Insights from a recent trip to visit 19Labs customers in Missouri
Note: This blog entry is from Messias Soares, 19Labs Business Development Head.
At 19Labs, we believe that working closely with customers is important because it teaches us their needs first hand, even if they're rural and hard to reach. Last week, I had a chance to visit FQHCs (Federally Qualified Health Centers) in Missouri that use GALE. I learned a lot about how they utilize our platform, the unique requirements of each center, and most importantly, the crucial difference between St. Louis and Kansas City-style barbecues.
Multiple Use Cases, One Flexible Platform
In 2020, we equipped 30+ community health centers in Missouri with GALE eClinics through federal funding support. These health centers needed a telehealth platform with a wide array of diagnostic devices and could handle multiple use cases.
For example, Great Mines Health Center was looking at GALE for school-based telehealth, similar to our deployment in Utah where local nurses cover multiple schools remotely. On the other hand, Katy Trail Community Health is exploring portable GALE kits that traveling nurses can take to patients' homes to connect them with physicians (GALE also lets physicians conduct consultations from their own homes, significantly improving doctors' availability in rural areas). Finally, we have customers exploring enhanced telehealth for federal prisons, and even GALE-based telehealth carts equipped with more advanced diagnostic devices for nursing facilities.
Next-Gen Point-Of-Care Platform: One of our local partners set GALE up as a telehealth cart. More on this soon!
GALE was a great fit as it allowed these health centers to customize the platform to suit their own unique situations. This eliminated the need for a different platform for each of the centers' use cases. On top of this, they also have access to all of GALE's upcoming functionalities.
GALE eClinics' Impact On Rural Missouri
Visiting health centers in Missouri, plus an amusing setup at a great St. Louis-style barbecue restaurant I stopped at.
The best part of my trip was seeing the impact that GALE was making on rural communities. Some of the health centers I visited serve up to 20,000 people, and it's great to know that patients have healthcare access even if they can't leave home due to COVID-19, chronic conditions, or some other factor.
About 19Labs
19Labs is the creator of GALE, a Next Generation Point-of-Care platform for pharmacies, schools, workplaces, and rural communities. GALE brings together cutting-edge diagnostic technologies from industry leaders like Zoom, Elo, Amwell, Samsung Mobile, MIR, Omron, Viasat, EchoNous, PAP Link, and many others in one smart, efficient, and cost-effective platform. It was designed from the ground up to be operated by non-healthcare professionals in locations with limited infrastructure and optimized for low bandwidth and intermittent connectivity. To learn more about GALE, please visit www.19labs.com.