At Work with iReminder LLC
July 4, 2008
Name: iReminder LLC
Type of business: Healthcare technology company that has developed Compliance for Life TM scalable system to remind people to take their medication.
Address:
Telephone: (908) 232-5156
Web site: www.ireminder.com and
www.complianceforlife.com.
Number of employees: 2
Founded: 2006
Top officers: Amy Yoffie, CEO and founder and Jean Steckler, senior vice president and co-founder.
How would you describe your business?
"We are a healthcare technology company and have developed a trade marked product called Compliance for Life, a scalable system to remind and motivate people to fill, take, and refill their medications, go to the doctor, and complete other medically necessary tasks," said Jean Steckler, vice president and co-founder of iReminder LLC.
"Medical literature lists many problems that revolve around the failure to take medication as prescribed. "For example, it took only one month after leaving the hospital for one out of eight heart-attack patients to quit taking the lifesaving drugs prescribed to them. In a study of 1521 heart attack patients. The patients who stopped taking three proven drugs -- aspirin, beta blockers, and statins -- were three times more likely to die during the next year than patients who stayed on the drugs.
"Encouraging patients to take their meds as a part of their daily routine is the mission of Compliance for Life. The CFL technology is user friendly, letting users decide how and when they are to be reminded. The messages are personalized, using the voice of a family member or caretaker when reminding the patient to take their medications. The CFL system doesn't take no as an option and will route reminders through a series of attempts -- calling home twice and then sending a text message -- until a successful contact is made."
What makes your business special?
"What sets CFL apart from existing reminder technologies is its ability to fit medication adherence into an individual's daily routine, letting users decide how and when (within their medication regimen) they are reminded.
"It addresses the rapid drop off in compliance early in patients' medication treatment by helping them establish good compliance behavior. It enables patients to build a healthcare network of family members, caregivers, or case managers who support their compliance efforts. If an individual does not comply with his regimen, this permission-based system automatically notifies network members who can take action prior to an acute medical incident."
What goals do you have for the business?
"Our goals are to launch three pilot studies in the next 12 months. We are also looking to expand on the success of the pilots to become profitable in the following year.
"We anticipate Compliance for Life will be used in a global clinical trial in four different countries, and four different languages this year. We are also in discussions with leading pharmacy chains, managed care organizations, disease management companies and hospital networks."
How has your business changed?
"We initially approached pharmaceutical brand marketers to consider using CFL as a value add to their brand campaigns. However, we soon learned that the research side of pharmaceutical companies has a need to better assist and monitor patients during clinical trials. So we have expanded our marketing to include clinical research within the pharmaceutical companies and to clinical research organizations."
What was your most important deal?
"Our most important deal was with a biotech company conducting clinical trials throughout the world."
What changes do you expect in your business in the next 10 years?
"We plan to increase our focus on sales and marketing. We also anticipate that the standards will emerge for electronic medical records and electronic health records, which will allow us to efficiently integrate CFL reminders and reports with all healthcare systems, including hospital, physicians, and laboratories. For example, we anticipate that CFL will be integrated with systems such as Epic, Google Health, Microsoft's Health Vault."
What is the most important thing you've learned in your business?
"We have learned about the high burden placed on the healthcare system when people do not take their medications.
"We've learned that 50 percent of people with chronic illness are non-compliant.
"Non-compliance accounts for 78 percent of
"The World Health Organization reports that effective adherence programs may have a much greater impact on patient health than improved medical treatments."
What advice would you give to someone considering your line of work?
"A common refrain that we hear is that everything takes twice as long as expected and costs twice as much. My advice would be to be tenacious, persistent, dedicated, and adaptable in response to the needs of the various needs of different layers of the healthcare network."
Is there anything else you would rather be doing?
"No."