MTJ: What is the current focus of your company's business?
Stephenson: iGuard is a free on-line service that helps patients stay informed and share feedback about their medications (including prescriptions, OTC drugs, and supplements). iGuard.org was launched in the Summer 2007 and currently has 10,000 enrollees.
Specifically, iGuard is designed to:
• Routinely check the safety of a patient’s medications, screening for drug-drug and drug-health interactions
• Alert the patient (and their doctor if desired) when important safety information emerges
• Provide an easily accessible health summary that can be shared across providers
• Facilitate better communication between patients, researchers, and physicians to help make medicines safer
MTJ: How has this focus changed in the last 2 years?
Stephenson: iGuard was launched in the summer of 2007, but the concept of empowering patients to take control of the medicines they are taking has been my passion. The service itself is continuing to evolve as we collect and report more user-generated data on medications. Coming in the first quarter of 2008 will be patient satisfaction measures and patient feedback on significant side effects.
MTJ: What are your current initiatives?
Stephenson: iGuard is currently focused on increasing enrollment of patients through a variety of outreach efforts -- social and trade media, partnering opportunities (pharmacy, employers, insurers), on-line marketing activities, etc. Having successfully conducted pilot research activities with the network in late 2007, iGuard plans to roll-out custom safety research studies in the second quarter of 2008.
MTJ: How has your market segment changed over the last year?
Stephenson: While we are seeing initiatives related to electronic medical records, electronic prescribing, and other on-line ventures increase in the marketplace, iGuard remains the only program to provide a conduit for two-way communication directly with the patient. Patients communicate information on their medicines to iGuard and iGuard provides personalized Risk Ratings and Safety Alerts back to the patient.
MTJ: What are the greatest challenges for your customers in adopting and implementing technology for your customers?
Stephenson: Based on market research conducted December 6th through December 9th 2007 with 220 patients taking prescription medications, the biggest barrier to patients enrolling in the iGuard service is their hesitancy to share healthcare information on-line (mentioned by ~25 percent of respondents not enrolling in the service).
MTJ: How are you helping your customers address these challenges?
Stephenson: We are preparing to roll-out a second generation website that is easier to navigate and contains more content regarding the patient medication experience. Similar to the first version of the site, we prominently feature a page that explains iGuard’s commitment to privacy.
MTJ: Describe your company's position in the industry with regard to the solutions you deliver.
Stephenson: Every year, more than 100,000 Americans of all ages are hospitalized because of reactions to their medicines. In fact, drug reactions are the 5th leading cause of death and disability in the United States – right up there with cancer and heart disease. iGuard was developed to help address this problem by allowing patients to stay informed and share feedback about their medications. iGuard is the first personalized drug safety service developed for consumers. And, by monitoring outcomes across the iGuard community, we can help the FDA and other researchers identify problems faster than ever.
MTJ: What do you believe to be the state of the industry in terms of growth, maturity, and availability of viable products to address the technology needs of the medical community?
Stephenson: The availability of technology products to address the needs of the medical community is evolving rapidly. The industry will look much different five years from now as patients become more comfortable sharing health care information on-line, use of electronic medical records becomes more prevalent, and electronic prescribing replaces the familiar prescription notepads.
The beauty of iGuard is that the service can evolve as medical technology advances. We are actively engaged in discussions with electronic medical records and electronic prescribing companies to integrate our drug safety information service into their platform. We foresee a day when a doctor can simply ask if their patient would like to receive safety alerts and updates and consenting patients would have their medications and history transmitted to iGuard.
MTJ: What advice would you offer to organizations attempting to implement any technology project?
Stephenson: There comes a time in the evolution of a project when you must “go for it” and continuously improve the site once it is live. In the case of iGuard, the public health need for better communication on drug safety was so strong that we went to market with a limited number of features. Now that iGuard.org has 10,000 patients enrolled, we are actively expanding the content of the site to include more patient-generated feedback.
Hugo Stephenson is the CEO and Founder, iGuard. He is an internationally recognized leader in late phase study design, active post-marketing surveillance, and technological methods to improve drug development.
