RootCauses Medical Clinic: Lab Data Management & Health Analytics Tools

Dr. Sara K. – Integrated Oncology @ RootCauses Medical Clinic in San Antonio, TX

Patient Health Data Management For Integrative Oncology

Root Causes is a functional medicine clinic with a specialty in integrative oncology based in San Antonio, Texas. The comprehensive whole-person approach at Root Causes is designed to find the underlying triggers of patient symptoms and use this data to help them return to good health. 

Whenever possible, practitioners at Root Causes utilize natural and holistic healing methods in their treatment. For example, they specialize in integrative oncology, which is an evidence-based, patient-centered approach to cancer care that combines natural products, lifestyle modifications, mind and body practices, and conventional medical and surgical treatment practices. The ultimate goal is to relieve current symptoms, reverse the progression of existing diseases, and prevent the development of future illnesses as much as possible.

Root Causes leans on the expertise of functional medicine practitioners. They are focused on identifying underlying factors contributing to their patients’ health challenges and creating a care plan tailored to their unique needs. 

Introducing Heads Up Health technology into their practice has helped Root Causes provide more efficient, secure, and timely care for patients. In turn, this has also strengthened provider-patient communication and patient empowerment to monitor their health. 

About

Root Causes was established by founder and Medical Director Dr. Derek W. Guillory. His personal history of health challenges early in life led him to be curious about helping his patients answer the question: “Why am I sick?” 

Today, Root Causes is a place people can go to better understand what’s going on with their health and navigate the best path forward. This includes access to many functional medicine practitioners, including physicians, nurse practitioners, psychologists, and lifestyle and nutrition coaches. 

Root Causes specializes in conditions related to: 

  • Cancer – Oncology 
  • Digestion
  • Inflammation
  • Autoimmunity
  • Heart Health
  • Metabolism
  • Skin 
  • Chronic Pain
  • Hormonal Imbalances
  • Body Composition
  • Mental Wellness
  • Athletic and Sports Injuries
  • Brain Health
  • Respiratory Health

They also welcome patients who have otherwise unexplainable symptoms and are seeking another perspective. 

Practice Challenges

Heads Up Health was able to work closely with Root Causes to specifically address challenges in their practice that were interfering with optimal data management for their patients, including:

Large Amount of Data to Manage

At Root Causes, providers obtain a long list of blood values as part of their patient onboarding process. While many oncologists and healthcare providers rely on standard markers like complete blood count (CBC), Root Causes goes far beyond this, also looking at ketones, thyroid, hormones, and inflammatory markers like C-reaction protein (hs-CRP). 

Additionally, they track a patient’s immune-related nutrients, like Vitamins A, D, and B12, zinc, selenium, and homocysteine, as well as enzymes and blood coagulation studies to help determine the best care plan. Urinalyses are also collected to evaluate levels of heavy metals, mold, and environmental toxins that may be present.

This results in a large amount of data to maintain, update, and evaluate for each patient. Doing so is essential to provide the quality of comprehensive care that RootCause providers seek, particularly for their integrative oncology patients and other complex cases.

Tedious Process for Patients

Most people are familiar with how challenging it can be to access your health records when you need them. The providers at Root Causes recognized that their patients have enough on their plate without adding obstacles to their own health data accessibility. 

For instance, the only way patients had access to their data was to log in to their portal and scroll through pages of PDFs of their lab work. This made it difficult to see progress and compare labs over time.

High Risk of Human Error

Before using Heads Up Health, the practitioners at Root Causes were manually entering patient data, like blood work trends, into a shared spreadsheet. This naturally made for a higher likelihood of human error given the risk of input error or accidental deletion.

Potential Security Risks

Given the use of shared spreadsheets that were not private, Root Causes practitioners had to be extra careful about what they were sending to patients using their previous system to ensure confidentiality.

Time-Consuming Data Entry, Comparison, and Sharing 

Root Causes providers noted that their original way of entering patient information and updating labwork was extremely time-consuming. Not only were they entering individual lab values (many of which extended multiple years), but they were also labeling them one by one with an H for “high” or an L for “low” to highlight any abnormal trends.

