Aetna's acquisition of iTriage app bolsters mHealth platform for consumers and providers

December 19, 2011 Eric Wicklund, Editor, mHIMSS

Aetna’s reported acquisition of iTriage is sending ripples through the healthcare landscape, giving rise to the belief that mobile health platforms and tools will be integral to the success of the accountable care organization.

The Hartford, Conn.-based insurer made the announcement during an investor conference last week, adding to a health IT portfolio that includes Medicity, iNexx (which launched its first payer app for Aetna last week) and ActiveHealth Management. Company officials said the deal, which took months to complete and whose details are still largely unknown, offers an important patient engagement tool.

For the Lakewood, Col.-based mHealth startup (the company has changed its name from Healthagen to iTriage), the deal validates a long-standing belief that the future of healthcare lies in a more engaged consumer.

“There are a lot of HIT providers out there who are looking to help the physician or the hospital system, but connecting with the consumer is a key component in their long-term success,” said Peter Hudson, a co-founder and CEO of iTriage. “iTriage can integrate with a host of HIT environments to connect to the consumer and facilitate high-value transactions, like appointments or pre-registration. We offer a unique solution because the consumer is now a part of the (healthcare) equation.”

The iTriage app enables consumers to access, through mobile devices, information on thousands of symptoms and possible causes, then coordinate treatment plans and find the closest appropriate healthcare provider. It also offers detailed information on providers, including emergency room wait times, and the ability to schedule appointments. For the provider, the iTriage platform enables physicians and health system executives to push out information about their services and facilities and gain insight into what type of information consumers are accessing.

iTriage is billed as the market leader in mobile health applications – a field with hundreds of thousands of participants and a painfully low track record of success. But while other mobile apps are downloaded and used a few times or abandoned altogether, iTriage has been accessed by millions of consumers and includes a network of several hundred hospitals and tens of thousands of physicians.

“iTriage is a mobile application that is the market leader, market leading healthcare application with over 3 million downloads across the Apple iTunes and Android platforms,” said Charles Saunders, who heads Aetna’s Strategic Diversification business, in a presentation at the investor conference. “It is available worldwide and was created by a couple of ER docs (who) understood that consumers (are engaging) with healthcare differently (then they used to.)”

”We’re going to begin to change the healthcare industry by giving people tools they can put in the palm of their hand,” added Mark Bertolini, Aetna’s chairman, CEO and president, at the conference.

Saunders said the iTriage acquisition fits into Aetna’s plans to develop an accountable care organization, and that providers in the Aetna network understand that their patients need to be more engaged and informed to navigate the healthcare system.

“There is an extensive vision for the consumer experience, but we do think that patient engagement will be key to the relationship here,” he said.

Hudson said the Aetna deal “validates the consumer as being a critical participant in the healthcare system.” It also helps stress the importance of a connected network, allowing consumers to communicate with providers as well as payers.

“We’re entering an era where providers and payers are working more closely together,” he said. “In my opinion, Aetna is leading the way, in terms of connecting with providers.”

Both Hudson and Saunders said the deal would pave the way for new features, especially those focused on giving patients a better understanding of their healthcare costs and options and, according to Saunders “be a partner in reducing the cost of care.”

The Aetna-iTriage deal comes only days after iNexx’s launch of Aetna Connect, the Sale Lake City-based company’s first payer app. Aetna Connect is designed to connect the insurer with its network of physician practices, allowing them to communicate and exchange secure information in real time.

“Giving physicians a single point of communication with a payer is exactly the kind of targeted functionality that an iNexx app can deliver," said Robert Connely, senior vice president of innovation and strategy at Medicity, the creators of iNexx, in a Dec. 13 press release. “By bringing the right administrative and clinical apps to each physician practice, we are making it significantly easier for practices to do business and spend more time on patient care."