Fresno, Merced & Contra Costa Counties using mobile health solutions for infectious disease management
BALTIMORE, MD. (August 1, 2016)
emocha continues its expansion with three new live sites in California. Fresno County, Merced County, and Contra Costa County will all use miDOT for asynchronous video directly observed therapy (DOT) to manage their tuberculosis (TB) populations. Contra Costa will also use emocha’s Outbreak Symptoms Monitoring (OSM) application for rapid response to potential measles outbreaks.
DOT is the standard of care in TB, where a healthcare worker has to actually observe a patient take each dose of medication in-person. This is both costly to the system and burdensome for patients. miDOT allows patients to securely record themselves taking their medication at their convenience before submitting videos to the health department. A healthcare worker then reviews the videos on a secure web portal at their convenience to assess adherence.
“We are very excited to implement miDOT by emocha”, said the Contra Costa County TB and Communicable Disease Medical Director, Dr. Louise McNitt. “The application seems to have the most customizable features, and is the most user-friendly of the video DOT applications we looked at. We expect patients will really appreciate being able to take their TB medications at a time and place that is convenient for them,” added Dr. McNitt. “With the use of miDOT’s asynchronous technology, I’m sure we will see an increase in our patients’ compliance with their TB regimens.”
According to the California Department of Health, nearly 2.4 million Californians, over 6% of the state’s population, have latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). LTBI patients are infected with the bacteria but do not show symptoms. “We are thrilled to be working with health departments in California, where emocha can help monitor a very diverse patient population,” said emocha CEO Sebastian Seiguer. In addition to monitoring TB, emocha monitors populations for a variety of infectious and communicable diseases like measles and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Health departments can now efficiently allocate resources to trace contacts and react appropriately to stop the spread of an outbreak.
“We also look forward to trying emocha’s other applications for contact tracing and outbreak monitoring for other communicable diseases“ added Dr. McNitt. “emocha will allow us to more efficiently use our resources to successfully manage our patients and maintain a high quality of care.”
emocha is a mobile health platform that supports a wide range of applications for public health. Clinicians and researchers use the platform for linkage to care, patient engagement, and adherence. Patient-facing mobile applications and provider-facing web portals provide convenient data collection, real-time data visualization, and analytics. emocha applications have been implemented around the world since 2008.
About emocha Mobile Health
emocha empowers every patient to take every dose of medication through video technology and scalable human engagement. Patients use a smartphone application to video record themselves taking their medication. Providers or emocha Adherence Coaches use a secure web portal to assess adherence and engage with patients. The platform is being used by public health departments, clinical trials, hospitals, health centers, and managed care organizations to radically improve medication adherence for patients with tuberculosis, opioid use disorder, hepatitis C, diabetes, and other chronic and infectious diseases. Learn more at www.emocha.com.
National Institutes of Health Statement
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute On Minority Health And Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R43MD010521. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Contact: Michelle Mendes| email: mmendes@emocha.com | phone: 410.928.4016
