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Crain’s New York Features Medical Avatar

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Virgil Wong, CEO of Medical Avatar, was interviewed for today’s issue of Crain’s Health Pulse, a daily newsletter published by Crain’s New York. A brief quotation from the publication reads:

[dt_quote type=”blockquote” font_size=”normal” background=”plain”]Columbia researcher Virgil Wong started Medical Avatar to encourage patient engagement with their electronic health records. Just 1% to 2% of patients engage with their EHRs, he said, because when a patient logs in, he sees the same data as doctors. “You’re seeing test results and raw data—there’s a lot of interpretation required, and a lack of ability to use the data in a meaningful way,” he added. Medical Avatar creates systems that pull EHR data onto a virtual model of the patient’s body, creating a visual history of symptoms or procedures. This approach also gets patients more emotionally invested in their own care, thanks to something called the self-reference effect, said Mr. Wong. “Having patients using their own body as a model makes it a little more relatable and easier to process,” he said.[/dt_quote]

Crain’s New York is a leading print and online publication that offers breaking news stories, detailed statistics, and market analysis on over a dozen key New York industries. Crain’s Health Pulse is a daily newsletter on the business of health care.

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[dt_list_item image=””]Crain’s New York[/dt_list_item]

[dt_list_item image=””]Crain’s Health Pulse[/dt_list_item]

[dt_list_item image=””]January 6th Issue Featuring Medical Avatar (subscription required)[/dt_list_item]
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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!

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

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!

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