BASIICS

(Biothreat Active Surveillance Integrated Information and communication System)

Stanford Hospital Pilots Cutting Edge Bioterrorism and Public Health Surveillance Technology

October 30 2001 -- Health Hero Network, Inc. has announced that Stanford Hospital will be among the first in the nation to pilot BASIICS, a cutting-edge public health surveillance technology developed by Health Hero Network. BASIICS stands for Biothreat Active Surveillance Integrated Information and Communication System. This new technology will enable public health agencies to monitor in real time selected signs and symptoms reported by patients coming into the Emergency Department and to look for syndromes or patterns of symptoms that could indicate a bioterrorist attack. BASIICS also can be used to track influenza, diarrhea, and other infectious disease outbreaks in a population.

"Emergency Department personnel are likely to be the first to encounter unusual patterns of illnesses that could result from bioterrorism, but many of the initial symptoms are non-specific, such as fever and rash," said Eric L. Weiss, MD, Emergency Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Stanford. "Public health departments have instituted syndromic surveillance programs to look for unusual patterns of symptoms, but until now these programs have been low-tech, slow to detect outbreaks, and have required significant staff time and paperwork. BASIICS is exciting because it provides both real-time patient monitoring on the front lines of our healthcare system and is also extremely simple and cost-effective." Dr. Eric Weiss added, "We can't ensure disease outbreaks will never happen, but just that they're caught right away."

Mountain View, Calif. based Heath Hero Network designed BASIICS based on its patented and proven remote health monitoring technology platform, recently awarded "Best Telehealth Technology" by the Health Industry Management Systems Society for its use in remote patient monitoring and disease management. The Health Hero® technology consists of Health Buddy®, a simple and convenient four-button survey device that plugs into a standard phone line, and web-based applications for programming new questions and for analyzing the resulting data. When used for syndromic surveillance, hospital nurses simply press buttons to respond to a series questions about patient symptoms displayed on the Health Buddy screen. The data is transmitted via a phone line to an offsite secure data center. Doctors, researchers, or government agencies can then aggregate and analyze data in real-time using a standard Internet web-browser.

"Health Hero Network is providing tools that will enable our public health officers and epidemiologists to constantly survey the medical front lines and be able to statistically analyze that data in real-time," said Steve Brown, CEO of Health Hero Network. "Stanford is leading the way in helping to prove this new model for active and dynamic disease surveillance that will make our country safer and improve our public health."


About Health Hero Network:


Health Hero Network, Inc., based in Mountain View, California, develops and markets the industry leading technology platform for remote patient communications, monitoring, care management. The Health Hero platform includes Health Buddy®, a simple and convenient appliance used for data collection and communications about patient symptoms and behavior without placing a burden on either patients or healthcare providers. The solution also includes a secure data center and web-based applications that enable healthcare professionals to analyze the resulting data. The platform is currently being used for over a dozen major medical conditions. As a pioneer in health monitoring technology for over 10 years, Health Hero Network has been awarded over 45 patents on its innovative technology. Health Hero Network licenses its platform to medical technology and services companies seeking a technology blueprint proven to enable better care at lower cost.

 
 
 
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