EMR systems across all care settings. Providers, clinical research teams and staff can use AI-enabled voice commands to quickly access content, configure workflows, and curate relevant notifications and required actions.

ThinkAndor continually monitors all the signals across EMR systems, pushing actionable, just-in-time intelligence to clinicians. As a result, clinicians have access to a single view of relevant patient information, regardless of EMR or care setting, enabling real-time mobile care team collaboration across the care continuum. ThinkAndor is natively integrated with Microsoft® Teams, providing an integrated collaboration toolset for sharing documents, and conducting persistent chat conversations and clinician meetings with audio, video, screen sharing, recording and transcription features.

At Andor Health, our mission is to change the way care teams connect and collaborate. By harnessing artificial intelligence, machine learning, and voice and video technologies, our mobile platform unlocks data stored in disparate electronic medical record (EMR) systems to deliver real-time actionable intelligence to care teams – both inside and outside of their enterprise. By optimizing communication workflows, our solutions accelerate time to treatment, decrease clinician burnout and drive better patient outcomes. For more information, visit Andor Health.

March 30th, 2020

The Trump administration's solution to the vexing problem of data exchange seems simple in concept: Let patients download their medical data onto smartphone apps and carry it around with them from provider to provider.

The big unknown: Will patients take advantage of that capability, which is supported by technology requirements in HHS final rules?

Early projects exploiting the technology—called application programming interfaces—have had mixed success. That may be because most of the apps available today, while convenient for viewing data, don't yet do much beyond that.

"This type of functionality has been out there," Dr. Christopher Longhurst, chief information officer at UC San Diego Health, said of APIs that link patients' health records to apps. "The real question is: Will the developer community build things that add value to patients in the healthcare process?"

Apps in many ways underpin long-awaited interoperability and information-blocking rules issued in early March by HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the CMS. The companion rules will require healthcare providers and insurers to adopt standard APIs—protocols that connect various types of software, such as electronic health record systems and smartphone apps, to one another.

Some hospitals and health systems are already offering patients the option to download their medical data via APIs, though there's a limited number of apps on the market that link up to them today.

Under the rules, the Trump administration envisions developers creating a wide range of apps from which patients can choose to download and upload their data.

Rush System for Health in Chicago has for years been sharing data with patients via apps, offering patients access to medical data through Apple's health records feature and data-aggregation apps like 1upHealth.

"The data belongs to the patient," said Dr. Shafiq Rab, Rush's CIO. "It's all up to the patient. … If the patient wants that (data exchange), we can enable that."

Rush was one of the first health systems to add Medicare's Blue Button 2.0 API—a data-sharing interface that the CMS launched in 2018—to its patient app, called My Rush Mobile, which the system presented to agency officials at the White House that same year.

The CMS has pointed to Blue Button 2.0 as a first step toward healthcare data-sharing with APIs. The program has spurred creation of roughly 50 apps that hook up to beneficiaries' claims data to help users find appropriate health plans, make physician appointments and organize medical data.

But a key concern with the API approach is data privacy since app developers will not be held to stringent HIPAA requirements. Blue Button 2.0 last year ran into its own privacy misstep after discovering a bug that may have exposed some beneficiary information. That hasn't stopped the CMS from talking up the success of the project.

More than 53,000 Medicare beneficiaries have downloaded at least one of those apps, the CMS wrote in its interoperability rule. There are around 60 million Medicare beneficiaries in the U.S.

Rush's patients covered by Medicare can use the My Rush Mobile app to download and share previous years of claims data with their physician, including previous primary-care treatments and prescriptions. Rab said about 19,000 patients have downloaded the My Rush Mobile app, about 1,000 of whom are on Medicare.

But while sharing data via apps and APIs sounds appealing, apps that link up to EHRs today largely haven't caught on with patients.

Those types of apps are "struggling to gain traction in terms of utilization," said Michael Abrams, managing partner at healthcare consultancy Numerof & Associates. "Having a suitable API … is necessary, but not sufficient, to really create interest and utilization."

