Know Your Number(r) Gives Doctors a New Tool to Increase Quality Care
Released on: September 15, 2008, 7:47 am
Press Release Author: Alison Beckwith
Industry: Healthcare
Press Release Summary: Primary care physicians are now using a breakthrough disease-specific risk assessment tool to improve communication with patients on chronic disease prevention.
Press Release Body: Research Triangle Park, N.C. – Primary care physicians are now using a breakthrough approach developed by BioSignia to enhance quality care in their clinical practice and make time with patients more productive. Called Know Your Number (KYN), it’s the first multi-dimensional disease-specific risk assessment tool to predict an individual’s likelihood of developing chronic preventable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.
“Know Your Number removes the emotional defensiveness the patient has when the doctor advises them on steps they need to take to improve their health," says Dr. David Michael, a North Carolina M.D. in internal medicine who has been using Know Your Number for over a year and recently started implementing it into his clinical practice. “After years of caring for a patient with a serious health issue such as obesity, this tool takes a difficult topic of discussion and turns it into a team mentality where I become a coach.”
With Know Your Number, the patient gets a detailed report that shows their specific risk levels by disease compared to their peers. This benchmark can be used to show the progress they’ve made after the initial visit. Doctors can also easily run the Know Your Number test without complicated software or hardware as it’s a Web-based system that only requires the Internet.
Using BioSignia’s assessment tool as a playbook, Dr. Michael has been able to foster team-like relationships with his patients, changing his role as a physician from a dictator to a team coach. The non-confrontational evidence that derives from using Know Your Number provides an effective tool in bringing preventive care to the forefront. Dr. Michael now observes his patients engage in the state of their health, which is a different reaction than before.
Dr. Michael says Know Your Number is an invaluable tool for physicians for several reasons: 1) It provides disease prevention with objective data typically already collected during a physical; 2) It assesses current level and potential improvement, not just fear motivation; 3) It compares patients among data/risk to age/gender matched peers; and 4) It’s easy brings preventive care and the patient’s ability to change into the discussion to implement into any clinical practice.
“Because of all the benefits, it’s not surprising that patient feedback has been very positive so far,” adds Dr. Michael. “And this tool is a major step in the direction of changing the sick care industry to a health care industry.” To learn more about Know Your Number, visit: http://www.knowyournumber.com *** About BioSignia, Inc Headquartered in Research Triangle Park, N.C., BioSignia is a leading technology company focused on bringing innovative predictive modeling solutions to the preventive health and life insurance markets. At the core of BioSignia’s flagship solution, Know Your Number is the company’s proprietary synthesis modeling approach to chronic disease risk prediction. In 2004, BioSignia received the Disease Management Association of America’s prestigious award for Best Enabling Tool for Disease Management. Since then, the company’s talented R&D team has continued to advance synthesis modeling, continuously updating it to reflect the ever expanding need for effective chronic disease prevention, management and treatment.
For more information,visit: http://www.biosignia.com
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