The process of sharing patient data with other providers was also tedious and required a lot of manual input. Furthermore, if they needed to compare patient labs, they would have to create two PDFs and compare them side-by-side and line-by-line.

Technology Solutions

The providers at Root Causes were seeking ways to reduce the amount of labor required to maintain and update patient records and redirect that focus back to what they care about the most: their patients themselves. 

Heads Up Health Concierge Lab Data Mapping Services is a done-for-you service that takes existing patient data and organizes it into a new system. Integrating it into the framework of Root Causes patient care has resulted in significant improvements in their data management. 

Root Causes patients can now access their data quickly using either an app or a web browser to log into a secure portal. Additionally, they have real-time access to their labs and can see when a change has been made. 

Heads Up Health automatically assigns “high” and “low” color values to labs so everyone can easily see if something is abnormal. Data can be easily viewed in a chart that shows how labs have been trending over time.

More Control and Accessibility

Heads Up Health offers significantly more control over what data is being seen on screen. This improves the organization of lab results and the visibility of important markers. No more guessing, endless scrolling, searching, or manually piecing together data points to determine health trends.

Overall, the implementation of Heads Up Health Concierge Lab Data Mapping Services has resulted in greater workflow efficiency, lower costs, and better outcomes for the patients and the providers at Root Causes.

Patient Care Outcomes 

Root Causes takes a whole-person approach to understanding, supporting, and treating their patients. The majority of the patients who find treatment at Root Causes establish long-term relationships with their care providers. 

Since the implementation of Heads Up Heath technology, patients at Root Causes report accessing and monitoring their health trends more frequently. 

The providers have also noticed that this has improved their ability to hone in on patient behavioral change, motivation, and adherence to their care plan. Streamlining the process of data management at Root Causes supports improved long-term patient outcomes.

Summary

Root Causes is a functional medical clinic leading the way for whole-person health advocacy and overall better patient care. They aim to help patients identify the underlying causes of their health concerns so they can make a targeted, comprehensive treatment plan. Whether you have a condition related to digestion, heart health, inflammation, or unknown origin, Root Causes is poised to offer a long-term and collaborative solution.

Heads Up Health worked with Root Causes to address their primary concern of inefficient, low-security, and time-consuming patient data management. The clinic now utilizes Heads Up Health Concierge Lab Data Mapping Services to efficiently organize patient data and make it easily accessible, for patients and providers alike.

Furthermore, patients are more empowered to understand what’s going on with their health, monitor their lab trends, and communicate with their providers about their experiences, wins, and challenges. 

If your healthcare practice is in a similar boat, our done-for-you data mapping services can streamline your data management process so you can fully focus on patient care.

Ready to explore the possibilities? 

Get started using Heads Up + Concierge with a complementary starter account: Sign up for a free account.

Have more questions?

Schedule a discovery call to talk with a Heads Up representative.

AndHealth tackles auto-immune conditions with digital therapeutics powered by Oura and Heads Up. 

AndHealth tackles auto-immune conditions with digital therapeutics powered by Oura and Heads Up. 

About AndHealth

AndHealth is a digital health company that treats patients remotely for chronic autoimmune conditions with a focus on root causes and participatory healthcare.

AndHealth was started by founder and CEO Matt Scantland, previous co-founder and CEO of CoverMyMeds, one of the largest healthcare technology companies in the United States. He was motivated to begin the company through his personal experience with a chronic condition, and how participatory healthcare can help reverse chronic disease.

AndHealth recognizes that health is largely driven by social factors including nutrition, stress, sleep, and movement. Their approach aims to stop autoimmune disease progression by addressing root causes. They also aim to reduce the need for biologics typically used in conventional medicine to manage autoimmune conditions, which have the potential to cause long-term side effects.

AndHealth uses remote patient monitoring powered by <ŌURA> and Heads Up to support clients on their journey to health through continuous and virtual healthcare. They utilize a multidisciplinary team including physicians, gastroenterologists, rheumatologists, and PharmDs with access to PhD researchers and individuals from the <Institute of Functional Medicine>.

