News
NCCA Partners with EMOL Health
EMOL Health is pleased to announce a new partnership between EMOL Health and the National Cancer Care Alliance (NCCA). NCCA is a growing network of independent oncology practices from across the country. NCCA members, through collaboration, sharing of best practices, economies of scale, and a team care approach, define and deliver high quality, high value health care. NCCA will take advantage of the EMOL Health OWL system to create a centralized data warehouse for thier member practices. NCCA Members will also have access to EMOL Health OWL Web Tools that will aid in the increase of clinical trial participation and other NCCA initiatives.Read More →
Update to PRES Mobile
A newly updated version of the PRES Mobile App has released. Version 1.09 has been updated and optimized for iOS 12 while maintaining all of the features of previous versions. The PRES Mobile app interfaces directly with patients to provide personalized care support. Additionally the application reports patient outcomes to providers to help inform clinical decisions. The PRES Mobile app is one part of the Patient Reporting and Educational System from EMOL Health.Read More →
Announcing the New EMOL Health Website
EMOL Health is excited to announce the launch of our newly redesigned website. It has been redesigned it with you in mind, streamlining menus, simplifying navigation, building a responsive layout for all platforms and providing more resources and information on our products and services. We encourage you to explore the site, discovering the full spectrum of uses of our PRES and OWL product lines, read some of our most recent news; including partnering with QCCA, or explore our Leadership pages and get to know the EMOL Health team a little better. EMOL Health will continue to expand our resources to deliver the most updated andRead More →
EMOL Partner becomes Nations First CIN
One of EMOL Health’s partners, the Quality Cancer Care Alliance (QCCA) has announced its intention to become a Clinically Integrated Network (CIN). The board of QCCA voted unanimously in favor of becoming a CIN on a national level, making it the first of its kind in terms of geographic coverage. Through the CIN model, the network will further support its practice members through a robust health information exchange, care coordination and management services, and contracting support that will allow for the development of better methods for delivering improved outcomes in all aspects of cancer care delivery. Read more about the development of QCCA’s CIN inRead More →
QCCA chooses EMOL Health for Data Warehouseing
We are pleased to announce a new partnership between EMOL Health and the Quality Cancer Care Alliance (QCCA). QCCA is a growing group of community oncology practices from across the country that formed to promote clinical integration to improve the quality of patient care. In order to achieve this they have partnered with EMOL Health. QCCA will utilize EMOL Health’s OWL system to create a centralized data warehouse. This warehouse will create opportunities for consistent architecture and business agreements for data acquisition, sharing, and analysis to aid member practices. Additionally, QCCA Members will gain access to EMOL Health Tools in order to increase clinical trialRead More →
PRES Rx – First Clinical Trial Published
Congratulations to Erin Sarzynski on her publication of Beta Testing a Novel Smartphone Application to Improve Medication Adherence. Dr. Sarzynski used PRES Rx, a patient-centered medication management application, as a mobile health (m-health) tool to auto-populate drug names and dosing instructions directly from patients medication labels utilizing OCR. PRES Rx also reminded patients to take their medications, tracked their adherence, conducted surveys, and reported back in real-time.Read More →
Breast Cancer Risk Assessment
EMOL Health has just lunched our new Breast Cancer Risk Assessment (BCRA) system with a custom website for radiology offices. Our BCRA system allows health care providers to identify more high-risk patients in order to provide the extra care those patients require while driving incremental revenue for the practice. Learn more at http://bcra.emolhealth.comRead More →
PresMobile Version 1.07
What’s New in Version 1.07 Improved Performance and Stability Enhanced Document Scanning Email & Text Studies/Reports to patients and care providers which can be taken/viewed via the web Advanced Login including Server Switching Password Reset Functionality Fully-Integrated Web Version of the AppRead More →
Congratulations to Veronica Decker
Congratulations to Veronica Decker on your publication of Piloting an Automated Distress Management Program in an Oncology Practice. Dr. Decker used PRES Mobile to collect data directly from patients, perform real-time analysis, and create tailored psychosocial coping recommendations, referrals, or both to nurses and patients.Read More →
