By: Nish Chasmawala, CEO, Consure Medical, Inc.
Innovation and scientific breakthroughs are transforming the healthcare world. Despite the skepticism that is prevalent today, we will make more progress in improving care in the next twenty years than the last ten decades combined.
Background:
Consure Medical was founded to address the latent clinical need of fecal incontinence (FI) in non-ambulatory patients. FI is a clinical condition where the neuro-muscular apparatus of the anorectal anatomy is compromised, leading to the unwanted and untimely passage of bodily excretions. FI impacts more than 100 million patients each year and has an associated cost of care of over $20 Billion. Furthermore, there is a significant stigma associated with this condition that has a profound impact on the psyche of patients.
The goal of Consure Medical is to humanize this clinical condition and take a very patient-centric approach to develop novel management, diagnostic and therapeutic solutions. The company’s first product, Qora Stool Management Kits (SMK), is novel and has received accolades from patients, family members, and care providers, alike. The inherent technology of Qora not only alleviates the clinical complications in the form of dermatitis, maceration, and injury to anatomy, but its simplicity of design has expanded the coverage of use from ICUs and trauma facilities, to nursing homes, hospice care, and in select markets, even for patients that are at home.
Innovating with and for the Nurses:
The recognition of a vital problem and collaboration of care providers are the secret ingredients for innovation to take root and prosper. Prior to founding Consure Medical, the founders and inventors spent thousands of hours in hospitals following nurses to understand the larger treatment landscape in addition to their thought processes in triaging and prioritizing a myriad of care protocols available to them. The nurses worked closely with the technical team in designing product features, kit configuration, clinical programs, subsequent marketing claims, and peer reviewed publications. Since the launch of Qora SMK across care facilities in the USA, UK, India, and Israel, the team has incorporated additional nurses into the team. Consure Medical is preparing to launch its fourth generation (Gen IV) of product later this year.
Nurses are deeply appreciative of the high-quality product designed by the development team at Consure Medical. The product prevents nurses from carrying clostridium-difficile pathogens into their homes and to their families.
Our unique and mutually beneficial collaboration with nurses is helping them prevent the spread of nosocomial infections related to blood stream, surgical site, urine and clostridium difficile, saving the hospitals over $30,000 per infected patient. The advent of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), linking hospital acquired complications and infections to the overall reimbursement, has created a tremendous pull for the novel product. Independent studies conducted by nurses show a far greater improvement in quality metrics than those predicted and claimed by Consure Medical.
Managing Condition to Disease Management:
Consure Medical is now collaborating with thought leaders at key hospitals to deliver on its vision of becoming a leading lower GI disorder management and treatment company. The company has developed a technology platform that enables the nurses to not only manage the incontinence episodes, but also provides them with additional tools for definitive therapy selection and deployment. This technology is data driven, relies on proven pharmacological principles, interfaces well in the current care regime, and has integrated optimization modules.
The technology has the potential to improve diagnosis and treatment for patients suffering from profuse incontinent episodes, and reduce the overall length of stay in acute care settings by over 25%. Furthermore, the technology can reduce mortality by over 15% and significantly avoid comorbidities with longer hospital stays.
Another area where Consure Medical is contributing immensely in healthcare is towards a better understanding of the gut microbiome. Often times, patients preemptively make certain diet modifications that may either not be helpful in recovery, or even worse, may be harmful in the long run. While there are benefits related to a short-term cleanse of the GI tract, its long-term impact has not been well documented. While clinical conditions like sepsis or major infectious bouts offset the microbes in the GI tract, a reverse fluctuation may be equally harmful.
As Consure Medical continues to scale Qora SMK, the company will soon become the largest repository of gut microbial samples and perhaps even data. The goal of the company is to build on its collaboration with care providers and develop novel data driven therapies for the diagnosis and treatment of Irritable Bowel Disease, Celiac Disease, Crohn’s disease, etc.
Future of GI Diseases:
Evidence based medicine has long been the mantra for nurses and care providers. With the advent of powerful analytical tools, the patient’s baseline data now can be analyzed against a larger dataset of evidence before making comprehensive clinical decisions. We envision that such an approach will help nurses refine their care protocols and will further help them to make faster and more accurate clinical decisions on complex patients with multiple comorbidities. The microbiome is more complex than genetic cells – some even refer to it as a new organ. We have not even scraped the tip of iceberg when it comes to GI disorders and the linkages with neuro (gut-brain research is witnessing an unprecedented investment), and the impact on other inflammatory diseases. All of us at Consure Medical are excited to be part of this ecosystem and positively impact healthcare in our own way.