Their  autoimmune reversal program launched in early 2023 initially focusing on migraines, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel diseases including Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis.

Business Challenges


Unlike conventional approaches to auto-immune conditions which rely mainly on pharmaceutical interventions, AndHealth emphasizes a root-cause approach focused on addressing and optimizing lifestyle factors (diet, sleep, exercise, stress) as the primary focus of treatment.

A technology solution was required which could remotely capture patient biometrics on diet, sleep, exercise and stress on a daily basis. This data needs to be relayed to AndHealth patients, providers and health coaches to enable real-time monitoring, patient education and remote health optimization.

Technology Solution

AndHealth partnered with Heads Up and Oura to develop a remote physiological monitoring solution for their auto-immune program.

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Oura Ring

Each patient in the Autoimmune program is equipped with an Oura Ring upon enrollment.

Oura Ring allows AndHealth to remotely capture important biometrics on a daily basis indicating how well each patient is managing their physical recovery, stress levels, sleep, and exercise.

The data points from Oura Ring are used in the program to identify when patients might be getting run down or sick which can lead to an increased risk of an autoimmune flare. The data is also used to help patients create tiny habits to improve sleep, movement, and stress management.

Heads Up

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The Heads Up platform holistically integrates Oura data from all patients into a centralized platform.

Patient-facing dashboards enable individuals to engage with their biometrics so they can learn how corrective lifestyle actions lead to improved health. Provider facing dashboards put Oura data from all clients on a single screen for fast and easy analysis.

Customized reports help providers track cohort outcomes and personalize the program for each patient. Alerts are configured to flag biomarkers that are trending out-of-range.  

Additionally, Heads Up is being used to centrally manage other forms of biometric data including lab results and other forms of objective and subjective patient-generated data.

AndHealth Coaches

At the core of the AndHealth auto-immune program are the health coaches that support clients on their journey toward optimal health.

These health coaches are trained through reputable health coach certification programs and work with AndHealth’s physicians to review patient data, educate patients and coordinate care.

Outcomes

Leveraging advanced wearables like Oura Ring with remote monitoring software from Heads Up opens up new treatment possibilities for AndHealth.

Powerful views into patient health outside the doctor’s office are now possible. Lifestyle factors contributing to a patient’s condition can be flagged and used for corrective action and patient education. Outcomes can be assessed using biomarkers like heart rate variability in addition to conventional biomarkers such as diagnostic lab results.

Let’s explore a couple specific examples.

Early detection

Patient A in their 60’s has psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. They started several supplements to improve gut health as part of their AndHealth treatment plan.

On March 17 the patient reported one of the supplements was causing gas, bloating and GI distress. On March 21 they started to have body aches, headaches and felt feverish.

Oura Ring measures temperature trends while sleeping. A sudden rise in skin temperature can indicate an auto-immune flare or impending illness such as an infection.

Upon review of their Oura data in the Heads Up platform (see figure x), the AndHealth team noted an increase in their temperature by 3 degrees along with a drop in HRV and an increase in respiratory rate and heart rate.

Figure X: Patient A – Heart rate variability, resting heart rate, temperature deviation and respiratory rate for patient experiencing GI distress due to COVID infection.

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The Heads Up platform flagged these abnormal readings enabling AndHealth providers to reach out with corrective action.

AndHealth encouraged the patient to get tested for Covid which can present with GI symptoms. The patient ended up testing positive and once their illness resolved they were able to maintain the supplement protocol without side effects.

Patient education

Patient B is a 55 year-old male engineer with significant family stressors. He has a “Type A” personality and manages stress with intense exercise. He regularly goes on long bike rides (16-30 miles) where he also incorporates high intensity sprints.

In this example, he went on three 30 mile bike rides with sprints. After the first bike ride, his HRV dropped and he started experiencing joint pain. By the third day he had to go on prednisone due to a flare of rheumatoid arthritis.

Figure <y>: Patient B – Decrease in heart rate variability due to overtraining correlating with physical symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis.

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Exercise in autoimmune patients is important and has been shown to improve depression and anxiety, improve fatigue and increase endorphin production to improve pain.