Congratulations to Sandra Spoelstra
Congratulations to Sandra Spoelstra on your publication of Feasibility of a text messaging intervention to promote symptom management and medication adherence for patients prescribed oral anti-cancer agents. Dr. Spoelstra used the PRES IVR and SMS system to promote self-management for patients prescribed oral oncology agents. Patients had high satisfaction with the texts, and adherence and symptoms improved after the intervention.Read More →
Medicaid Quality Initiative Extended
We are excited to report that the Medicaid Quality Initiative was very successful and will be extended into 2015.Read More →
PresMobile Version 1.05
PresMobile Version 1.05 was released today. The new version has several improvements including enhanced image capturing capabilities, greater integration into our web based reporting systems, improved help documents, and the ability to more easily review past surveys & reports.Read More →
Medicaid Quality Initiative Results & Extension
The results of our 2014 Medicaid Quality Initiative in inner city Detroit for Asthma patients have been reported to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). We are excited to share that we decreased emergency department (ED) visits and inpatient admissions. CMS is so pleased with the results, that they have extended our project into 2015.Read More →
IPOS Poster – Distress in Cancer Patients
Come see Veronica Decker at the 16th World Congress of Psycho-Oncology and Psychosocial Academy, IPOS 2014 in Lisbon, Portugal, October 20-24 at our poster presentation, “Distress in Cancer Patients is a Nurse-Sensitive Outcome“. Many thanks to Veronica B. Decker, APRN, PMHCNS-BC, MBA (Wayne State University); Debra Schutte, PhD, RN (Wayne State University); Xiang Zhu, MS (Florida Hospital Cancer Institute); and Brian Decker, MBA (EMOL Health) for all their work on this project.Read More →
Asthma Management Manual
Click here to see an example of the manual being used for the Michigan’s Adult Medicaid Quality Grants: Measuring and Improving the Quality of Care in Medicaid. You can learn more about this initiative on our website under Case Studies.Read More →
PresRx v1.01 Released
PresRx version 1.01 was released this week. It addresses compatibility issues with iOS8 and improves usability based on feedback from one of our recent clinical trials.Read More →
Distress in Cancer Patients Poster Accepted
Congratulations to Veronica Decker, CNP, MBA and Brian Decker, MBA on their abstract, “Distress in Cancer Patients is a Nurse-Sensitive Outcome”, being accepted as a poster presentation at the 16th IPOS 2014, Lisbon, Portugal, this October.Read More →
PresRx v1.00 In Clinical Trial
PresRx version 1.00 was released this week and the first patients have started using it as part of a 6-month clinical trial. Dr. Erin Sarzynski, M.D., M.S. of Michigan State University, is using PresRx to increase medication adherence for patients taking ten or more medications a day. You can read more about PresRx and the clinical trial here.Read More →
Medicaid Patient Recruitment Begins
Starting today, as part of a quality improvement initiative with the MSU Institute for Health Policy and several Michigan Medicaid plans, EMOL Health will place over 1000 calls an hour and call more than 800 Medicaid patients a night with asthma in inner city Detroit. We hope to reduce emergency room visits and increase medication adherence through patient education.Read More →
Apria Partners with EMOL to Reduce Readmissions
Emol Health is excited to announce a new project with Apria Healthcare. Apria is the nations largest provider of home healthcare products and services, specializing in the care of chronic illnesses. For the next six months, Apria will be using the PRES Tablet System in respiratory cases to manage patient symptoms, track and benchmark clinicians, and reduce hospital readmissions.Read More →
Medicaid Asthma Patients to use PRES
Starting in December of 2013, EMOL Health will roll out a new use of our PRES Systems. Working with Stacey A. Duncan-Jackson, MPA, RN, BSN, CCP and Debra Darling, RN, BSN, CCP of the MSU Institute for Health Policy, the PRES Systems will be used for first time outside of oncology. The IHP was recently awarded part of a larger grant from Michigan Medicaid for a new Quality Improvement initiative in adult asthma care. With the PRES System, patients enrolled in the program will have the choice to receive phone calls or mobile text messages for symptom management and to track adherence to medications. TheRead More →
Medication Adherence App (PRES Rx)
