Blausen Medical and Medical Avatar LLC Announce Rich Media Content Licensing Agreement

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November 21, 2013

Blausen 3D medical animations to be used in innovative Medical Avatar App for personal healthcare education, communication and motivation.
Houston, November 21, 2013 – Blausen Medical, developer and owner of the world’s largest library of 3D medical animations, has licensed more than 300 of its award-winning Human Atlas animations to Medical Avatar LLC for use in its Medical Avatar App. Medical Avatar LLC, based in New York City, develops and sells personalized mobile apps to increase consumers’ health knowledge and inspire practical changes in their health behavior. The company licenses its patented technologies to hospital systems, insurers, and consumer health organizations.

The Blausen content will be used as part of the proprietary Medical Avatar App, and in licensed white-label versions of the app for healthcare providers and payor clients. The app is designed to be a personalized interface that complements wellness and disease management programs, personal health records (PHRs), and website portals in order to increase their effectiveness.

Medical Avatar Chief Executive Officer, Virgil Wong added, “One of the major benefits of the Medical Avatar apps is better patient adherence to medications and post-discharge care directives. Non-adherence has been identified as being responsible for up to 40% of unnecessary hospital re-admissions. With Medical Avatar apps configured for payors, providers and employers, the high costs associated with non-adherence can be significantly reduced. We believe the Blausen rich media content will play an important role in engaging users’ interest and contribute to their better understanding of what are sometimes complex medical concepts.”

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About Blausen Medical

Blausen Medical, founded in 1991, is the developer, owner and licensor of the world’s largest library of medical and scientific illustrations and 3D animations. The Blausen Human Atlas is currently licensed and distributed via web, smart phone and tablet app platforms. In April of this year, the Company launched the Blausen.com search engine in conjunction with the Blausen It web browser extension. For more information regarding Blausen Group, please visit our website at www.Blausen.com.

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About Medical Avatar LLC

Based in New York City, Medical Avatar LLC develops mobile apps to increase health knowledge and behavior change in users. Its apps can be branded for specific insurance companies, organizations, or hospital systems like Oakwood Healthcare. For more information, please visit www.MedicalAvatar.com.

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For More Information

  • Blausen: Mike Hensgen (mhensgen@blausen.com) 713-334-6722
  • Medical Avatar: Mark Nelson (m.nelson@medicalavatar.com) 952-925-1110

Telehealth & Telecare Aware Highlights Medical Avatar

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New York (November 16, 2013)

Donna Cusano, Editor In Chief of Telehealth & Telecare Aware, wrote about Medical Avatar in her analysis and overview of the 2013 New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) Digital Health Conference.

Her description of CEO Virgil Wong’s main stage presentation, Time Travel Simulations for Transformative Health, reads as follows:

Medical Avatar can best be described as a mashup of art, patient engagement, It’s a Wonderful Life and The Portrait of Dorian Grey. By visualizing the road you shouldn’t travel health-wise, it uses the avatar and an anatomically correct body/parts to project outcomes based on your behavior in order to change it. For smokers, showing osteoporosis, amputations and aging skin can be a convincing revelation. On the positive side, a patient can use it to depict their condition and their symptoms, which are converted into a pictorial representation on the whole body that can aid a doctor in diagnosis. CEO Virgil Wong took us on a short journey through its evolution and also a related study on using visualization in a smoking cessation research study at Columbia University.

The full article can be read online at:
NYeC Digital Health Conference 2013: The Trends

Telehealth & Telecare Aware provides specialized, free news and information service since 2005 to people interested in telecare and telehealth. Its purpose is to help suppliers and service providers around the world keep up to date with what each other are doing.

Thank you, Donna!

Medical Avatar Talks Time Travel and Design at Leading NY Digital Health Conference

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New York (November 15, 2013)

Medical Avatar presented Time Travel Simulations for Transformative Health on Friday, November 15th at the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) Conference, New York’s leading event showcasing practical, innovative, and inspiring advancements in health information technology.

Virgil Wong, CEO of Medical Avatar, demonstrated how 3-D time travel simulations of a patient’s own body can improve health content comprehension, inspire behavior changes, and visually communicate complex symptoms and medical histories. Time travel simulations are helping patients better understand their past medical data and empowering them to make changes in the present to strengthen their chances for a healthier future.

The personalized mental models of patients shape daily health behaviors. These behaviors can reduce the threat of chronic diseases, which account for 70% of deaths annually in the U.S. and more than 75% of the $2.7 trillion cost of healthcare. Good choices patients make day-to-day regarding nutrition, fitness, and stress management can reverse conditions like diabetes and heart disease and support decades of optimal health and well-being.

