Who We Are

EarID

EarID is addressing challenges in diagnosis of ear infections by providing quantitative optical and anatomical information of the eardrum by integrating the conventional otoscope with a spectrometer and a structured illumination system. By using machine learning-based computation, the data may be used for remote diagnosis and therapeutic intervention.

Ask Wilhelm

Ask Wilhelm’s platform applies cutting-edge algorithms to evaluate the quality of radiology (e.g., CT, MRI, ultrasound) images so that consumers and payers have better and more accurate data to decide among imaging centers.

Expertaj

Expertaj is a web platform that allows referring providers and staff to easily search for the right clinical specialist to see their patients. Patient access – being seen by the right doctor in a timely manner – is critical for optimal patient care.

Expertaj was initially developed by Avni Khatri of the MGH Lab of Computer Science and Adam Cohen, MD for use in MGH Neurology. Through the Ether Dome Challenge, they partnered with Kathleen Gallen, RN, Nurse Manager of Outpatient Access and Outreach for the Heart and Vascular Centers, to expand Expertaj into Cardiology. Together, they developed an algorithm that incorporates physician-specific clinical data, billing data, and schedule availability data to yield a list of the most appropriate consultant for a patient based on selected search terms.

Expertaj is working to harness the knowledge and expertise of the MGH Access staff to create robust algorithms that match the right patient to the right specialist at the right time. The ultimate goal of Expertaj is to improve patient and referring provider satisfaction while at the same time reducing the administrative burden on the Access team.

The platform is undergoing ongoing refinement and expansion into other specialties.

MobioSense

MobioSense came to the program with a prototype that improves upon what is currently offered in telemedicine, and allows patients to detect changes in their heat condition. “HERO” is a portable, palm-size, “anytime, anywhere” diagnostic device that can be used to prevent heart attacks.

See how they’re transforming the future of healthcare here.

MGH Digital Mapping

TheMGH Digital Mapping project aims to support patients navigating the MGH Boston campus through the use of responsive, web-based, interactive digital maps. Working with CampusBird, an external vendor, the HTL collaborated with MGH’s Specialized Healthcare Services and the Marketing Department to create a 3D rendering of the MGH campus and tag a wide variety of key MGH locations – such as buildings, dining areas, ATMs, amenities, and points of interest around the hospital. The maps can be searched, sorted and customized so that users can zoom-in on what they’re looking for and also create printable maps specific to their needs. Patients can access the map themselves, or visit an MGH information desk to have a front desk member help them.

Access the new interactive map here.

Cost to Cath

Meg McCleary, a nurse in the MGH Cardiac Catheterization Lab, during the 2014 Ether Dome Challenge, was awarded a micro-grant aimed at educating the Cath Lab staff on the cost of supplies and how to make more cost-effective decisions.  Under Meg’s leadership, the team spent significant time understanding, analyzing, and subsequently reducing the unnecessary use of supplies in the Cath Lab.

Since January 2014, the team has been implementing creative strategies to engage staff, including labeling supplies in the stock room with cost guidance, simplifying trays to remove extraneous items, and rearranging rooms to reduce excessive supply use. Meg and co-team lead David Bourque (the asset manager in the Clinical Supply Chain) also met with various MGH leaders to better understand how they could learn best practices from other areas of the hospital to be more effective.

The team has seen incredible staff engagement, with many staff members spearheading their own cost-saving initiatives.  As a result of this project and its spinoffs, if all recommended changes are adhered to, the potential projected cost savings is as much as $990,000 annually.

Lighter

Through data-driven decision making and evidence-based nutrition plans, we answer the question ‘what do I eat?’ when someone is inspired to modify their diet. We empower our partners by amplifying their impact via scalable technology. Lighter builds the technology that supports the journey of planning, cooking, shopping and eating healthfully through powerful sleek software applications.”

Visit lighter here.

Signum

SIGNUM is an app that provides education and obtains patient consent. Self-guiding, it frees up medical staff time, while creating a positive patient experience. It insures that each patient will be fully informed. Displaying HD videos and animations, SIGNUM gives a basic, yet comprehensive description of the medical procedure a patient is about to undergo, including risks and benefits; and generates a standard consent form. Patient and doctor digitally sign the form, which is archived into EMR.

SmartRx

NLP-based software for real-time querying of the EHR, focusing on quality improvement, clinical trials, prior authorizations, and clinical registries. Allows the user to build patient population queries based on structured data and improves inclusion and exclusion flows for composing patient lists.

Patient Text Messages

Patients are very sick and require physician time to talk through everything. As a result, physicians are often running behind schedule and patients spend a lot of time in the waiting and exam rooms. In order to improve this patient experience, Justine is working to build text messaging into the workflow that allows patients to better anticipate any delays.

Virtual Support Groups

Sick patients often have difficulty attending in-person support groups routinely, as they are held during the work day and are far from where the patients live. In response to this pressing issue, Dr. Justin Jordan is working to build virtual support groups, starting with neuro-oncology, and aiming to broaden to other disease groups.

Utilizing multi-user video chat software, these virtual support groups allow the numerous patients, who are unable to attend support groups on-campus, to participate in this important supportive care service. The online support groups quickly garnered positive feedback with 75% of patients reporting overall satisfaction, feeling emotionally supported, and indicating they were likely to recommend the program to a friend.

Medumo

For the inaugural cohort of MassChallenge HealthTech (previously PULSE @ MassChallenge), HTL matched with a startup called Medumo, which was working with Dr. James Richter and Emily Campbell in gastroenterology to put together a pilot to reduce failed colonoscopy prep via automated reminders that would be texted to patients.