He noted that some companies have already tried—unsuccessfully—to launch data-aggregation services for patients' medical data. Microsoft Corp. last year shuttered its personal health record service, called HealthVault; the web-based tool lets patients aggregate health records.

In fact, just 0.7% of patients have downloaded medical data from their provider's patient portal to an app via APIs, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open last year, which studied 12 health systems that offered the option to patients.

Apps that help patients aggregate their medical records "can't focus exclusively on traditional health records," Abrams said. "They need to make it easy to integrate health records with other external and patient-generated data," such as data from genetic testing and wearable devices, and synthesize the information to provide patients with health insights.

Most patients who had downloaded their medical data with APIs were using Apple's health records feature, said UCSD Health's Longhurst, a co-author of the article in JAMA Network Open. UCSD Health was among the first health systems to pilot the Apple project, which allows patients who visit participating providers to view data from their health records on the iPhone's Health app.

"I think the potential value of something like Apple health records is the development ecosystem around it—the apps that help to contextualize results and add value to patients," Longhurst said. "But that has not yet developed."

Trump administration officials say that requiring standard APIs in healthcare will ultimately encourage creation of new apps that provide patients with valuable services like price transparency and help providers report quality measures, among other uses.

"A core part of the rule is patients' control of their electronic health information, which will drive a growing patient-facing healthcare IT economy," ONC chief Dr. Donald Rucker said in a statement when the rules were released. His vision is for patients to one day manage and coordinate their healthcare "the same way they manage their finances, travel and every other component of their lives"—with apps.

But while enticing, that app economy isn't here yet.

Patients' limited use of APIs to date doesn't mean there isn't a market for health apps with more capabilities. Last year, the global market for mobile health apps hit $37 billion, according to market research firm Statista, and it's expected to continue to climb. Many of those apps aren't scientifically validated, and focus more on general fitness and wellness—but their popularity may speak to patients' interest in technologies that play a role beyond aggregating data.

But even if today's data-sharing apps don't catch on as the dominant way that patients access their medical data, it provides another avenue for those who do want to.

Despite low adoption, patients who have downloaded medical data via APIs have had positive things to say. More than three-quarters of UCSD Health patients who adopted Apple's health records feature in 2018 said they were satisfied with the capability, according to another study published in JAMA and co-authored by Longhurst.

And low adoption isn't limited to apps. In 2018, just 30% of patients who were offered access to an online medical record chose to view it, according to a data brief from the ONC. Most who chose not to access their records online said that they didn't think they had a reason to view it or preferred to speak with their provider about their care directly.

Dr. Joshua Briscoe, medical director of IT innovation at Orlando Health in Florida, said he's been looking into "innovative ways to share data with patients," in part because he's found not all patients respond to standard patient portals. That includes a plan to deploy a solution from Andor Health, which would give Medicare patients and their clinicians access to historical health information, aggregated from Blue Button 2.0. That's delivered via text messages that direct users to a secure website, rather than an app.

"Speaking from being a patient myself, and having family members who are patients, I find patient portals to be a bit challenging," Briscoe said. Moving forward, he said he's looking at how to deliver data to patients "considering where people spend most of their time—on mobile devices."

February 27th, 2020

Orlando (Fla.) Internal Medicine announced on Feb. 27 that it will implement mobile communication technology that allows clinicians to electronically share patient health information.

The hospital tapped Andor Health's artificial intelligence and voice technology-powered platform to share patient data from disparate EHR systems across multiple care settings.

"We are anticipating an overall 60 percent reduction in work effort required to view critical information, resulting in increased clinical care capacity, reduced physician burnout and improved outcomes for patients," said Pradeep Vangala, MD, founder of Orlando Internal Medicine, according to a news release emailed to Becker's Hospital Review.

Orlando Internal Medicine provides patient care across various settings, including ambulatory, acute care, long-term care and nursing facilities.

