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BACK TO PERSPECTIVES

Amid COVID-19, Komodo Health Is Building for the Future

Komodo Health

As the world continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, Marc Andreessen recently asked a fundamental question: What will you build? 

At Komodo Health, we believe building is how we—as an industry, as a health system, and as a global community—will reboot. For our industry specifically, we see tremendous opportunities to build the tools today that will support our recovery tomorrow.

As a mission-driven organization whose “North Star” is to reduce disease burden, Komodo is looking at ways we can build and lead through this pandemic. We believe data, analytics, and software will play a critical role in building the solutions necessary to address the specific health system challenges of COVID-19, and of our recovery when we move beyond the pandemic.

Here are some ways we are working to end the pandemic:

Supporting COVID-19 clinical trials: In the midst of this global pandemic, we are supporting our customers in the race to develop effective therapies. By focusing on the largest concentrations of COVID-19 cases and at-risk patients, we have been able to pinpoint physicians who are currently the center of gravity in this fast-moving health crisis. In one example, we helped Karyopharm Therapeutics accelerate site identification in an effort to speed patient access to potential new treatments for COVID-19. They were able to begin dosing the first patient participant less than two weeks following the launch of the trial.

Mapping supply chain shortages: Former VA Secretary Dr. David Shulkin and former CMS administrator Don Berwick commended Komodo’s winning Pandemic Response Hackathon team for analysis to define the COVID-19 patient population, and then map drug utilization to predict supply chain issues as the pandemic continues. As Dr. Shulkin says, to-date we’ve been “flying blind,” and this kind of predictive tool will help not only in the current crisis but in better preparing for a future pandemic.

Projecting the “second-wave” impact of COVID-19: Using our Healthcare Map™, our team is mapping the ripple effects of COVID-19. So far, we have identified changes in ER utilization, spikes in drug demand, and steep drops in lab testing, with a high-resolution view of trends at the national, state, and county levels. We are working with clients and health system officials to prepare for what we believe will be the “second wave” impact of this pandemic as today’s limited testing will lead to a wave of poor outcomes in the months to come.

Tracking telemedicine trends: As shelter-in-place orders force healthcare out of hospitals and toward virtual appointments, we are tracking physician adoption of telemedicine. Our initial analysis found that half of the 133K healthcare providers who are using telemedicine have only started recently in direct response to COVID-19. This points to an industry need to support these physicians in their transition to providing virtual patient care. With more patients than ever before using telehealth services, it will be critical to track new health trends as they emerge in the telehealthcare setting.

On top of these initiatives, our Komodo Health Dragons include clinicians currently caring for patients on the front lines—with our full support to dedicate more time to their clinical practice. We have a non-profit executive creating technology education opportunities for kids in quarantine, and engineers who are spending their spare time on initiatives to produce more PPE.

We feel a profound sense of duty to our clients, our industry, and our world to keep a finger on the pulse of this pandemic and how our healthcare map and software-first approach can help us all address the current situation and better equip ourselves for what comes next. How can we prepare for re-opening our economy and returning to routine and acute care needs, today? How can we pinpoint where, and how heavily, increases in disease burden will impact our care systems, tomorrow?

As we do our part to prepare for the future, we remain laser-focused on our mission. We are building for today’s needs and tomorrow’s possibilities as we continue our work to reduce the global burden of disease.

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