American Well and Numera Join Forces to Integrate Home Monitoring and Telehealth Services

BOSTON and SEATTLE, Sept. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- American Well™ and Numera today announced a strategic collaboration to deliver health monitoring information directly into live online encounters between physicians and patients, bringing together American Well's Online Care Suite telehealth solution and Numera's Numera|NET gateway. Patients being monitored for a range of conditions will be able to track their vitals and other data through widely-available consumer brand glucose meters, blood pressure cuffs, peak flow meters and other devices. Numera's technology makes the information readily available to physicians caring for patients via American Well's system – all without leaving home.

"Much of the transformation in the US healthcare system is focused on providing more effective, comprehensive care for our most vulnerable and challenging patients – many of whom are home-bound," said Roy Schoenberg, MD, MPH, CEO of American Well Systems.  "Our collaboration with Numera is intended to vastly improve the ability of physicians to immediately understand and respond to the needs of those patients, and to truly manage their conditions in real-time."

"Enabling health providers with timely, objective patient information is one of the pillars for effective condition and care management programs," stated Tim Smokoff, CEO of Numera.  "Through our relationship with American Well, we are now taking critical patient information and bringing it directly into live care encounters, where it can have the greatest impact.  Our customers' management of at-risk patients can become much more agile as a result."

Numera's FDA-cleared gateway technology allows patients to send information from a wide range of biometric devices directly into other healthcare IT systems.  The agreement with American Well will allow real-time data exchange with its Online Care Suite, a telehealth network that connects patients with physicians and other providers for immediate, live online visits using two-way video, secure text chat, and/or the phone.  Physicians will be able to review biometric information alongside patient history and other clinical information as part of each visit, then diagnose, prescribe, or track treatment plans as appropriate.  Furthermore, the biometric data will be automatically captured as part of a complete record assembled by the system at the conclusion of each visit, supporting continuity of care.

The joint offering will be made commercially available in the fall of 2011.

About Numera

Numera (www.numerahealth.com) provides affordable telehealth monitoring solutions for care management and wellness programs.  The company's Numera|NET "open system" offers customers an FDA-cleared gateway with the ability to:

• Capture, transmit and analyze health measurements from the industry's broadest selection of consumer health devices
• Provide a convenient means for consumers to upload data through personal computers, mobile devices and telehealth home hubs
• Integrate measurement results into virtually any electronic health record (EMR, PHR, DMR) for monitoring diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, COPD, weight management and other chronic concerns
• Use rules and alerts to make the information accountable and actionable - for patients, physicians and caregivers alike

Numera|NET is complemented with a suite of Numera|ENGAGE professional applications, and the company offers a portfolio of training, maintenance, and support services to its partners.  Numera products are used in over 40 integrated delivery networks, hospitals, disease management, and corporate wellness settings.  Numera has alliances and partnerships with leading EMR companies, managed care organizations, IDNs, and pharmacy distributors, including Epic, WebMD, Healthrageous, Health Trio, AmerisourceBergen, Appello (UK) and others. Numera is a member of the Synergenics consortium of companies (www.synergenics.net) and is headquartered in Seattle, WA, with corporate offices in Sunnyvale, CA, Orlando, FL, and Camberley, UK.

About American Well

American Well™ brings healthcare into the homes and workplaces of patients across the country. Its Online Care Suite is the industry's leading telehealth solution, connecting providers and patients for live, immediate, and clinically meaningful encounters using the Web or phone. With its patented technology, the Online Care Suite removes traditional barriers to healthcare access – such as geography, mobility, and time constraints – while enabling providers to deliver quality care in a flexible, convenient manner, generating revenue along the way.

SOURCE American Well