February 18th, 2020

Orlando Health is a $3.8 billion, not-for-profit, community-based network of hospitals, physician practices and outpatient care centers across Central Florida. The organization is home to the area’s only Level One Trauma Centers for adults and pediatrics and is a statutory teaching hospital system that offers both specialty and community hospitals.

Enacted on July 1, 2019, HB-843 is a new Florida law that requires notifications of patients’ primary care physicians within 24 hours following hospital admission. The new law also requires that the discharge summary and medical records be provided to the primary care physician within 14 days after the patient’s discharge from the hospital. It also provides for patients to request a hospital treating physician to consult with their primary care physician or specialist provider.

Major health systems like Orlando Health have scrambled to implement new workflows and technologies to enable mobile care team collaboration with community physicians and extend the reach of their electronic health records as now required by Florida law.

"Orlando Health is focused on improving customer, patient and provider engagement and improving the overall quality of care through care team collaboration."

Dr. Joshua Briscoe, Orlando Health

“Like every hospital, we are always looking for ways to improve provider-to-provider communication, patient engagement and the customer experience,” said Dr. Joshua Briscoe, medical director of IT innovation, virtual care and clinical information at Orlando Health. “When new regulations became law with Florida House Bill 843, it became the catalyst to making further improvements.”

The primary goal of the legislation was to enact real-time notifications between providers at the point of patient care to prevent hospital readmissions and unnecessary or redundant diagnostic tests like CT-scans and MRIs, he explained.

Orlando Health looked into health IT from vendor Andor Health, which it is in the process of implementing. The system enables automated two-way communication and consults between the inpatient care team and PCPs, regardless of their credentialed status. It is designed to eliminate manual processes currently in place including faxes, phone calls and searching for provider contact information by automating the delivery of hospital admission, discharge and clinical care summaries.

“The ThinkAndor solution implements a bidirectional link between the inpatient care team and PCPs and sends messages directly to patients inquiring about their preference for PCP consultation, eliminating the manual administrative work required to send patients’ provider consult requests, and hospital admission, discharge and clinical care summaries to PCPs,” Briscoe explained. “With the implementation, we will be 100% compliant and able to facilitate timely information sharing with clinicians inside and outside of Orlando Health.”

Additionally, the system will integrate with Orlando Health’s electronic health record system in parallel with the organization’s phased transition to a new comprehensive health record system over the next year, he added.

There is a variety of care coordination health IT vendors on the market today, including Ensocare, eQHealth, Greenway Health, GSI Health, Imprivata, Optum, pMD and VitalHealth Software.

Primary care doctors spend approximately two hours on administrative tasks and regulatory requirements for every hour spent in direct patient care, contributing to high rates of burnout, according to research.

“The solution implements a bidirectional link between the inpatient care team and the in-state or out-of-state PCP,” Briscoe said. “It will completely eliminate all the manual researching of provider information and fit in naturally with their clinical workflow – without inundating physicians with EHR alerts or requiring them to perform administrative tasks outside of direct patient care.”

Leveraging artificial intelligence and natural language processing technology, the system identifies keywords and other critical health content in physicians’ conversations and automatically recommends notes and triggers that can be added to patient charts following a provider consult call or other communication.

“The solution automates all of the very manual and time-consuming steps that a physician has to take to respond to notifications and alerts and reach out to PCPs,” he noted. “It takes care of everything automatically, eliminating the extra work, waste and inefficiencies while meeting all of the requirements in the legislation with a 100% compliance guarantee.”

The new system will unlock data from the EHR and put it to use in real time to enable care team collaboration, inside and outside of Orlando Health. The system will search for identifying patient demographics and PCP information in the EHR or registration systems, as well as through a National Provider Identifier registry lookup.

From there, the system also can pull data regarding the inpatient managing physician to enable communication with the PCP, and Orlando Health will implement a bidirectional link if the patient has an acute status.

“With real-time communication between the inpatient care team and PCPs, clinicians can treat patients more efficiently and appropriately, reducing unnecessary or redundant diagnostic tests,” Briscoe predicted. “ThinkAndor also allows physicians to customize the alerts they receive, how and when they receive them, leading to reduced alert fatigue and burnout.”

