AUSTIN, TX – The ubiquitous mobile phone is becoming an important tool for healthcare-conscious consumers as well as physicians, thanks to a Texas-based startup.
Ringful Health, headquartered in Austin, has burst onto the scene this year with a string of mobile phone applications designed to connect users to their personal health records as well as sources of information ranging from chronic disease sites to comparisons of local hospitals. The company has applications designed for the iPhone and Android and is working on a Blackberry platform.
“Our goal is to integrate the mobile phone to provide meaningful metrics to individuals, providers and employers,” said CEO Michael Yuan, an expert on mobile and Internet startup development who has worked in the past with JBoss, Red Hat and eZee. “We want to change people’s behaviors by giving them access to their health information. That’s really not going to happen without the patient in the driver’s seat.”
The company’s first application, which has been approved by Apple for the iPhone and was a finalist at this year’s MobileBeat2009 startup competition, is the Asthma Journal, a physician-designed site offering a personal data dashboard for asthma symptom trends, triggers and news. The company has also launched the Pollen Journal and is working to develop the Health Heart Journal and Social Gym applications, as well as a journal for pain management.
In September, the company debuted its Preventive Care application, which connects the user to personal health records stored on such platforms as Google Health or Microsoft’s HealthVault and enables data sharing between patients, doctors and family friends.
“Our applications are built on the premise that simple metrics deliver powerful impact,” said Koushik Shaw, Ringful’s chief medical officer and a Texas-based urologist and renal transplant surgeon. “By giving consumers access to their personal health data, not only is tremendous time and money saved, data made more accurate, but most important, patients’ health and wellness improved.”
Ringful has also launched Hospital Compare, which enables users to compare the quality, price and effectiveness of local hospitals based on publicly reported data. For providers, the company has developed ICD Helper, which helps hospital staff prepare for the upcoming conversion from ICD-9 coding to ICD-10.
According to Yuan, the company’s goal is to provide information to consumers and providers when they need it most, improving the care delivery process and provide a foundation for preventive care. He hopes to develop applications for insurance companies and health plans in the future, though “they’re a difficult nut to crack” at this point.
