As electronic medical records become more prevalent, Memphis-based Quire is shifting its mission toward helping doctors identify common symptoms in multiple patients that could lead to extensive hospital stays or readmissions.
Launched in 2008 as Computable Genomix, Quire’s software can mine medical records and identify at-risk patients with diseases ranging from heart failure to diabetes. That information leads to more accurate treatments and billing.
Quire is in pilot programs with a 150-doctor primary and specialty practice in East Tennessee that has 200,000 patients and with medical practices in Kansas City, Mo., and Miami. The software will be sold to practices on a physician-by-physician basis, but a final price point hasn’t been set.
Computable Genomix used a software best described as “the Google of gene research,” to find genetic biomarkers in patients that would identify if they were prone to certain diseases. CEO Brad Silverrealized there was a more immediate need for the company’s technology.
“We can present a medical practice with information about their patient population and as long as they have the infrastructure in place, they can make an impact immediately,” Silver says.
Silver estimates Computable Genomix had a niche in a $100 billion pharmaceutical and life sciences marketplace, but the health care marketplace is worth $2.8 trillion annually.
Quire has hired Joe Ketcherside, a neurosurgeon who has developed and implemented electronic medical records since 1998, as chief medical officer. Ketcherside was chief medical information officer at Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare from 2006-2008.
With health care reform, doctors are being held more accountable for billing and outcomes, Ketcherside says. If a patient is released from a hospital after treatment for heart failure and readmitted within 30 days, Medicare may not pay for the second admission.
“Hospitals are more motivated to take care of them and keep them healthy,” Ketcherside says.
Eric Mathews, president of LaunchMemphis who was involved with Computable Genomix when it started, says genomics research technology lends itself to accommodate electronic medical records.
“It’s the right place and right time because of the mandate and incentives from the federal government for the shift to EMR,” Mathews says.