However, excess exercise can lead to microtrauma and trigger an autoimmune flare[1].  Finding the right balance of exercise for these patients is an important part of the treatment plan.

In this one instance, AndHealth was able to show the patient a graphical example of how excessive physical training was lowering his HRV and ultimately leading to an auto-immune flare.

Being an engineer, this patient was very interested in tracking and learning about his Oura data.  He was educated about HRV and now if he sees a drop in HRV after intense exercise, he modifies his workout to focus on activities that are more restorative. He’s had no further flares of his Rheumatoid arthritis.

Summary

AndHealth has created an innovative approach to the management and treatment of autoimmune conditions built on Oura Ring and the Heads Up platform.

The program integrates data from wearables like the Oura Ring and with conventional laboratory testing with a functional medicine approach to treatment.

AndHealth can help patients target the lifestyle behaviors that most impact the severity of their condition and reduce the use of conventional biologics for symptom management.

As a result, AndHealth has shown clinical data that support their protocol, increased patient engagement and satisfaction with the program and increased success for their patients and multidisciplinary team.

Interested in a similar solution for your practice?

Schedule a session with one of our specialists to demo and learn how to integrate Heads Up into your organization.

Mode+Method Validated New HRV+ Supplement

Mode+Method Validated New HRV+ Supplement

Supplement Brand Validates New HRV+ Supplement Using Decentralized Digital Health Monitoring Technology That Automatically Collects Sleep & Behavioral Data Through Wearables & Assessments.

Decentralized Health Research Platform

Introduction:

Mode+Method is looking to validate a new product in the supplement space aimed at increasing a customer’s HRV with a goal of rapidly scaling sales this calendar year.

Business Challenges 

Mode+Method primary challenges were finding users to test the product, the cost of collecting, managing, and analyzing health data, finding the right partner(s), with a flexible platform. Lastly, Mode+Method did not want to be limited into taking a rigid data collection and development environment.

The end result Mode+Method aimed for:

Mode+Method needed a device-agnostic flexible software solution that could automatically capture the health data they needed while also being able to analyze it in near real-time with ease. The goal was to produce health data that can be used to build trust by making objective claims in their sales and marketing materials. 

In the future, Mode+Method wanted a model that could be replicated for discovering product opportunities and validating new products that they develop. 

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We used the Heads Up platform to validate our new product targeting nocturnal Heart Rateto aggregate the study data from multiple wearable systems. The platform seamlessly ingested HRV and sleep data from Oura ring & other wearables, and the reporting tools made outcomes analysis a breeze.”

Don Moxley – Director Of Applied Sciences @ Longevity Labs (Mode+Method)

About The Industry 

The supplement industry is one of the most competitive and fastest growing industries in the United States. There are over 29,000 dietary supplements available in the U.S. market, with approximately 1,000 new supplement products being introduced to the market every year. 

Despite being such a large market, with an estimated 77% of Americans taking at least one supplement, 59% of global consumers want to see scientific evidence supporting supplement efficacy. Many factors play into this, such as legislation that limits the regulation of most dietary supplements, the presence of “snake oil” supplement brands that devalue the reputation of other brands, and limited research on the effectiveness of supplements.

The scientific awareness of the consumer has evolved post-COVID, partially thanks to new interest in longevity and immunity enhancement. Consumers are no longer only swayed by marketing techniques and older research on individual ingredients, consumers want evidence that the “specialty blends’ developed by supplement manufacturers work as advertised. 

For companies to succeed in this evolving market, validating their products and services with decentralized trials will be necessary to build trust with consumers’ purchasing decisions, answering the consumer’s authentic question of, “will this work for me?”

About HRV+

Longevity Labs, Inc, the parent company for Mode+Method, is a health and wellness research company specializing in longevity and human aging. They developed the supplement product HRV+ and designed it to optimize performance and boost Heart Rate Variability (HRV), a health marker associated with reduced morbidity and mortality. 

HRV+’s active ingredients include cannabinoids extracted from a proprietary hemp oil, curcumin, magnesium, and omega-3 oil. 

