For some people fortunate enough to be well, they may want to engage with daily lifestyle choices that increase their chances of staying well.
For those people diagnosed with a chronic condition they want to manage, life is more complex beyond managing daily white carbohydrate intake, fat calories, and pedometer-measured steps.
For people with diabetes or MS or ulcerative colitis, there are potentially hundreds of small decisions made daily that impact health, for better or worse. Some of those choices are if, when, and how much to take of prescribed medications.
Keas has been partnering on phone-based care plans with Dr. Greene, the pediatric expert; DiabetesMine, the pioneer portal for engaged diabetics; Healthwise, the proponents of information therapy; and, CVS MinuteClinic, the pharmacy retailer.
This week, Keas announces a partnership with Pfizer, the largest research-based pharmaceutical company in the world. Here’s the press release on the Pfizer website.
Health Populi’s Hot Points: This arrangement is an important event for the pharmaceutical industry: it demonstrates one Big Pharma company’s willingness to engage more closely with patients beyond the prescription pad.
Based on the press release, Pfizer sees working with Keas as a way to help their prescribing physicians support patients outside of the physical physician practice. Furthermore, this bolsters participatory health in that patients can bring their Keas Care Plans back into the physician office dialogue during an office visit.
On a separate note, I’ve confirmed the fact that Keas will be releasing an iPhone app sometime in 2010. This will increase Keas’s mobility off of the desktop and phone web browser, further enhancing health citizens’ ability to bolster healthy choices on-the-go.
Watch this space. Keas will continue to develop innovative partnerships, all with an eye toward empowering and supporting people in their personal health journeys, whatever their individual goals.