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Technology SPECIAL REPORT Infopia ‘Technology is going to change health care’ BY JENNIFER KEIRN Contributing Editor but are they really testing as prescribed? “If you’re diabetic and you test your sug- ars, that data dies on your glucometer,” said Darrell Meador, president of Dallas-based 4G Biometrics. “People are starting to realize that a test strip is not a test strip anymore; it’s a data point.” 4G Biometrics serves as an intermediary between patients and their doctors, case managers or family members, using technol- ogy to transmit glucose levels according to patient-specific settings. “You can start getting trends about what’s happening to them,” Meador said. “We go to employers to show them how real-time, S ure, your patients with diabetes are ordered to test their glucose levels and report results to their doctors, right-time intervention can start lowering their costs.” The company’s service is fueled by the Eocene System, a technology of Infopia. Founded two years ago, 4G Biometrics cur- rently has 30,000 patients under contracts with third-party payors and large employers. Meador said 4G Biometric service helps to increase accountability on the part of the patient and enable quicker medical intervention that could reduce the number of hospital admissions for patients with diabetes. Acceptance of patient monitoring tech- nologies, he said, could have significant benefits for patient outcomes and health- care costs. “Technology is going to change health care,” Meador said, “if and when the medical community and payers embrace it.” HME Infopia’s Bryan Sowards on technology 4 Medicine will be transitioned to focus on keeping the patients in their normal daily routines. Telemedicine and informa- tion exchanges will create an atmosphere that will streamline communication and improve awareness. 4 HME providers are warming up to adoption of new technology. I see about 50% of them planning and currently imple- menting layers of IT infrastructure because of new regulations and strict requirements. 4 Technology should be at the forefront of all investments and within that sector prioritization is key. Think about internal investments that will enable operations to improve. Invest in the devices that finan- cially make sense. 4 The future market in technology is going to be rapid. In the short term, new technologies will be a wide range of devices that communicate with each other and the users. HME www.hmenews.com 8 AUGUS T 2 0 1 1