EMOL Health is excited to begin working with Dr. Erin Sarzynski, M.D., M.S., of Michigan State University. Recently Dr. Sarzynski was awarded grant funding from the Center for Innovation and Research, a collaboration between MSU and Sparrow Health, to create a medication reminder application. This application will combine several of EMOL existing technologies in innovative ways to help patients increase medication adherence and populate a compliance report for physicians. Once fully operational, the application will scan patient medication, automatically populate reminders, track patient adherence, and interface with the existing PRES systems.Read More →
Precyse Partners with EMOL
EMOL Health is proud to announce a new collaboration with Precyse Solutions. Precyse has partnered with more than 850 hospitals and health systems nationwide to improve efficiency and deliver tangible outcomes to achieve Meaningful Use, meet compliance and Health Reform challenge, and transform operations and care delivery. Precyse has chosen to use EMOL Health technologies to streamline their processes, create deeper understanding, and maximizing staff efficiencies.Read More →
Expanding PRES Tools For Better Cancer Care
EMOL Health is proud to announce ground-breaking news on three new collaborations with Michigan State University. Working again with Drs. Barbara and Bill Given, EMOL Health will provide the technology to complete a four-year clinical trial to increase adherence to oral chemotherapy. The system will utilize the PRES IVR system to remind patients to take their medications and refer them to The Symptom Management Toolkit for managing symptoms and medication side effects at-home. This grant is funded by NIH/NCI and includes collaboration with University of Michigan, Ohio State University, and Yale University. In addition to the four-year grant with the Givens, EMOL Health is alsoRead More →
Patient Reporting & Educational Systems (PRES)
EMOL Health has rebranded all of our personalized patient care systems under the new name Patient Reporting & Educational Systems (PRES). PRES integrates our webtools and data warehouse with our ability to connect directly to patients via phone, SMS txt, tablet, and mobile device. Many of the products within our PRES line have been clinically proven to increase compliance, manage side effects, manage symptoms, and reduce patient hospitalizations. Furthermore, the systems can be used for clinical trials, conduct patient surveys, and collect patient-reported outcomes.Read More →
PRES Tablet
In December 2012, EMOL Health completed work with four University of Michigan students who developed a tablet application for in-office patient reporting. Nirusan Loganathan, Agu Nwosu, Branden Olson, and Obinna Ezidi partnered with EMOL Health through their professor, Bruce Maxim. The students project was to work with a company to create a new technology while meeting the goals of the client. The group met with EMOL Health president, Brian Decker, on a weekly basis, and voice conferences with EMOL Health developers on the West Coast. The application they developed is now integrated into EMOL Health PRES products, and will be used in several upcoming projects.Read More →
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
EMOL Health is proud to announce we have OCRed more than 10 million physician dictations, lab reports, and faxes with multiple OCR technologies, aligning the results to make the documents highly searchable. EMOL Health uses a minimum of 3 OCR technologies on each document allowing for utilization of the best OCR technology relative to each document. This technology has greatly reduced the time it takes for hospitals, private practices, CRO’s, and other groups to quickly find documents relevant for chart reviews, clinical trials, QOPI and more.Read More →
Patient/Study Management System
Over a year ago, EMOL Health starting working with Dr. Mei-Wei Chang, Associate Professor at Michigan State University, on the Mothers In Motion project. The project goal continues to be helping low income mothers who are overweight or obese improve their health by eating well, being active and dealing with stress. The project has been successful not only for the mothers it has helped, but also for EMOL Health as the first large scale test of our patient management system. The centralized hosting at EMOL Health allows recruiters and researchers to access the system securely at sites across Michigan. Over the last year we haveRead More →
ASCO Poster – Predicting Length of Survival
Come see our poster “Predicting length of survival for adult, outpatient oncology patients using clinic visit data” at ASCO 6/2/2012 8:00AM – 12:00PM abstract #9095. Also see the abstract online here. Many thanks to Dr. Laura E. Brown (MTU), Brian D. Decker (EMOL Health), and Dr. David A. Decker (Florida Hospital Cancer Institute) for all their work on this project.Read More →
ASCO Publication – Improve Symptom Management in Neuro-Oncology Patients
