A company helps in preventing mistakes by patients who incorrectly implement doctor’s instructions.
Errors can occur when prescriptions issued to patients are accurate and appropriate for them, but the patients themselves use them incorrectly and don’t use the medication in accordance with the doctor’s instructions. The Telesofia Corporation’s innovation – personal film clips created especially for the patient and according to his precise medical needs – assist in prevent such mistakes. “We instantly and automatically create a personal video clip for each patient, providing him with precise personal instructions. The clips are sent to the patient and he can view them repeatedly without restriction”, explains Dr. Rami Cohen CEO and founder of Telesofia Medical Ltd., and a physician by profession. “It is not merely for patients released from hospital, but also for any case in which there are instructions and information to transmit to the patients, such as a personal message, the display of the correct dosage in a syringe, the picture of the correct tablet to be taken etc. The film clips are presented to each patient in the manner most appropriate for him – demonstration on a model of the same sex, medical warnings relevant to the patient’s gender, the choice of appropriate audio for him, and others. The objective is that the patients watch the clips, fully understand the content and thereby know exactly what to do in order to perform the treatment in the optimal manner.”
“As a physician, I saw a tremendous need for this”, mentions Dr. Cohen. “I frequently met patients who didn’t properly understand the instructions prior to surgery or after receiving a prescription for medication to be administered at home. Naturally, this is the health system’s problem. We provide information on paper, in a format that is difficult to read, and in a professional jargon that is incomprehensible to the majority of patients. Telesofia’s objective is to make this important information accessible to all patients.”
As Dr. Cohen explains: “The technology that we have developed is capable of creating these instructive film clips in less than a second. We can then send them to the patients by a variety of means: as a link via SMS or e-mail, by integrating them in the health fund systems, or any by other convenient means. All he needs to do is press PLAY. The clips are issued to the patient by a reliable party – doctor, nurse or pharmacist – and remain constantly available for repeat viewing”.
Eight Films in Eight Days
Since 2011, the year in which Telesofia Medical was founded, the company has won many prizes and commendations. One of them is the Best New Product Innovation Award for 2016 granted by the international growth partnership company Frost & Sullivan. Telesofia’s product received an overall score of 9.5 out of 10.
“The previous year we won another prestigious prize from the Gertner Institute,” Dr. Cohen mentions. “From a business perspective, the success is mainly with world-leading pharma companies for whom we create patient support programs that include a series of tailored short video clips that are then sent to patients at a particular time and which contain instructions regarding each stage of the treatment.”
“Funds received from the Israel Innovation Authority enabled us to work on a further development of our technology – a sophisticated automatic system for patients with pneumonia, following their release from hospitals in the United States. For the first eight days, the patients receive clear instructions in accordance with the hospital records and the patient’s specific needs. These video clips offer a nurse an infinite range of possibilities, from which the individual patient receives eight clips at fixed and pre-determined intervals. The clips do not deal only with the manner of administering the medication, but also with the correct time for follow-up visits with the family doctor”, explains Dr. Cohen. Our final objective is that we become accustomed to receiving Telesofia’s video instructions just as we today receive the information leaflet in the package of the medication itself.”
An additional medical health system being worked in by Telesofia Medical is the construction of a personal calculator, intended for use by anyone, that provides various recommendations for improving his or her health. The product’s alpha version, developed together with the ‘Tribune’ (a giant American publisher and distributor) and with the support of the BIRD Foundation, has already been launched in the United States. This development is also based on features and animations that make up the personal instructive video clips.
“The development of personalized health care, combined with the global trend of helping patients leave hospital to receive better treatment at home, enables our company to expand and grow”, says Dr. Cohen. “Telesofia Medical is at the sales stage and the majority of our commercial activity is focused on the United States and Europe.”
“We are happy to support projects that aid the streamlining of the health system and the strengthening of the bond of trust between the physician and the patient”, emphasizes BIRD Foundation Executive Director, Eitan Yudilevich. “We welcome the Foundation’s investment in the Telesofia and MedAware projects in conjunction with their American partners Becton Dickinson and the ‘Tribune’ and wish them much success in their lifesaving mission.”