The downfall of a developer of mobile apps for chronic care management could be a sign of things to come, as the rising tide of apps runs headfirst into a still-tenuous market.
Spectrum Health is shutting down Ideomed, the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based company it launched in 2010. The 26-employee company expects to close fully by the end of the month, MiBiz and numerous media outlets reported, through officials said Ideomed's apps will be used in the 11-hospital, 1,700-site health system and its associated health plan, Priority Health.
Spectrum Health CIO Patrick O'Hare said the apps will be included in a digital health strategy for patient care slated to be launched this year.
“We have a significant number of projects in the digital space,” he told MiBiz.com. “We still very much believe in the technology (Ideomed developed) and are going to leverage it for our members and patients.”
Ideomed is best known for developing the Abriiz app, available on smartphones and tablets to help in the management of chronic conditions like asthma (for which it was originally developed), diabetes, obesity, congestive heart failure and COPD. The platform faced competition from a large number of mHealth companies, all targeting the growing chronic care population.
Ideomed CEO Keith Brophy told MiBiz.com called the company's arc an "incredible journey of product evolution."
“We evolved it the point where it just made sense to roll into Spectrum Health," Brophy added, alluding to the intense competition in the space and an inability to gain market traction or venture capital funding. "You could look at it in a way where the product kind of grew up and now is ready to go onto its next era."
Ideomed's closure could be the beginning of a trend, with myriad companies in the space jostling for acceptance and healthcare providers still reluctant to take on new technology.
In truth, mHealth is still running behind big-budget items like EHR adoption and health information exchange on C-suite priority lists, and the case studies that show cost savings and improved clinical outcomes just aren’t that common yet.
To wit, Brophy said that sales of Ideomed's products "were not at the extent that would justify the continued independent evolution of the company." Spectrum Health officials, meanwhile, said they feel the mHealth market is still a couple years away from full maturity.
“We did not believe that based on where the market is at, where the VC environment is at, and the level of response we were getting, that it was prudent to continue to fund this in a manner we had,” O'Hare told MiBiz.com. “It was unfortunate, but it was one of those (decisions) that just realistically we needed to change the direction in terms of how things were evolving."
