Innovators & Entrpreneurs: Tulsa startup provides potential solution to medical records access
By Scott Meacham
Copyright © 2016, The Oklahoma Publishing Company
One of the most pressing challenges to improving health care today is that patient data is so fragmented and siloed.
Even though electronic health records (EHR) are increasingly the norm, the systems that are used in hospitals, clinics, physicians’ practices, long-term care facilities, pharmacies and by first responders don’t really talk to each other. That leaves patients to advocate for themselves from provider to provider, and between providers and insurance companies and other payers, such as Medicare or Medicaid.
Verinovum, a Tulsa-based company, is tackling the challenge of interoperability across the health care industry, providing a solution that accepts diverse and comprehensive data, providing a portal into a patient’s entire medical record from a single point of care.
Verinovum CEO Ryan Campbell brings sixteen-plus years of operations and technology experience in the trust and investments industry where data integrity is paramount. He says it is a much different situation in health care.
“We’ve found that up to 45 percent of the data can disappear as records are transported from one silo system to the next,” Campbell said. “Lots of data is getting dropped, generally from faulty technology and care providers and payers not fully understanding the lack of data integrity from point A to point B.”
In founding Verinovum, Campbell built a team he describes as “near-wizards — really smart technicians I knew in my prior life.” The company started two years ago with four employees; now there are 19. “We are growing fast,” Campbell said. “If you look at our sales pipeline, we could double over the next 18 months.”
Verinovum’s flagship customer is Oklahoma’s MyHealth, a leading health information exchange (HEI) which links more than 4,000 providers and their patients in a communitywide health information system.
The firm recently entered an agreement with The Health Collaborative in Cincinnati to power the collective’s health information exchange.
More than a quarter of i2E’s portfolio companies are engaged in health sciences — including biotechnology, medical devices and health-related information technology. Leveraging Oklahoma innovation in multiple related sectors of the medical industry is a great way to diversify the state’s energy-centric economy.
With biotech startups like Biolytx Pharmaceuticals, founded by Anne Pereira based on her research at University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center to develop an antimicrobial peptide to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria, medical device innovations like the breakaway IV from Linear Health Sciences, and informatics and health information technology from groundbreakers like Verinovum, Oklahoma is gaining both results and reputation.
“Oklahoma has so much talent; we don’t always get our due nationally,” Campbell said. “Verinovum is engaged in activity in more than 15 other states. We continue to work to make Oklahoma shine.”
Scott Meacham is president and CEO of i2E Inc., a nonprofit corporation that mentors many of the state’s technology-based startup companies. i2E receives state appropriations from the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology and is an integral part of Oklahoma’s Innovation Model. Contact Meacham at i2E_Comments@i2E.org.
