A Dayton-area medical company strives to tackle a trillion-dollar issue. The company, MedsEngine LLC, has created software to assist providers in prescribing medication for hypertension and other chronic ailments. Earlier this year, a group of key local investors acquired MedsEngine because of its successful results.
MedsEngine's software is not confined to local providers. Its innovative methodology has the potential to be embraced globally, revolutionizing healthcare outcomes on an international scale. This infusion of capital may prompt more local jobs and other local economic impacts.
What is MedsEngine?
The idea for MedsEngine began in 2004 by Dr. Doug Romer but has evolved over the years. The impetus stems from confusion doctors may have when it comes to treating patients dealing with chronic ailments; for example, a heart patient may be prescribed various medications, some of which may not be necessary. In addition, patients may not be taking their medication in the time frame in which is necessary for optimum results.
"If I treat everyone as if they're one way, I may have half of the individuals under control," Romer said. "The other half though, now they're on five medicines that get five copays; just treat the issue.”
Romer has been perfecting a technical solution to the problem, that's where MedsEngine comes into play. Here’s how it works: doctors using the software, send information into the system, compare current records to previous ones and look through thousands of documents to find the treatment that best fits the patient.
The program then selects three treatments designed to work better for the patient and returns all this information to the doctor. The patients can then look at their results over the last few visits and see that if they don’t take the medication, their numbers get bad.
This technology already has captured the attention of the medical world. For instance, Romer has spoke with several groups and presented his studies and findings to the European Society of Cardiology.
Roughly $4.2 trillion is spent on healthcare relating to the management of chronic diseases, according to the CDC. This makes up 90% of the $4.7 trillion spent on healthcare nationally. These numbers are estimated to rise over the coming years. Much of this is due to people being given the wrong treatment for them, Romer said.
“There was an assumption if you have high blood pressure, the cause is you have tight blood vessels, and everyone's got tight vessels,” Romer said. “We found the device that you could use to measure the stuff, and we found that two other problems would show up. The other two problems are that either the heart rate is really high or when your heart beats, too much blood comes out once.”
The MedsEngine program already has end users. PriMed Physicians in Dayton and Premier Medical Associates (PMA) in Pittsburgh have seen positive results. Romer said currently the United States health care has an average control rate for hypertension of around 50%. This new system has allowed PriMed and PMA to have a control rate of 92% and 85% respectively.
And Romer believes the impact could be much greater than in the Dayton area or even the United States.
“We want to change the world,” Romer said. “Hypertension is a worldwide problem. Type 2 diabetes is a worldwide problem. All of these are worldwide problems.”
MedsEngine LLC
Address: 2440 Dayton Xenia Road, Beavercreek
Top official: Doug Romer, CMO, COO
Employees: 5
Business: Healthcare systems
Web: MedsEngine.com