Business Challenges:

Since Mode+Method is a new supplement company, and they have aspirations to rapidly grow their new product (HRV+) in 2023. They needed a flexible research solution that is cost effective and quick to set up so that they could receive results back quickly. 

Mode+Method is focused on producing high quality supplements, and does not have the infrastructure to validate the product with an in-house technology solution. The complexity of organizing the study, obtaining participants, onboarding them, collecting the data and analyzing it needed to be achieved quickly, with help from a partner.  

Therefore, Mode+Method searched for a: 

  • Trusted partner who was well-connected to the wellness and supplement industry, and had experience in consumer health data analysis, all while providing top notch user service.
  • Research process that was simplistic both internally and for the participants.
  • Flexibility to try new ideas and possibly test new products easily.
  • Support with participant recruitment and onboarding.
  • Single platform that could accurately track biometric data from various inputs that could be easily analyzed at both an individual and cohort level.

Solution:

Heads Up Health worked with Mode+Method to create a solution that supported their research goals to validate their product (HRV+) and differentiate themselves in the supplement industry.

Collaboration & Support

  • Process Driven: Together, Mode+Method and Heads Up created a highly collaborative and process-driven study startup based on Heads Up’s experience. 
  • Accessible: Heads Up works closely with clients to provide an optimal research study experience. For this project, the Mode+Method team and HeadsUp met weekly during the first 4 weeks of their collaboration,
  • Top-Notch Customer Support: Heads Up provided consistent customer support, not just through study start, but throughout the duration of the collaboration to ensure a smooth user experience.

Speed: Up and running in weeks

  • The traditional research recruitment process can be tedious and it can take months for companies to get meaningful sample sizes of participants to validate supplement claims.
  • Heads Up’s team simplified the process for Mode+Method by developing a recruitment plan, creating a participant onboarding experience, streamlining the consent process, and creating a customized dashboard experience for data input and collection. Together, these solutions reduced the recruitment time so that the study could be up and running in weeks.

Turnkey experience for study subjects

  • Built into Heads Up’s system are safeguards against participant attrition, which can slow the speed of effective data collection. Heads Up is an easy to use platform, with both customizable and intuitive-to-use desktop/mobile interfaces for participants.
  • The system allows for low-burden data collection in the form of automated data collection. Heads Up also provides participants with a step-by-step guide concerning expectations and tasks required to be a part of the study. 

Automation & Data Visibility

  • Heads Up’s platform is an integrative technology built around continuous remote monitoring, and supports passive data collection from multiple wearable devices and apps all in one place. In addition to other collected biometric data, Oura Ring wearables were used in the study to accurately measure HRV and other health metrics.
  • Our platform can easily generate individual reports to hone in on the effects of the supplement on a person-to-person basis, but that’s not all.
  • Heads Up supports automated cohort analysis to ensure adherence to the protocol, help companies review macro trends across the subject population, and get real-time readings on how performance is trending – all at the click of a button. 

Tools In Action:

White-labeled web and mobile app to have unified branding.

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Participant Signup

Custom signup page to promote customer trust.

Custom Video Introduction

Welcome video introduction to build a rapport with the participant and educate them on what to expect.

Participant Walkthrough

Click-by-click platform walkthrough for each participant to ensure they understand the expectations and how to use the platform.

Easy click-button consent process to simplify the onboarding experience. 

Automated Data Collection

Automatically collected data from wearable devices like Oura that can be set up in seconds.

Assessment Feature

Collect pre and post-subjective data from participants.

Customized Dashboards

Only show relevant metrics to participants. 

Signals reports

Automated cohort analysis for quick decision-making and visibility
(ex: out of range tracker, performance snapshots)

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Results 

18 individuals were included in the initial cohort of the study.13 men, 5 women. The age range is from
28 to 70, average age=58.

