With cardiologists spread thin and reimbursements for their services declining, the key to survival is improved efficiency. That’s according to Doug Marinaro, the chief operating officer of Minnesota-based Kardia Health Systems. The three-year-old company is working to put cardiology-focused health information technology developed by the renowned Mayo Clinic into the hands of providers.

 

“Kardia is a company focused on simplifying the challenges that cardiologists have in bringing IT into their practice, making best-in-class technology from institutions like the Mayo Clinic affordable, and increasing collaboration and expanding care to the underserved community using the power of the Internet,” Marinaro explained.

 

In 2006, Kardia licensed Mayo’s Echocardiography Information Management System, which had been used by the clinic for a decade to manage the echocardiography process and handle structured reporting. Kardia launched its first product in 2007, and in October 2009 introduced ConnectedCare™, the newest version of its product and unlike any other archiving and reporting software available for cardiology. In a prime example of technology transfer from academia to the marketplace, the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research owns equity in Kardia and receives royalties on products sold or licensed by Kardia.

 

“A lot of investment that Kardia has put in over the years has been to tailor Mayo’s technology for use in practices from one to two people all the way up to the larger institutions,” Marinaro said.

 

He described Kardia’s business model as “software as a service,” and the company makes it happen via secured Web access. “We have data centers based in a number of different locations in the United States to both capture the data for long-term archive as well as redistribution to the doctors,” he said. “The doctors who are doing the reads don’t have to be in the same place as the technologists and the sonographers who are doing the actual meets with the patients.”

 

ConnectedCare is a picture archiving and communication system capable of gathering data, usually an adult or pediatric echocardiogram, from multiple modalities, even older equipment. Structured report templates auto-populate with the test results, and cardiologists may view the initial report from any computer with Internet access. That means no wait for deliveries or drive time on the physicians’ part. It also offers physicians the option of working at home, in multiple offices or on the road. Finally, ConnectedCare promises the opportunity of telemedicine, increasing services in rural areas and to underserved populations.

 

The physicians complete the read and submit the final report back into the system for integration into electronic medical records systems for long-term storage. Yet another benefit of ConnectedCare is the ability to analyze that archived data. “The information can be mined for conclusions that go across multiple patients,” Marinaro said. That plays right into the healthcare-reform movement’s push toward evidence-based medicine, he added.

 

Information technology is supposed to make things easier, but in medicine, that’s not always the case, Marinaro surmised, and he ticked off four significant factors impacting HIT adoption, particularly in cardiology.

 

The first is a shortage of cardiologists. According to research by consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, America needs 40,000 cardiologists today, but there are only about 28,000 practicing. “But the problem is worse than that because of the distribution of those doctors as well, particularly when you’re trying to service rural communities and underserved populations,” Marinaro said. That’s why collaboration is essential.

 

Second, the government has introduced a “carrot and stick” approach – offering stimulus money for HIT implementation while also sending in recovery audit contractors to ensure Medicare isn’t overpaying physicians. “When the government steps in to help, sometimes you get more than you bargained for,” Marinaro quipped.

 

Third, the government is injecting $20 billion into an existing $26 billion HIT industry “that hasn’t been set up for mass production,” he said. Integration of all the existing technologies will require more HIT professionals than the nation has – and a shortage of 50,000 HIT professionals is predicted.

 

Fourth, Medicare rule changes effective this year substantially reduce the income of cardiology practices, to the tune of 20 percent or more, Marinaro said.

 

“These four factors really put a lot of pressure on cardiology practices,” he concluded, and they offer Kardia opportunity for growth as cardiologists look to increase efficiencies. And increased efficiencies mean more patients through the door.

 

The Mayo-designed system is available on a fee-per-study basis, so physicians only pay for the studies they need and are billed quarterly.