Kapor Capital and other angel investors; the California HealthCare Foundation; and drug retailer Walgreen’s, says Ted Maidenberg, a general partner at Social+Capital. Maidenberg says the time is ripe for Propeller Health because its services save money.
“Every health system is strapped for cash,” says Maidenberg, a member of Propeller Health’s board of directors. “All of them should be looking for solutions that give them a good return on capital.”
Propeller Health now has 10 active programs with clients, including Dignity Health in California and the Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in New York.
Customers pay a monthly charge of about $15 to $25 to sign up their patients or members, depending on the additional services Propeller Health is asked to provide. For example, some doctors arrange for the company’s own asthma educators to reach out to patients who need help managing their illness. Interim results from an ongoing clinical study showed trends toward reduced emergency room visits and lower health care costs for patients using the Propeller Health device and company feedback.
Patients themselves don’t pay any fee for the Propeller Health service. But users may still benefit financially if they can avoid going to the hospital or emergency room by using the digital record-keeping system, Van Sickle says. Patients could end up bearing part of the cost of any expensive hospital visits, because many health plans are raising the deductible amounts that members must pay before insurance coverage kicks in.
“This trend toward higher deductibles, without a doubt, will draw more attention to these self-management technologies, and could have financial benefits to consumers,” Van Sickle says.
Out-of-pocket consumer costs, including prescription drug co-pays, may be one of the many reasons why asthma and COPD are not well controlled by medications, Van Sickle says. Other possibilities include poor technique in the use of inhalers, and a tendency of patients to discount the severity of their symptoms even while they miss work days or forego social events. The majority of asthma patients need an additional drug called a “controller” medication as well as a rescue inhaler, Van Sickle says. But only 40 percent or fewer receive those maintenance drugs, he says.
“Controller therapy is chronically underprescribed in the US,” Van Sickle says.
But prescribing doctors may be flying blind when their patients keep spotty records, lose their symptom diaries, or inaccurately reconstruct their health histories during their occasional office visits, Van Sickle says. Propeller Health hopes to improve those interactions between patients and doctors, he says.
Propeller Health is planning changes that will make its platform useful to a wider range of patients. The program, which now works for English and Spanish speakers, will be adapted for other languages. The sensor device, which now fits on most meter-dosed inhalers, will be adapted to work with dry powder inhalers later thist year, Van Sickle says. While the sensor captures medication use, patients can also enter their own notes about their symptoms, and other observations, on their personalized online records. The company is also making improvements that will allow the Propeller system to integrate with online patient engagement platforms used by various health care organizations.
While asthma patients can find other asthma symptom-tracking apps through sources like the iTunes App Store, Propeller Health’s chief marketing officer Erica St. Angel says the company has the only commercially sold system combining a digital device, a mobile app, online patient support, and analytics. Propeller Health is aiming to reach profitability by the second quarter of 2015.
As Propeller Health’s user base grows, so will the value of the aggregate data it collects, says Social+Capital partner Maidenberg. Stripped of individual patient names, the cumulative incidents of rescue inhaler use can reveal airborne hazards such as toxic releases within a metropolitan area, he says. Warnings can not only be shared with all Propeller Health users, but may also bolster public health initiatives in municipalities such as the City of Louisville, one of the company’s early partners.
“In 10 years should there be any inhaled medicine that’s not instrumented (to collect data)?” Maidenberg asks. “The answer to that, to me, is no.”