Congratulations to Dr. Sajeel A. Chowdhary (Florida Hospital Neuroscience Institute), Dr. Barbara Ann Given (MSU), Dr. Charles W Given (MSU), Cindy Majeske (MSU), Paul D. Decker (EMOL Health), and Brian D. Decker (EMOL Health) on acceptance of their abstract "Small business technology transfer (STTR) phase I study (1 R41 MD006148-01) of an automated voice response (AVR) system to improve symptom management in neuro-oncology patients". Read the publication here.Read More →
EMOL Health Develops Chemotherapy Protocols Tool
EMOL Health has developed a Chemotherapy Protocols tool to help practices identify the number of patients administered chemotherapy treatments broken down into regimens. Utilizing processes created by EMOL Health, this tool identifies lines of therapy based on several criteria, including medications administered, patterns in treatment, and time over which the medications are administered. This tool also allows practices to identify what lines of therapy are being administered by stage and/or ICD9 code. This information can help quickly verify that Chemotherapy Protocols are being adhered to. Chemotherapy Protocols screenshotRead More →
Tarceva: Improving Adherence and Compliance
EMOL Health, in partnership with Michigan State University College of Nursing and Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy, has started a project to improve adherence and compliance to Tarceva (Erlotinib). To achieve this goal, patients will be supplied with a Symptom Management Toolkit (SMT) and called weekly via an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. The SMT in combination with the IVR has been shown to reduce hospitalization, reduce symptom burden, the number of overall symptoms, unscheduled clinic visits, ER visits, and increase quality of life. Click here to learn more.Read More →
EMOL Health Develops QOPI Tools
The America Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has outlined the Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI) in an effort to help clinical practices improve patient care. QOPI gives practices a series of tools they can use as both a measurement of patient care and as a set of guidelines to facilitate improvement. To maximize potential benefit and minimize practice resources, EMOL Health is developing a set of tools that allow practices to utilize QOPI to its fullest. With these tools, practices can quickly see where they are excelling, as well as what they can do to give every patient the best care possible. Currently EMOL HealthRead More →
Predicting Response to Chemotherapy
Researchers at the University of South Florida (USF), who are working with EMOL Health, submitted a paper which is under review by IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. This paper outlines a process for extracting information from EMRs to develop prognostic models by focusing on palliative chemotherapy for stage IV breast cancer patients. Abstract: The purpose of this work is to develop a model to predict a stage IV breast cancer patient’s response to first-line chemotherapy using data mining techniques. We discuss the process of extracting and processing electronic medical record (EMR) data from a private oncology practice and the method for developing a logistic regressionRead More →
Long Term Planning for Palliative Chemotherapy for Late Stage Cancer Patients
EMOL Health, in conjunction with University of South Florida (USF), is presenting at the INFORMS 2011 Annual Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ludwig Kuznia, a PhD candidate from USF, will be presenting research findings on using technology and clinical information for creating models to determine optimal treatment decisions. Abstract: Palliative chemotherapy is given without curative intent and aims to increase life expectancy and quality of life. This is a long term, multi-period decision process. In this work, Markov Decision Processes modeling is use to define the optimal treatment strategy. To determine the patient state space as well as state transition probabilities data were obtained fromRead More →
eCancer: A technological approach to symptom management from home to practice
EMOL Health is proud to announce the completion of our STTR grant. The project was an outstanding success, meeting all of our target goals. We would like to thank everyone involved including Dr. Sajeel Chowdhary, Program Director, Department of Neuro-Oncology, Florida Hospital System, Dr. Barbara Givens, Dr. Bill Givens, & Cindy Majeske from MSU. We look forward to starting the Phase II grant and continued collaboration with everyone involved. Background: In 2010, EMOL Health and Michigan State University College (MSU) of Nursing were awarded an STTR grant. The goals were: 1) positively influence patients’ self-care symptom management behaviors at home, 2) monitor patient’s symptom statusRead More →
Mothers In Motion
EMOL Health is excited to started working with Dr. Mei-Wei Chang, Associate Professor, Michigan State University on the Mothers In Motion project. The project goal is to help low income mothers who are overweight or obese improve their health by eating well, being active and dealing with stress. Click here to learn more about EMOL Health’s role in this project.Read More →