“Although we have yet to go live, physicians are particularly excited about this initiative because it institutes a more efficient process,” Briscoe reported. “They are recognizing this as a shift in the right direction for health IT.”

The new system will demonstrate that workflows should drive technology, not the other way around, he added.

“It is yet another way we are achieving our objectives by increasing provider satisfaction and effectiveness,” he said. “Over time, we anticipate lower rates of psychological and physical burnout among Orlando Health affiliated physicians.”

Briscoe also expects the new system to help avoid costly penalties for non-compliance with new state regulations; improve provider satisfaction, loyalty and recruitment measures; and increase patient satisfaction measures.

“For Orlando Health, it was imperative to get out in front of the new regulatory requirements before any penalties were imposed, but we wanted to choose a technology solution that wouldn’t just guarantee compliance with the House bill,” Briscoe explained. “Rather, we wanted to ensure that the technology in the hands of the physician and care team wouldn’t be cumbersome and wouldn’t require additional work that would take the focus off providing care, simultaneously benefiting the overall patient experience.”

In the end, Orlando Health wanted a system that carried value well past the new legislation, and a tool that it was able to build upon, he advised.

“Orlando Health is focused on improving customer, patient and provider engagement and improving the overall quality of care through care team collaboration,” he concluded. “We’re taking aim at quality scores and other key measures like increased provider and patient satisfaction scores, reduced readmissions rates, and closing gaps in care.”

February 19th, 2020

Orlando Health will deploy ThinkAndo®, Andor Health's mobile communication technology to enable comprehensive, real-time care team collaboration beyond the walls of its enterprise.

The project is another step in Orlando Health's overall strategy to improve the patient experience by reducing care gaps and strengthening communications between clinicians inside and outside of its network.

"We are transforming every touch point in the customer experience across the continuum of care," said Novlet Mattis, Chief Information Officer, Orlando Health. "The objective of this partnership is to reduce burdensome processes and enable greater collaboration among clinicians. The innovative ThinkAndor platform from Andor Health will extend our comprehensive health records (CHR) system, which we're launching next summer, to facilitate mobile information sharing so physicians and nurses can focus even more on caring for every patient."

Orlando Health will also utilize ThinkAndor to automate the notification of primary care providers (PCP) within 24 hours of patient admission and the delivery of discharge summaries to those PCPs as required by House Bill 843, a Florida law that went into effect on July 1, 2019.

"Andor Health is proud to partner with Orlando Health to improve clinical workflow efficiency and physician engagement," said Marlin Hutchens, President of Andor Health. "Our ThinkAndor solution will allow the more immediate, omnichannel exchange of information to drive better care team collaboration while ensuring regulatory compliance."

Orlando Health is a $3.8 billion not-for-profit healthcare organization and a community-based network of hospitals, physician practices and outpatient care centers across Central Florida. The organization is home to the area's only Level One Trauma Centers for adults and pediatrics and is a statutory teaching hospital system that offers both specialty and community hospitals. More than 3,100 physicians have privileges across the system, which is also one of the area's largest employers with more than 20,200 employees who serve more than 167,000 inpatients, more than 2.7 million outpatients, and more than 20,000 international patients each year. Additionally, Orlando Health provides more than $620 million in total value to the community in the form of charity care, community benefit programs and services, community building activities and more. Additional information can be found at www.orlandohealth.com.

At Andor Health, our mission is to change the way care teams connect and collaborate. By harnessing machine and human intelligence, our cloud-based platform unlocks data stored in electronic medical records to deliver real-time actionable intelligence to care teams – both inside and outside of their enterprise. By optimizing communication workflows, our solutions accelerate time to treatment, decrease clinician burnout, and drive better patient outcomes. For more information, visit Andor Health or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

January 13th, 2020

Orlando Health announced on Jan. 13 plans to deploy Andor Health's mobile communication technology, which will allow clinicians to electronically share patient health information.

