This October, as we recognize Breast Cancer Awareness month, we are taken back to the origins of our commitment to empowering patients. And at the root of it all were those fighting cancer in the wake of Hurricane Katrina with no medical records and treatment plan to access.
After hearing of these patients’ plight, we were honored to work in conjunction with Microsoft to develop a platform to make patient data available anytime and anywhere. Yet, it wasn’t enough for us to just provide a cloud solution for chronic disease. No, we needed to ensure that patients and clinicians had relevant tools; not just cool gadgets that weren’t effective.
Enter, Jennifer Bowers.
Jennifer, our Vice President of Clinical Insights, joined us after serving decades as a clinical oncology research nurse. Her expertise covered both sides of the chronic disease journey. As a clinician, she was familiar with the needs of the practice in developing a viable solution. Conversely, because of the close relationships developed with patients over months of treatment, Jennifer often heard their frustrations over little access to vital information and communication.
Creating a user-friendly, comprehensive platform became a more personal goal when Jennifer herself was diagnosed with cancer five years ago. Hoping her experience would benefit others, Jennifer offered real-time feedback to the product team and those suggestions are evident in the product today.
While having someone serve as a clinical or medical consultant is not unusual for a health IT company, we have taken it a step further. Jennifer prides herself on digging deep into the psyche of patients to anticipate their needs in relation to a personal health record. She leads clients as well as our product team on a patient-centric path every day.
“There is a unique need in the oncology world to capture patient’s symptoms at home,” says Jennifer. “This capability not only informs their future treatments but also helps feed the research world with the data it needs to bring new treatments to market faster. If I had the ability when I was working at the bedside to have patients use a tool like InstantPHR to capture at-home symptoms I would likely have been a much more effective practitioner.”
For as much as the organizational goals of any project are important, each of those goals are tied to patient health, satisfaction and loyalty. And that is where Jennifer and Get Real Health excel.