Temodar: Improving Adherence and Compliance
EMOL Health, in partnership with Michigan State University College of Nursing and Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy, has started a project to improve adherence and compliance to Temodar. To achieve this goal, patients will be supplied with a Symptom Management Toolkit (SMT) and called weekly via an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. The SMT in combination with the IVR has been shown to reduce hospitalization, reduce symptom burden, the number of overall symptoms, unscheduled clinic visits, ER visits, and increase quality of life. Click here to learn more.Read More →
EMOL Health GLBIO Poster Presentation
EMOL Health, in conjunction with Michigan Technological University (MTU), is presenting a poster at the Great Lakes Bioinformatics Conference (GLBIO) 2011 at The Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. Dr. Laura Brown from MTU will be presenting research findings on using technology and clinical information for creating a predictive model for determining patient response to certain care plans. The GLBIO conference will run from May 2-4, 2011.Read More →
EMOL Health Query Tool Facilitates Patient Searches
EMOL Health has released its Query Tool. This tool allows users to quickly search for patients based on a user-selected set of criteria. Criteria include: age, diagnosis, stage, medications (both ‘received’ and ‘did not receive’), lines of therapy, vitals (height, weight, systolic, diastolic, etc…), and many more. As with all EMOL Health tools, the results can be exported to Excel for later use. Contact EMOL Health today to set up a demonstration.Read More →
Practices Compare and Analyze Offices Using EMOL Health
EMOL Health recently launched a new benchmarking tool (Physician/ICD9 Report) that allows practices to see patient charges grouped by primary diagnosis for each physician broken down into HCPCS groups. This tool is helpful because it: 1) Allows practices to see what type of patient each physician focuses on 2) Benchmark the different offices within the practice 3) See how the practice and it’s physicians compare to the average in the EMOL Health systemRead More →
EMOL Health AMIA Poster Presentation
EMOL Health, in conjunction with Michigan Technological University (MTU), is presenting a poster at the American Medical Infomatics Association (AMIA) 2010 Annual Meeting, in Washington, DC. Our Research and Development department along with Dr. Laura Brown at MTU will be presenting research findings on using technology and clinical information for creating a predictive model for determining patient response to certain care plans. Representatives from EMOL Health will be in attendance. We invite you to visit with us in the exhibition hall and attend our poster presentation on Monday, November 15, 2010. The AMIA annual meeting runs from November 13-17, 2010.Read More →
New EMOL Health Site Live
This month EMOL put live a new site design as well as a new domain https://www.emolhealth.com, name and logo. The new EMOL Health site brings with it a host of new features and tools to help users report on the data they need. Whether a Hospital, Patient, Pharma, or Medical Research Company, the new site was designed with users in mind. Contact EMOL Health today to find out how we can help you.Read More →
EMOL Helps Practice Stay Viable
In the March edition of Community Oncology Veronica Decker describes how one Michigan practice tries to stay viable in her article “Leaving nothing to chance: the steps one practice took to stay viable in a poor economy.” The practice described in the article uses many of the EMOL tools to not only identify where they need to improve but also track if the changes they implemented are effective. It is a great article and available on the Community Oncology website. Read Veronica’s article here.Read More →
Zometa & Neulasta Screen Shots
To help further the understanding of some of our tools we are pleased to post two screen shots with explanations as to how they work. We will create a webpage in the future with more explanation as to their interworkings. Zometa NeulastaRead More →
Praise for New Zometa Tool!
“I wanted to let you know that the Zometa tool that EMOL developed helped us to identify patients that had diagnoses of ‘bone mets’ who were not receiving monthly Zometa. After confirming the diagnosis with the attending physician, and getting the okay to start Zometa, not only were we able to treat the patient appropriately, but we also met our quarterly quota which allowed us to obtain our 3% rebate which equates to an approximate rebate of $6,568.96 for the quarter. So this tool was effective in not only assuring that patients are getting proper care, but also assuring that [our practice] was able toRead More →