Electronic Health Reporter

Medial EarlySign’s mission is focused on finding extraordinary clinical insights inside billions of ordinary EHR databases. With more than 10 years of longitudinal data, Medial EarlySign’s data sets cover more than 20 million patient lives and 150 million patient years. They include geographically, ethnically, racially, and economically diverse populations with diverse health statuses.

Medial EarlySign has developed a secure HIPAA-compliant information architecture to protect patient data security. Additionally, internal procedures ensure high quality conduct of clinical studies in compliance with applicable international regulations and legal requirements. It works to safeguard the rights and well-being of participants, including privacy and confidentiality of their information, and the accuracy and completeness of the reported data.

What is the single-most innovative technology you are currently delivering to health systems or medical groups?

Medial EarlySign develops AI-based software solutions that help healthcare systems with the early detection and prevention of high-burden diseases, such as lower GI disorders, diabetes and related complications, COVID-19 and flu complications and more. It is the only company to successfully achieve peer-reviewed and clinically validated insights by leveraging routinely available medical information, such as blood test results and other EHR data, to assist in early prediction, prioritization and intervention for improved patient outcomes.

How is your product or service innovating the work being done in these organization to provide care or make systems run smoother?

EarlySign’s proprietary machine learning-based solutions analyze the dozens of “hidden” factors residing in electronic health records, including routine laboratory tests results, demographics, medications and diagnostic codes, to accurately predict who is at highest risk of having or developing specific life-threatening conditions, creating opportunities for early intervention strategies and more effective prioritization of resources. Medial EarlySign’s AI-based software models are already being used by global healthcare systems to help detect and prevent high-burden diseases.

Using EarlySign solutions, providers have begun leveraging data and delivering personalized, preventative interventions that has helped shift the conversation of the medical community from sick care to health care.

What is the primary need fulfilled by the product or service?

With the move to value-based care, health players need to be more effective and able to reach out to individuals with rising risk trajectories. Medial EarlySign enables this with a practical approach and focused solutions that allow short deployment times and demonstrate clear value, while the use of routinely available data can address large global populations.

What is the ROI of said product or service? Provide real examples of verifiable ROI of the product or service when used in or by a health system or medial group.

One of the primary challenges and costs in healthcare today arises from the late diagnosis of chronic diseases and resulting complications. Hospitals and health systems chose to work with EarlySign with the goal of preempting and preventing disease on a more individualized level, rather than merely reacting to symptoms. Hence, the ROI from the solution is derived from predictive models that can aid in the earlier detection of deterioration trajectories. Through clinical risk stratification, clients benefit from having more accurate and personalized models based on differential risk and more targeted subpopulations with higher positive predictive value, providing the ability to effectively divide patients into risk-related groups—thereby optimizing the ability to deliver the most cost-effective care delivery coupled with intervention options to improve outcomes.

One example is EarlySign’s ability to effectively code diabetes patients, early detection of patients progressing to Type 2 diabetes, as well as progression to other complications. It is estimated that approximate $2.43 million could be saved for every 100,000 adult lives in an integrated health system.

Provide specific examples of implementation and outcomes use cases.

EarlySign’s LGI Flag solution identifies individuals at highest risk of harboring a variety of lower GI disorders associated with chronic occult bleeding, ranging from diverticulitis to colorectal cancer. By analyzing ordinary electronic health data, including existing blood count results, the solution flags high-risk individuals for further evaluation, acting as a safety net for unscreened and potentially non-symptomatic patients while enabling organizations to proactively detect lower GI disorders earlier. This can facilitate earlier and more targeted intervention strategies which can lead to improved patient outcomes while averting the significant costs associated with downstream complications.

In two years of implementation with Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare Services, the solution has found more than 50 cancers and pre-cancerous conditions, while creating significant cost savings through more effective interventions and prioritizing resources.

In 2020, EarlySign launched a new AI-powered algorithm with Maccabi Healthcare Services to identify individuals estimated to be at the highest risk of severe COVID-19 complications. The algorithm identifies high-risk patients reporting COVID-like symptoms. Flagged patients are sent for immediate testing, allowing for medical procedures to begin as quickly as possible following a positive diagnosis and helping to limit the spread of the virus.

As of April 2020, the algorithm had identified the top 2% of highest-risk patients (approximately 40,000 people), following analysis of all Maccabi patients’ anonymized electronic health records.

Who are some of the clients and organizations served by the company? Name them.

In the United States, Medial EarlySign solutions are clinically implemented in Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Geisinger Health, and SLUCare in St. Louis and other organizations. EarlySign’s solutions are also currently in use with Maccabi Healthcare Services, Israel’s second largest HMO.

How has the innovation advanced the field of healthcare or the practice of care?

EarlySign works in collaboration with leading U.S. and international healthcare organizations and research centers, identifying major pain points and delivering models that are clinically proven to work in improving the health of populations. Taking the path from data to an actual working system, they have created and delivered outcome-focused solutions with clinical and economic value.

How is the innovation changing lives — specifically? 

Medial EarlySign’s machine learning-based solutions for early detection of high burden disease ultimately keep people healthier longer. These solutions can ease the financial and care management issues that healthcare providers experience in treating people with the downstream complications of chronic and high burden diseases — that may be prevented with a solution specifically designed for early detection and prevention of these conditions.

What is the company’s go-forward strategy?

The new normal in healthcare is yet to be defined, and EarlySign has advanced its solution such that health systems can operationalize getting back to care. These solutions speed digital transformation to help prioritize patient procedures amongst high-risk population and also deliver focused interventions to re-engage individuals and populations.

What’s next, which problem is the organization working on now, and in the future? 

EarlySign will continue to deliver compelling clinical and economic value to help healthcare organizations get “Back2care” by releasing a suite of packaged AI-powered clinical data solutions that address a range of health challenges, including infectious diseases, diabetes and associated complications, and patient adherence.

What is the most significant lesson learned by delivering the innovation, product or service to health systems or medical group?

Keep it simple. No one has the bandwidth for “disruptive innovation.” Make sure to clearly define the problem to solved, engage the stakeholders, and be able to deliver demonstrable results.

Feel free to provide actual testimony from a user regarding the product and how it has solved a problem, created efficiency or improved processes at the point of care.

“Together with EarlySign, we have forged a dynamic team that is rapidly developing novel solutions to achieve the Quadruple Aim of improving the patient experience of care, improving the health of populations, reducing cost, and improving clinical care provider satisfaction.” David Vawdrey, Ph.D., Chief Data Informatics Officer, Geisinger Health

“Despite the high survival rates associated with the early detection of colorectal cancer, one third of patients eligible for screening are not being addressed. Medial EarlySign’s algorithms, based on machine learning, have enabled us to identify those patients at the highest risk of harboring cancer earlier and prioritize resources accordingly.” Prof. Varda Shalev, M.D., M.P.A., Director, Institute for Health Research and Innovation for Maccabi Healthcare

Website: https://earlysign.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/medial-earlysign/

Congratulations, Medial EarlySign!