We spoke with Ian Gallifant CEO of Medelinked, a UK health platform which provides an open health network that aims to increase health care efficiency and effectiveness and to continuously improve health outcomes.
How did you come up with the idea?
Based in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, Medelinked was founded by Gallifant in 2005 after experience in the military demonstrated to him the importance of healthcare professionals being able to access quickly patient medical records initially the heath record was based on USB sticks but the idea quickly grew to take advantage of ubiquitous mobile and online connectivity and the increasing power and features of smartphones.
“Seeing that the future lay in mobile technology and the cloud, means that Medelinked is now in use in over 80 countries around the world,” says Gallifant. “And its success is because Medelinked ensures that an individual’s health record is secure, complete, under their control and always available at the point of care – accessible via PC, Apple Mac or any iOS or Android tablet or smartphone”.
How does Medelinked work?
Using Medelinked individuals can create and manage a health profile online that is secure and connect and share their health record easily with their network of trusted health partners and providers (including doctors, dentists, physiotherapists, trainers, insurers, clinical researchers) to ensure the best advice and care is given based on previous history, wherever they are around the world.
It also enables patients to communicate securely via email, voice, text, video and instant messaging with doctors and other medical professionals and allow medical professionals to securely connect and communicate with each other to get a rapid overview of their patient or client’s history – including being able to access medical reports, records, messages, x-rays and DICOM scans with automatic updating of patient records after every consultation.
Patients’ medical records are held securely using the Medelinked Health Cloud system. The user has sole control over the information that is stored and whether they wish any healthcare individual or organisation to view any part of their medical history.
The user can also choose any information they would like to store in a password-protected Emergency Records area, which a chosen family member or colleague can immediately access in the event of an emergency.
Ian Gallifant emphasises that managing all health data in one place helps individuals securely track, monitor and improve their health state. “It’s important that we are delivering this service now because we are now seeing a dramatic shift in healthcare – individuals have a heightened interest in their own wellbeing, are increasingly interacting with personal technology to manage their lives and in future health system will increasingly require this too.”
What systems does Medelinked integrate with?
Being an open, API-driven platform means Medelinked can integrate with most existing healthcare systems such as the current generation of EMR platforms and, for instance, is used with the Salesforce CRM system. It is already integrated at the personal level with health monitoring devices and services such as Garmin Connect, UP by Jawbone, Microsoft Band, Samsung S Health, Nokia/Withings, iHealth – with more to come – to enable users to record health and fitness data directly into their Medelinked health record
What else is Medelinked doing to expand its use?
Gallifant notes that the Medelinked Healthcare Innovation Exchange was established to bring together professional, purchaser, provider and pharma organisations with developers in a marketplace for those who want to improve consumer care via new applications on the Medelinked Platform.
Using the Innovation Exchange professional, purchasers, provider and pharma organisations can identify and commission a growing network of developers to create and co-create additional products and services as well as find already connected wearables, healthcare and commercial applications that are customised for the Medelinked platform.
What’s next for Medelinked?
Medelinked’s users base is expanding continuously with particular growth in the international private medical insurance market where a Medelinked-based service is offered by companies such as Aviva International and Integra Global. The Medelinked platform is also bring new efficiency and accuracy to the way clinical pharmaceutical trials are conducted through its partnership with BioClinica, but having proven the effectiveness of the platform Medelinked’s next big opportunity is to help change the way primary health is delivered in providers such as the NHS.
In providing this free service to patients, professionals and developers, Gallifant claims Medelinked is also building the world’s largest aggregated medical data platform for partner health solution development and research, a resource that promises to benefit patients and professionals alike as they seek to understand disease better and continuously improve outcomes.
- Thank you to Ian Gallifant for taking the time to talk to us.