  • Average baseline HRV score= 37.3ms RMSSD. Average score following protocol = 41msRMSSD. With average improvement of 13.24%. Results included individual improvement of 27.8%, 21.9%,17.4%, and 12.8%.
  • Average baseline AM readiness score= 78.7. Average AM readiness following protocol= 79.62 for an improvement of 1.1%. Individual improvements included 12.1% and 5.1%.
  • Average baseline sleep score 80.98. Average sleep score after protocol=82.81 for an increase of 2.3%. Individual improvements included improvements of 11.0 and 6.3%.
  • Average baseline for WHO (World Health Organization) well being survey prior to protocol=15.84. Average WHO Wellbeing score following protocol = 18.75 for an improvement of 18.4%.
  • All participants reported an improvement with individual improvements of 43%, 60% and 88%
HRV results 1

Takeaways 

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The Heads Up platform is the perfect solution for data-driven supplement companies who want to validate their supplement’s outcomes using near real-time tracking tools that quickly and easily quantify changes to users’ health data from an individual to the cohort level. If you are looking for software and support validating your supplement or health solution, schedule a discovery call with our support team and we’ll be happy to help you.

Are you looking to validate your health product?


Schedule a call with our Trials Specialist to find out how our program can work for you. 

Signals CGM Reporting Suite

Signals CGM Reporting Suite

Continuous Glucose Monitoring Analytics Reporting

Heads Up Signals provides health professionals with a suite of CGM reports to better monitor and manage their clients’ glucose levels. Through the master dashboard, individual drill-down, the Cohort Performance Over Time report, Out of Range, Week over Week Improvement dashboards and Data Export report, health professional teams can identify areas of out of range, fluctuations, and improvements quickly. These reports allow for tracking of trends over time, and help health professionals better understand their clients’ glycemic control.

With these automated reporting tools, health professionals can then use this information to motivate and inspire their clients to take positive and informed actions towards maintaining their glucose levels. Ultimately, Heads Up Signals provides a comprehensive set of reports for health professionals to efficiently manage their clients’ glucose levels.

These reports have been designed to provide users with a clear overview of all the CGM and glucose statistics of their practice in one place, enabling easy identification of individual users who may need closer monitoring. The reports also allow for detailed analysis of the performance of specific cohorts, helping health professionals see glucose trends over time and identify areas for improvement.

The list of Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) suite includes:

  • Reports Overview
    • Master Dashboard
    • Cohort Performance Over Time
    • Individual Drill Down
    • Out of Range
    • WoW Improvements
    • Data Export

Reports Overview

The Out of Range report is another useful feature that highlights instances where different users may be exceeding safe levels, providing an early warning of potential concerns. The Week over Week Improvements report enables users to monitor positive trends in glucose levels and highlight the success of individuals in their practice. Lastly, the ability to export raw data is perfect for those who wish to analyze the data outside the platform. Overall, these new reports offer a powerful toolset for professionals to manage patient glucose data and monitor changes in real-time, in one single platform. Sign Up.

Master Dashboard

The new CGM Glucose Related Stats Master Dashboard showcases four key stats: average glucose, standard deviation of glucose, the time and range between 70 and 120, and the percentage of readings above 140. These stats are conditionally formatted to support ease of understanding, with recommendations from the experts in CGM and glucose. Users can adjust the conditional formatting and stats according to specific requirements for their practice. This dashboard helps users to manage glucose levels and track glucose data for all users in their practice via a single platform.

Individual Drill Down

The Individual Drill Down Dashboard allows users to select a specific user in their practice to see changes in their glucose stats over a certain time period in a graphical way. The individual drill-down dashboard displays glucose stats such as average, standard deviation, time and range, and spikes in a tabular format. Users can see how these measurements have changed over time for the selected individual. The report allows users to identify fluctuations and take actions to improve glucose levels for the individual in question.

Cohort Performance Over Time

The Cohort Performance Over Time report displays the same glucose stats as the individual drill-down report but for the entire cohort. Users can see at a glance whether a new protocol or challenge is working for the population as a whole. Users can customize the report by selecting different time periods, granularity, specific users or groups using tags. This new report enables users to assess performance over time and quickly identify changes and fluctuations in the population, and make more informed decisions. Try it out for yourself.

