Merck partner pays doctors to validate PHR data

From MobiHealthNews:

Merck Canada announced this month a deal with Mihealth to promote its PHR offering to Canadian doctors. According to Mihealth, which has an exclusive license to Diversinet’s MobiSecure platform in Canada, its PHR data is validated by a physician once a year to ensure accuracy of the health information.

Mihealth’s PHR is available for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows smartphones. The software helps patients track medications, allergies, and chronic disorders information, but it has plans to add lab tests information soon. The Mihealth service is free for physicians while patients pay from $59 a year per person and up to $224 for a family of four. Mihealth pays physicians a small fee for their yearly validation.

In January, miHealth inked a $5 million deal with Diversinet to act as the secure mobile health services provider’s exclusive distributor in Canada. miHealth’s PHR (Personal Health Records) is built upon Diversinet’s MobiSecure platform.

“Strengthening patient-doctor communications will improve the quality and quantity of information available,” stated Dr Wendy Graham, president of Mihealth, in a press release. ”The adoption of physician-validated PHRs is a particularly vital new tool to facilitate the care of the one in three Canadians living with chronic health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and lung disease.”

Physician validation was stressed by Merck as a distinguishing feature for Mihealth compared to other PHRs. Dr Graham stated that “When patients use existing services to independently keep a PHR, the non-validated data may be seen as unreliable by health professionals, a major drawback. With Mihealth, physicians validate the information once a year, ensuring accuracy and credibility and making it useful to all health professionals.”

It is not entirely clear what Merck gets out of the deal other than a new product it can offer to physicians for free, which could end up helping them make a little extra pocket change each year: “This is a new type of implication for Merck to be bringing to our health system, but no less important than a new medicine. It is another way for Merck to help Canadian healthcare providers give the best care to their patients as well as providing important efficiencies for our healthcare system,” Merck’s Canada’s Vice President of Customer Innovation Christian Sauvageau stated in a press release. “We were motivated to get involved with Mihealth because it will assist health care practitioners in improving patient health outcomes.”