NEWARK, N.J. (PRWEB)
Digital health startup Citus Health shines at the 4th annual conference co-hosted by the New Jersey Innovation Institute and the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute.
New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII) announced today that Citus Health, a rising digital health startup focused on digital transformation in the post-acute care industry, was awarded the $5,000 top prize in the Patient Engagement Challenge tied to this year’s Healthcare Innovation Showcase.
The showcase, co-hosted by the New Jersey Innovation Institute and the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute (NJHCQI), included an open call for innovative solutions that could bridge the patient/provider engagement gap, and were also compatible with Health Level Seven’s (HL7®) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) standard.
“I want to thank NJII and NJHCQI for inviting us to demonstrate the value of our Call Bell solution at this event. We’re eager to help post-acute care providers streamline their workflows to facilitate better clinical outcomes for patients, while lowering costs,” said Melissa Kozak, RN, CRNI, and Founder of Citus Health.
Citus Health received the highest score from a panel of judges from Hackensack Meridian Health, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, NJHCQI and NJII. The judges gave Citus Health high marks for its ability to show workflow automation, patient self-service, and improved communications between patients and providers while maintaining full HIPAA compliance.
“The goal of the contest was to find companies that are advancing interoperability to achieve the healthcare triple aim of lowering costs, improving health outcomes and enhancing the patient experience,” said Tomas Gregorio, Senior Executive Director of NJII’s Healthcare Delivery Systems iLab. “Citus Health proved their product is a cost effective and easy solution that improves health and strengthens the patient/provider relationship. I congratulate them on their strong performance in our contest.”
The $5,000 award was presented at the showcase to a room of more than 300 conference attendees, and comes with the additional opportunity to pitch the product to executives at the Hackensack Meridian Health system.
“Citus Health demonstrated that Call Bell can bring healthcare closer to the consumer, which was a key topic of opportunity at the showcase,” said Linda Schwimmer, President & CEO of the New Jersey Healthcare Quality Institute. “As advances in interoperability continue to drive reform in health care delivery, it became obvious that Citus Health has the ability to make care delivery more efficient for patients, physicians and clinical staff. The company is a deserving winner of the Patient Engagement Challenge.”
Citus Health was founded in 2016 by Melissa Kozak, RN, CRNI®, after she witnessed first-hand the frustration that builds among patients, clinicians, and caregivers as they struggle to effectively connect with each other while undergoing and providing treatment. According to Kozak, “The problems are magnified even further when treating patients outside of a traditional care facility, such as with home infusion and hospice care. I was determined to build a better solution after spending years dealing with process-related obstacles that caused real pain for my patients and colleagues, both in quality of care and lost resources like time and money. I was fortunate enough to connect with a talented CTO, Shahid Shah, and Citus Health was born.”
Even before their win, the NJII team recognized the potential of Citus Health team, recruiting them to participate in the 8th cohort of the Health IT Connections program, a business development and training program for scale-up health IT companies.
ABOUT NJHCQI
The New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute is the only independent, nonpartisan, multi-stakeholder advocate for health care quality in New Jersey. The Quality Institute’s mission is to undertake projects and promote system changes that ensure that quality, safety, accountability and cost-containment are closely linked to the delivery of health care services in New Jersey. Learn more about us at https://www.njhcqi.org. Check out our blog, SchwimmerScript and view our most recent Impact Report. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
ABOUT CITUS HEALTH
Citus Health delivers modern software solutions that help post-acute care providers transform traditional workflows into efficient digital processes. Its Call Bell® solution offers HIPAA-compliant messaging, electronic signature, supply-capture, scheduling, and patient education for the post-acute care industry. For more information, visit http://www.citushealth.com.
ABOUT NEW JERSEY INNOVATION INSTITUTE
New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII) is an NJIT corporation that applies the intellectual and technological resources of the state’s science, technology and design university to challenges identified by industry partners. Through its Innovation Labs (iLabs), NJII brings NJIT expertise to key economic sectors, including healthcare delivery systems, bio-pharmaceutical production, civil infrastructure, defense and homeland security, and financial services.
The NJII Healthcare Delivery System’s iLab is committed to improving healthcare through innovative programs and services including the Garden Practice Transformation Network that is moving nearly 10,000 physicians from fee-for-service to value-based care as part of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Transforming Clinical Practices Initiative. Through the program, NJII will save more than $155 million in healthcare costs and improve the lives of more than 500,000 patients with chronic illnesses. The iLab is also driving the healthcare technological revolution through the New Jersey Health Information Network (NJHIN), a shared services platform developed by the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) and powered by NJII that is enabling statewide data sharing by connecting health information exchange organizations (HIE/HIO), hospitals, and clinicians together though admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) alerts, immunization data, and a Master Person Index that uniquely identifies patients across the healthcare continuum. The iLab also partners with physicians to help them report on Federal and State administered quality improvement programs, including the Merit-based Incentive Payment Program (formerly Meaningful Use and Physician Quality Reporting System), the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment Program, and Accountable Care Organizations. Over the past six (6) years, the iLab has helped member providers receive more than $100 million in incentive payments. In 2016, NJII’s member hospitals received more than $47.6 million in incentive payments.
NJII also recently opened a new state-of-the-art Agile Strategies Lab on the NJIT campus. The lab is designed to help create and launch the next wave of problem-solving in health care and other industries by advancing, managing, capturing or commercializing ideas.