Out of Range

The Glucose Out of Range report allows for health professionals to see who is out of range quickly and easily. Users can customize the report by setting criteria to define what you consider to be out of range glucose values. The report will then display readings where users go above or below the defined thresholds for a certain time period. Users can use this report to identify when users’ readings are out of range and engage in discussions to improve future readings. This report can help users take actions quickly and improve health outcomes.

WoW Improvements

The Week over Week Improvements dashboard is inspired by one of the health practitioners on the platform who used CGM in her practice, emphasizing the need to provide users with positive feedback to motivate compliance. The Week over Week Improvements dashboard is simple and shows on average for the week versus the previous week. What cohorts change in average glucose, standard deviation, and time and range have occurred. It also shows which users had the biggest metric changes in the positive direction, allowing practitioners to share positive feedback with these users for encouragement. This dashboard motivates users to continue with their actions and to strive for further improvements. Create a complementary account.

Data Export

This is the Data Export report that is part of the Continuous Glucose Monitoring CGM Reporting Suite in Signals. This report offers a simple solution for users to export raw glucose data for specific users or for all users over a designated time period. The exported data file is in a CSV friendly format that users can further analyze outside of the platform. This report is a straightforward solution for data export, allowing users to analyze and interact with the data outside of the software.

CGM Reporting Suite Conclusion

The CGM Reports inside Signals offer a comprehensive solution for Health Professionals to gain a deeper understanding of their clients’ glucose levels as a cohort and individually. These tools give Health Professionals the power to track client’s glucose levels more effectively and identify areas that could use improvement. Through tracking trends, identifying out-of-range values, understanding cohort performance and having access to easy data exports – Health Professionals are equipped with actionable insights that will motivate their clients towards better glucose levels for improved health.

Sign up for Heads Up’s Connected Health Platform today and try Signals in your practice. With Signals, you can quickly get valuable insights into your patients’ health status, helping you deliver better care, faster. Plus, it’s completely free to use with up to 3 users! Join now and experience the power of connected health.

Sign up here and try it out for yourself!

Using the Oura Ring with your patients

Using the Oura Ring with your patients

The Oura Ring is one of the most accurate wearable devices for tracking biometrics related to sleep, recovery, movement, and overall wellness. To follow are the various steps you and the patient will need to take to add the Oura Ring to your patient’s portal.

Connecting the Oura Ring to the Oura Application

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The first thing the patient will need to do once they receive their Oura Ring is download and connect the ring to the Oura application (IOS or Android). Please see Get Started with Oura for step-by-step instructions. 

Connecting Oura Rings to Heads Up Platform

Heads Up pulls the patient’s Oura data from the Oura cloud. The patient’s data is sent to the Oura cloud after the patient first opens the Oura application after awakening.  The Oura ring will sync to the Oura cloud each time it is opened during the day. 

Next, you will need to make sure your patient’s Oura ring is connected to Heads Up. The patient can connect Oura via the Heads Up mobile or web application. 

Once connected, you should see the patient’s Oura ring data on Heads Up. If the Oura ring data is not up to date for any reason, then you should ask the patient to force a manual backup of their Oura ring data to the Oura cloud using the below instructions:

1. Ensure WiFi or cellular data is enabled.

2. Go to the menu Icon_Bars.png on the Home Icon_Home.png tab.

3. Tap Settings Icon_Settings.png.

4. Below Account, tap ‘Back up all data.’

Interpreting the Oura Ring data

Oura rings collect and shares a lot of data. Below are a few of the metrics you should focus on.

Sleep

There is a modern-day misconception about the importance of sleep. We’ve convinced ourselves that anything else is more productive and frequently hear the expression “you can sleep when you’re dead.” 

Recently though, sleep science has been gathering steam and proving what should have been intuitive all along: that our bodies didn’t evolve to waste time. Sleep is central to health and performance. Although we remember little from our time asleep, our brains are firing and our bodies are actively repairing. During sleep, the brain consolidates memories and removes toxins, while the body stokes the immune system and regulates metabolism. 

The sleep hygiene movement is starting to have a social impact and people are waking up to the importance of investing in sleep. If you want to take better care of yourself, start by making your sleep a priority.