Also, Katie McCurdy, Medical Avatar’s Chief Patient Experience Officer, will be moderating a panel on Better Healthcare by Design: How Data Visualization, Behavior Change Techniques, and User-Centered Design Can Create Successful Products.

Both presentations generated over a hundred tweets among the health care providers, IT innovators, health leadership, start-ups, hospital officials, group practice managers, investors, and entrepreneurs in attendance.

 

Buzz about Time Travel Simulations for Health

Buzz about Better Healthcare by Design

Oakwood Medical Avatar brings personalized health info to mobile devices

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Mobile App for Oakwood Healthcare

It just became a lot easier to track your health and connect to any health services you may require.

Oakwood Healthcare has launched a first-of-its kind mobile application that will allow users to better manage their health, be more well-informed about their medical conditions and connect with an Oakwood physician or service to help them. The Oakwood Medical Avatar app can be personalized to show a three-dimensional image of the user’s body and is now available for free download for iPads and iPhones.

“In today’s tech-savvy world, people want more information at their fingertips—no matter where they are,” said Susan Hanchett, corporate director brand strategy & market development of Oakwood Healthcare. “We see this as a great way for patients and prospective patients to connect with us and to learn about the high quality services we provide.”

The Medical Avatar is designed to help educate users about their health and find available treatments to ease their symptoms through direct links to Oakwood doctors and services. Users can become more informed about medical issues, prepare better for medical procedures and help family members adhere to discharge instructions. The free app includes short videos that illustrate about 200 common health concerns and procedures.

“I see this as an art form that we’ve created as an app to allow you to visualize your health information in the past, present and future,” said Virgil Wong, co-inventor of the app and CEO of Medical Avatar, LLC. “It’s a way to help people understand and learn about their health in an easy and visual way.”

“We’re proud to be able to partner with Oakwood Healthcare on this,” said Wong. “This tool will help Oakwood stay on the forefront of emergent medical technology and provide better services to anyone who comes to Oakwood to receive care.”

Now only available for Apple products, an android version is also under development.

See the original press release on Oakwood Healthcare’s web site.

Seeing a better you can change your real-life health

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(Washington, D.C., March 27, 2013) Medical Avatar CEO Virgil Wong appeared on NPR’s The Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU 88.5 FM.

NPR Radio Interview with Virgil Wong

Can seeing an image of a healthier you change your real-life health? Experiments in which people see 3-D images of themselves before and after long-term exposure to sun or cigarette smoke can have a powerful effect on behavior. Cutting-edge research like this demonstrates the surprising ways art and technology can transform medicine. We speak with a pioneer in this emerging field.

Listen to the interview and read more at: http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2013-03-27/art-and-medicine

Social Innovation with Impact at Interaction13

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CBS News Detroit highlights how we bring health to (virtual) life

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CBS recently featured the launch of the Medical Avatar app for Oakwood Healthcare, a 4-hospital system in Detroit, in a radio interview and news article. This has been a work of labor and love over the past 9 months and we are excited to share it with you.

Working closely with Dave Stanis, the Director of Digital Communication, and Susan Hanchett, Corporate Director of Brand Strategy and Market Development, we created a patient-centered app that makes it easier to connect with hospital services BEFORE you get sick. Patients can select health topics they are interested in and receive messages about screenings and seminars directly relevant to those health topics.

Dave Stanis puts it best: “that [health topic] information is tied to information on doctors and services here at Oakwood to help you treat parts of the body you may be focused in on, or information on events and classes in that particular area of health concern.”

Here is a link to the full article: Oakwood Medical Avatar Brings Your Health To (Virtual) Life

And if you would like a closer look at the Oakwood app, you can do so for free here or download it on your iPhone by searching for “Oakwood Medical Avatar”

If you have any questions or comments, please enter them in the discussion section below!

Medical Avatar and Krames Staywell collaborate to educate and inspire patients

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The team at Medical Avatar is excited to announce its recent partnership with Krames StayWell (KSW), the largest provider of interactive, print and mobile patient education solutions, consumer health information, and population health management communications in the country.

Collaborating with KSW allows us to benefit our clients and users in several ways:

  • Expand our database from 900 to 60,000 health topics. This will help doctors and patients select exactly what they are looking for.
  • Better engage patients. KSW regularly runs focus groups with a variety of patient groups, giving us deeper insight into the core needs of patients.
  • Enhance our feature set. From text messaging to patient portals, KSW lets our clients interact with their patients across multiple channels.

Our combined goal over the next 6 months is to integrate our offerings in a way that is most beneficial to our clients and users.

Stay tuned!