In the year since HTL completed work with Medumo, Partners signed on for an enterprise roll-out, and gastroenterology completed an extended year-long pilot with 13 providers with plans to scale to all 35 providers in the department. From there, they will branch out to other endoscopy procedures and begin to use the platform for referrals and appointment reminders. The MGH team is also working on adapting the messages for colonoscopy prep into Spanish and are excited to address clinical disparities by reaching patients through the platform who are statistically less likely to get this important preventative care.

Working with Medumo has been a great success overall, with positive results improving operational efficiency and decreasing no-shows and late cancellations by over 40%. But it has also been exciting for providers and administrative staff, improving the scheduling process and saving them time. In addition, patient feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Says one patient, “in a busy, committed time, I would have missed something in my prep without Medumo. It makes being prepared easy: highly recommended.” 

Since HTL paired with Medumo to digitize colonoscopy prep, the success of the project continues to grow and catch on. Jasmine Ha, Project Coordinator for gastroenterology says: “Patients are interested in this type of conversation, they expect the digital experience. And at the end of the day, it’s about patients.”

DreAMLand

When patients are first diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, they’ve often visited the hospital thinking they have the flu but end up urgently admitted for 4-6 weeks of intensive inpatient treatment. Not surprisingly, isolation and depression are major issues for this patient population, who often report feeling as if they’ve been kidnapped. Moreover, although AML is highly treatable, these patients also have a disproportionately high misunderstanding of their prognosis; as one patient reported, “I was terrified and overwhelmed with information.”

Dr. Areej El-Jawahri and her team saw an urgent need to bridge inpatient psychology support resources with an intervention that could both teach patients about their diagnosis while simultaneously conveying basic cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to manage their stress. A year and a half later, an iPad game, entitled “DreAMLand,” is halfway through a multi-site controlled trial and is being submitted for FDA approval as a digital therapeutic. Early results have been overwhelmingly positive and the nurses on the unit have enjoyed using the game as a communication tool with patients.

Allergy Passport

To help patients track their own allergies, we worked with Dr. Blumenthal to build a patient-facing app for allergy diagnoses, episode, results, and more. We hope to use this tool as both a clinical improvement tool for enhanced patient communication and a research tool, to facilitate drug and food allergy research in the US. Now available in the App Store.

Rendever

Rendever is bringing the latest technological rise in healthcare into the home of the elderly with a research-based virtual reality platform designed to address isolation, depression, and cognitive decline. Revisiting a past home, taking a walking tour of Paris, or climbing Machu Pichu as a group are just a few of the possibilities Rendever Offers.

Learn more

MGH Heart

An innovative mobile app solution with the latest ECMO emergency guidelines at your fingertips. Available anywhere and anytime, the app ensures that up-to-date guidelines are on-hand in an emergency situation. Primary physicians and first-responders can also refer patients directly to your clinic via the app for life-saving emergent care. We collaborated with Dogtown Media and created a beautifully MGH branded specific mobile app for both iOS and Android for a 3 month pilot to study the use and capture data of where a majority of their Heart Center referrals come from. Within hours of publishing the app, MGH received 3 referrals from partner clinics within their healthcare network.  This app is now available for download in the App Store.

Learn more

Visit Navigator

In 2001, the Institute of Medicine identified patient-centered care as one of six interrelated factors constituting high-quality health care. To this end, patients visiting MGH often have “coordinated” visits in which multiple testing and/or provider appointments are scheduled for the same day.

However, such coordinated visits may not be entirely “coordinated”…

+ The full day’s itinerary may not be captured in a single document

+ Visits often occur at multiple locations across the MGH campus

+ Patients are contacted separately by each provider’s office, laboratory, or testing area with appointment confirmations and other instructions

Better coordination can be achieved via a smartphone-based application that helps the patient and family track the multidisciplinary day. On the app details about care teams, appointment times, office locations, key phone numbers, hospital maps, and pre-visit check-lists are all easily accessible. Improved patient experience and increased efficiency are also key goals of this user-friendly app.

No EKG Left Behind

Dr. Ada Stefanescu is a clinical and research fellow in the Corrigan Minehan Heart Center, splitting her time between the hospital wards, Cath Lab, outpatient clinic, and a research lab. Dr. Stefanescu won an Ether Dome Challenge grant for her idea ‘No EKG Left Behind’, which aims to set as best practice around the EKGs of discharged patients.

Dr. Stefanescu’s project not only conducting an electrocardiogram (EKG) on every patient who gets discharged after a heart attack, but more importantly ensuring that the final EKG is recorded in the electronic medical record before the patient leaves. Ensuring that the final EKG is on record enables future care teams to have the most accurate picture of the patient’s heart, which can be used as a comparison when they go back to their doctor’s office or during an unplanned trip to the emergency room.

Due to the efforts of the ‘No EKG Left Behind’ project, the number of patients with a discharge EKG posted to the EMR rose from 36% to 54% over the summer of 2015. The most rewarding part of innovation for Dr. Stefanescu is seeing patients and colleagues benefit from the changes. For the future of innovation, Dr. Stefanescu believes, “Patient buy-in and involvement in their healthcare is essential, but unfortunately can’t be taken for granted. As technology is becoming a bigger part of our lives, we need to find ways for it to bring doctors and patients closer together, as opposed to becoming another barrier between us.”

Virtual Tours

Virtual tours of the hospital, surgical suites, intensive care units for first-time patients that would help reduce anxiety and stress.

Scheduling and Clinic Workflow Project

Patient Education