Point-of-care diagnostics are picking up steam in the industry, with companies rolling out mobile platforms and smartphone apps that can quickly identify diseases. VisualDx is taking a different approach, offering a quick diagnostic tool that uses images rather than text to help physicians screen for certain conditions.
Other companies with point-of-care tools often rely on lists of diagnoses or lengthy descriptions to get to the root of the problem. VisualDx's tool uses a visual interface with pictures of conditions, allowing physicians to make a more rapid diagnosis, CEO Art Papier told FierceDiagnostics. The company's app includes nearly 30,000 images that cover more than 1,300 conditions including infectious diseases, and clinicians pay $30 a month to access the tool on smartphones, tablets and the web. Doctors can search by symptom or medication, combing through pictures to find one that matches the patient's symptoms.
VisualDx's tool counters a common issue in medicine, as physicians often try to memorize a great deal of information but miss rare facts. "It's like telling a pilot to memorize every route in America. Would you get on the plane?" Papier said. And about 10% to 20% of diagnoses made each year are inaccurate, a "universal problem" for providers, he added.
The company's product creates a guidance system for busy physicians, providing an "assisted memory" for clinicians who need help making a diagnosis, Papier said. He mentioned an example of a patient who came in to see her doctor with lesions on her legs. Doctors did not know what caused them, but the patient said her rheumatologist gave her an anti-arthritis drug. The doctor used VisualDx's system to search for the drug and photos of side effects, and saw that it caused the lesions.
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| VisualDx's smartphone app--Courtesy of VisualDx |
VisualDx's system appears to be catching on, with more than 1,500 hospitals and clinics and 80 medical schools in the U.S. using the company's technology. Next up, the company plans to expand in urgent and retail care, distributing its tools at international sites such as hostels and supermarket chains. VisualDx is also eyeing non-visual outlets for its technology, developing platforms that use labs and other factors to display differentials in graphics, Papier said.
In the future, point-of-care tools like VisualDx's will benefit from more sophisticated electronic health records that can quickly draw up patients' information and help doctors make a diagnosis. "While "we're still in the infancy" of making the records smarter, the field will continue to evolve and grow, Papier said.
"The importance is to move information to the point-of-care for when decisions are made. We're seeing that in a whole new generation of physicians using smartphones in the clinics, office and hospitals to make better decisions," he said. "I think you'll see more integration of all kinds of media into our system."
-- Emily Wasserman (email | Twitter)