Orlando Health in 2021 plans to go live on a new Epic EHR, which the health system refers to as a comprehensive health record system. By implementing Andor Health's platform, Orlando Health aims to boost care team collaboration with clinicians both inside and outside of its network.

"The objective of this partnership is to reduce burdensome processes and enable greater collaboration among clinicians," Orlando Health CIO Novlet Mattis said in a news release. "The innovative ThinkAndor platform from Andor Health will extend our comprehensive health records system…to facilitate mobile information sharing so physicians and nurses can focus even more on caring for every patient.”

December 13th, 2019

1. New York City-based Wyckoff Heights Medical Center announced on Dec. 10 that it is now live on Allscripts' Sunrise EHR.

2. Faith Regional Health Services in Norfolk, Neb., deployed an Epic EHR system.

3. New Brunswick-based Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and Microsoft launched a jointly developed mobile application that aims to prevent sudden infant death syndrome.

4. Charleston, S.C.-based Roper St. Francis Healthcare deployed Advanced ICU Care's telemedicine intensive care unit services at three of its hospital.

5. Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health partnered with Notable Health to deploy Notable's platform that uses robotic process automation and artificial intelligence to streamline patient intake and medical charting.

6. Lakeland (Fla.) Regional Health installed new secure team coordination technology from Andor Health to meet Florida's new provider and patient communication and documentation regulations.

7. Columbus-based OhioHealth tapped Docent Health to provide a technology-enabled set of patient navigation support services.

8. First Choice Health, a Seattle-based health plan administration and services company, partnered with 98point6 to begin offering members access to virtual care visits, effective Jan. 1.

9. Brand New Day, a Westminster, Calif.-based health plan, partnered with CareCar to provide Medicare Advantage patients with unlimited nonemergency transportation to and from medical appointments and services.

10. Saint Peter's University tapped Vox Telehealth to help the New Brunswick, N.J.-based hospital incorporate virtual care services with its enhanced recovery after surgery program.

December 11th, 2019

Regulations mandated by the state of Florida require healthcare providers to strengthen care team coordination and improve quality outcomes for patients.

Under House Bill 483, hospitals must notify patients’ primary care providers within 24 hours of admission to a hospital. Further, patients can request the hospital’s treating physician to consult with their primary care provider or a specialist provider.

For large health systems like 864-bed Lakeland Regional Health, complying with provider and patient communication and the accompanying documentation regulations has become particularly burdensome, says Kristi Yamilkoski, assistant vice president of information services.

That’s why Lakeland Regional contracted with software vendor Andor Health to unlock data stored in Lakeland’s electronic medical records and make the data available in real time to support care team coordination inside and outside of the hospital.

"As part of our regulatory compliance, we conducted an extensive evaluation of all our existing health information technology resources," Yamilkoski, explains. "We concluded that none of our current solutions would meet these new provider communication needs."

Andor Health offers guaranteed compliance with the regulations, Yamilkoski adds. “Further, Andor Health also automates the process of providing the discharge summary and medical records to the primary care provider within 14 days of the patient’s discharge from the hospital," she concludes.

December 11th, 2019

Lakeland (Fla.) Regional Health installed new secure team coordination technology to meet Florida's new provider and patient communication and documentation regulations, according to a Dec. 11 news release.

Lakeland Regional is using Andor Health's cloud-based platform, which can extract data stored in the hospital's EHR and deliver real-time insights to care teams. To boost care team collaboration, patient information pulled from the EHR can be shared with both Lakeland Regional providers and providers outside the enterprise.

The technology implementation comes after Florida's House Bill 843 was enacted July 1, requiring hospitals to notify patients' primary care providers within 24 hours of admission to their facilities. The law also allows patients to request the hospital's treating physician to consult with their PCP or specialist provider.

Andor Health's platform also automates the process of providing patients' discharge summaries and medical records to their PCP within 14 days of discharge from the hospital.