News Release

Boston Medical Center partners with Engineered Care to reduce hospital readmissions

Business Announcement

Boston University School of Medicine

(Boston) Boston University's Technology Development Office, on behalf of Boston Medical Center, Northeastern University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has completed the exclusive license of Project RED (Re-Engineered Discharge) to Engineered Care, Inc. Project RED is a tool that can reduce hospital readmissions and associated costs by providing an After Hospital Care Plan and ensuring patients have individualized and appropriate discharge information. Project RED has been licensed to Engineered Care, Inc., to further the development of the technology and support the software that enables implementation.

Principal Investigators Dr. Brian Jack of Boston Medical Center and Timothy Bickmore of Northeastern University led the Project RED team and developed a software workstation that redesigns a hospital's discharge workflow process and facilitates the creation of a customized After Hospital Care Plan. The After Hospital Care Plan is an instructional tool containing information every patient should have upon discharge from the hospital.

In February 2009, the Annals of Internal Medicine published the results of a three year randomized control trial at Boston Medical Center that showed that use of Project RED reduced hospital readmissions by 30% and associated costs by over 33%. The team worked on Project RED for six years with funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health.

The Project RED team is currently conducting a second randomized control trial testing the efficacy of "Virtual Discharge Advocates," animated interactive characters that educate patients prior to discharge from the hospital, in order to further individualize and optimize the discharge experience.

Engineered Care, Inc. is a startup company founded by Chris Corio and Alex Martinez. Engineered Care's mission is taking innovative evidence-based medical research and translating it into software driven products for use by hospitals and insurance companies to improve patient outcomes, create efficiencies in the delivery of patient care, enable patients to better care for themselves, and to produce significant cost savings to healthcare system.

"Project RED is a clear example of the immense opportunity to improve healthcare outcomes and efficiency using new software paradigms. Engineered Care is extremely excited by the opportunity to use our expertise to develop and disseminate Project RED broadly at such a critical time when unnecessary readmissions are a problem costing the US billions of dollars annually," said Chris Corio, CEO and Co-founder of Engineered Care. "We believe that the license of Project RED by Engineered Care will allow us to create immense value for the healthcare industry, by helping to contain costs and improve patient outcomes, a rare feat for a healthcare innovation," said Alex Martinez, Co-founder of Engineered Care.

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For more information, email: info [at] engineeredcare.com or visit www.EngineeredCare.com.


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