Cosmo DeNicola Companies News

The evolution of HGE Health as the nation’s pre-eminent healthcare technology company working with physicians, surgeons and patients isn’t slowing down a bit. Just the opposite.

On May 4th the company with an international reputation in pulmonary medicine helping COPD, lung transplant and other respiratory patients and physicians manage and better control pulmonary issues, opened the HGE Contact Center to serve a growing list of national payers, providers and industry customers.

“Our new state-of-the-art Contact Center will offer physicians and medical professionals the latest technologies and services to help them manage and respond to the ever-changing needs of their pulmonary patients, regardless of whether they are located in Pennsylvania or elsewhere in the United States,” said Michael J. Markus, PhD., CEO of HGE Health. “Our goal has always been to provide a customer experience that is second-to-none. This Contact Center should help us achieve that goal by facilitating better collaboration between our nurses and health coordinators and the patients’ physicians to ensure continuity and coordination of care, and early intervention to promote better health and outcomes for patients. The payers and providers that serve those patients will realize a significant financial benefit as a result.”

The 22,000-square foot facility, which is located in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, can staff up to 175 people, and is currently staffed by pulmonary nurses and healthcare coordinators who will provide patient care and guidance from 8am to 8pm EST, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. “Based on our operational ratio of nurses and healthcare coordinators to patients, as well as the room for growth in our Contact Center, we have the ability to scale up our resources to manage a few hundred thousand patients,” said Dr. Markus, “and we look forward to expanding to additional floors of the building when we outgrow our current capacity.”

In addition to some of the latest communication and information technologies, the Contact Center will also house data scientists, engineers and a rigid continuing education program for healthcare providers designed to keep them up-to-date on the latest developments in pulmonary medicine. It will also offer a quality assurance process that ensures prompt, professional response to all customers.

A growing and devastating disease, COPD is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. An estimated 12.7 million American adults are diagnosed with the condition every year, and nearly as many are believed to be undiagnosed. There were more than 700,000 hospital discharges related to COPD in the U.S. reported in 2010. The costs of managing COPD in the U.S. have been estimated to be nearly $50 billion in 2010, including $29.5 billion in direct healthcare expenditures, $8 billion in indirect morbidity costs and $12.4 billion in indirect mortality costs.

HGE Care, a service offered by HGE Health, combines a proprietary digital telemedicine platform with validated and standardized clinical pathways, to allow physicians to remotely care for a pulmonary patient from anywhere in the nation. “HGE Care allows quick, personalized changes in a patient’s treatment regimen that can counteract changing symptoms, regardless if the patient has advanced or end stage COPD and is home bound, or is working full time but is experiencing changes to their typical COPD symptoms,” said Tatsiana Beiko a pulmonologist in Charleston, South Carolina at MUSC Health-University Medical Center.

Thanks to daily interactions with the HGE team, patients enrolled in HGE Care are afforded the peace of mind knowing they can avoid significant delays in receiving feedback from their physicians when changes to typical COPD symptoms occur, or when the patients experience complications that might land them in (or return them to) the hospital. HGE Care reduces healthcare disparities, promotes the continuity of care during and between office visits, and enables patients with significant loss of lung function to participate in daily activities and enjoy an improved quality of life.

With a mission of “same day response from a patient’s physician on the patient’s respiratory symptoms” and “reduced cost for the healthcare system,” HGE has seen a growing list of channel partners across the United States (e.g., Change Healthcare).

“In a marketplace that has lots of health sensor companies, HGE Health’s new Contact Center arms the company with a differentiated and superior customer service edge,” Jennifer Hartt, Director of Investments, Health & Digital Health at Ben Franklin Technology Partners, said. “Technology plus a world class service drives actionable insights for patients and providers. Ben Franklin Technology Partners believes HGE Health is a standout digital health company set apart from all others in the respiratory category.”

"We're excited to see HGE Health's technological innovation continue to play a key role in the health and wellbeing of pulmonary patients," said Larry R. Kaiser, MD, FACS, president and CEO, Temple University Health System. "Along with our talented transplant team and world class pulmonologists, HGE Health is one of the reasons the Temple Lung Center has become the busiest and best pulmonary program in the nation. They have made it easier for patients and physicians from not only across the U.S. but around the world to take advantage of our life-saving expertise."

About HGE Health

Headquartered in Fort Washington, PA, HGE Health harnesses its deep experience in chronic disease management and digital health in pulmonary disease, telemedicine and mobile health to offer a clinical services platform that delivers better care, faster, at a much lower cost for patients, physicians and payors. Built on clinical protocols developed and supported by 16 years of research, the company’s technology has compiled the longest running and world’s largest longitudinal data set of COPD symptoms, interventions and clinical management to help physicians provide care for a geographically and socio-economically diverse COPD and pulmonary patient population.