Looking to move beyond its traditional lab-testing audience, New York-based health IT support company Medivo just closed a deal to purchase WellApps, complete with its GI Monitor smartphone app.
The app specializes in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis. Patients use the app to log symptoms, track episodes and communicate with their physicians about their condition. It also makes correlations between exacerbations and a patient's diet, mealtimes, medication compliance, and other factors, company officials say.
According to mHealthWatch, Medivo plants to integrate the WellApps GI Monitor app into its existing Medivo Monitor platform for patients and its Medivo PatientPath platform for physicians. Medivo's platforms provide an online network of doctors, labs and home testing services to patients, according to MedCity News.
One interesting aspect of the Medivo business model is that it's free, advertiser-supported, and earns part of its revenue by identifying patients who haven't had needed lab tests and then connecting those patients to physicians who can provide them, according to an analysis by one of the company's big investors, SafeGuard Scientifics.
The move is on target with Medivo's existing business strategy, MedCity points out. In 2011, the company raised $7 million to expand its sales and marketing, and ostensibly find new markets.
To learn more:
- see mHealthWatch's story
- dig into MedCity News' article
- read Health Data Management's coverage
- here's the Medivo announcement
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