UMRF Research Park member MiCare Path acknowledged as a top patient monitoring solution of 2020
MiCare Path allows musculoskeletal market to monitor, communicate with patients
Sept. 8, 2020 — A group of healthcare-savvy entrepreneurs in the UMRF Research Park at the University of Memphis has developed and launched a digital tool to allow orthopedists and rheumatologists to recruit, retain and communicate with patients. The tool, MiCare Path, was recently acknowledged by Healthcare Tech Outlook as a Top 10 Patient Monitoring Solution of 2020 – a bittersweet reward in the year of COVID-19.
MiCare Path, led by Scott Laster and Brian Childress, is a digital application that will connect orthopedists with both existing patients and prospective patients, monitoring their progress and providing connected guidance throughout their care journey.
“Within orthopedics, a lot of cases fall through the cracks,” said Laster, who has 15 years of experience in the medical device industry. “People often stumble through pain. They may not be to the point of needing surgery, but they want personalized peace of mind that their issues are being monitored and tracked.”
MiCare Path tracks a patient from the onset of pain and allows physicians to be informed of where their patients are on the continuum of care. MiCare Path provides guidance on wellness and tracks patients’ clinical scores, activity level and weight by linking to an existing ecosystem of hardware and smartphone applications such as Apple’s Healthkit. It then auto uploads the information to the MiCare Path portal for the care team’s assessment.
“MiCare Path marries the data collected to a medical professional who is analyzing the information,” said Childress, a 26-year veteran in medical device sales. “From the moment a patient has a problem or pain, MiCare Path tracks their progress until the end of their need. In fact, many people suffer with musculoskeletal challenges for more than 10 years before a definitive procedure can be performed.”
With recent changes to reimbursements for remote patient monitoring, physicians can gain new revenue by providing patients more extensive care than has been previously available, and meanwhile, payers save money. In fact, cost savings of 5-10 times have been shown in other specialties such as diabetes and hypertension, and with the recent challenges presented by COVID-19, having a distance-based monitoring solution will keep patients making health improvements from home while care providers can keep a watchful eye.
“MiCare Path is a critical innovation at the perfect time,” said Dr. Nirav Amin, a leading orthopedic surgeon in Southern California who just launched MiCare Path in his practice. “MiCare Path gives me the opportunity to support my patients from their very first interaction until their care is successfully addressed, and the data collected along the way will help us answer some profound challenges in our industry.”
MiCare Path is a UMRF Research Park member at the University of Memphis. Opened in early 2019, the UMRF Research Park operates in collaboration with the Government Relations and Policy and has quickly become known as an innovation hub, attracting global talent to enhance the greater community that the University serves.
“We are proud and humbled for MiCare Path to be a part of the UMRF Research Park,” said Ted Townsend, chief economic development and government relations officer for the University of Memphis. “As they complete their oversubscribed seed funding and launch their business, we are confident that they will be another impressive success story to come out of the UMRF Research Park.”
At this point, MiCare Path is a pioneer in the musculoskeletal space, but appreciates that they find themselves at the start of a brand new industry – remote healthcare. They are scaling rapidly to see what other spaces can benefit in the near future.