The research is clear that adults should get 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night. This range of sleep hours is based on years of research and is the standard set by the National Sleep Foundation. It’s been determined that chronic sleep deprivation can lead to a dramatic increase in the risk of cardiovascular disease and lead to weight gain, in addition to other health issues. 

Another important aspect of sleep that can help maintain optimal health and performance is sleep consistency. Ensuring consistency in your bedtime and waking time can make a world of difference. For example, going to bed early and waking up early during workdays can help improve productivity throughout the week.

Some individuals will wake up tired despite sleeping the appropriate number of hours due to restless sleep. Sleep Disturbances caused by wake-ups, get-ups, and restless time during your sleep can have a big impact on sleep quality and daytime cognitive performance. Restless sleep is less restorative than uninterrupted sleep and it is usually the cause of daytime sleepiness. 

Disturbances can be caused by various factors, such as stress, noise, partners, pets, or different foods. Here are a few tips to improve your chances of getting restful sleep: 

  • Optimize your sleep environment by making sure your mattress is comfortable and your bedroom is cool (~ 65℉/18℃), quiet, and dark. 
  • Avoid spicy, heavy meals, and alcohol close to bedtime. 
  • Avoid caffeine prior to bedtime and late in the afternoons. 
  • While regular physical activity can make your sleep more restful, try to avoid exercising at least 1-2 hrs before your normal bedtime. 
  • Help your brain and body to wind down by disconnecting from bright screens and dimming bright lights 1-2 hrs before going to sleep.

Recovery

From a circadian biology perspective, your day begins when you go to sleep each evening. Sleep allows the human body to recover from the physical and mental demands of the day. There are a number of metrics related to recovery, such as Resting Heart Rate (RHR) and Heart Rate Variability (HRV).

Resting Heart Rate captures the number of times your heart beats per minute while at rest. An abnormally high or low resting heart rate may mean you’re overly stressed and not getting enough rest, or perhaps your immune system is fighting something. 

Heart Rate Variability refers to the constant variation in milliseconds between your heartbeats. As popular as the metaphor may be, a healthy heart doesn’t beat as regularly as a metronome—it changes its rhythm with each beat. Some situations increase variation (high HRV), while others cause the intervals between beats to remain constant (low HRV). 

You may be unaware of these subtle variations, but they reflect your heart’s ability to respond to different situations. HRV can react to stress and/or illness before resting heart rate (RHR), which makes it one of your body’s most powerful signals—providing useful insights into your stress levels, recovery status, and general well-being. As a rule of thumb, high HRV is associated with rest-and-digest, general fitness, and good recovery, while low HRV is associated with fight-or-flight, stress, illness, or overtraining.

While individual days may be lower after high-intensity exercise, a night out, or a stressful day, if your recent HRV is on par with or better than your average, it’s a sign of good recovery. Monitoring HRV trends with an Oura Ring shows whether you are adapting or not to the “load” you are exposed to. This load could be new medications or treatment plans, or an increase in training load. 

Body Temperature

Body temperature is a key signal, as your body constantly generates and sheds heat to hover around your ideal temperature. This metric can act as a warning, signaling cold or broader health development like hormonal fluctuations. Very few wearables track this metric. One exception is the Oura Ring, which monitors your skin temperature while you sleep. This form of measurement is very close to your core temperature only while you are sleeping. You can also use one of the many digital thermometers to check your temperature right after you get out of bed. 

Movement 

Sitting is considered by many to be the new smoking due to the rising evidence that prolonged sitting can contribute to a range of diseases and conditions including: 

  • Cardiovascular disease 
  • Type 2 Diabetes 
  • Anxiety and depression 
  • Obesity
  • Elevated blood pressure 
  • Higher cholesterol 

The human body performs better with regular movement throughout the day. Even standing up once every hour and stretching or doing a few jumping jacks can bring enormous health benefits.

Additional Oura Ring Resources

Below are links to Oura blog posts and help guides that cover the Oura ring and associated mobile application.

https://ouraring.com/blog/sleep-score

https://ouraring.com/blog/readiness-score

https://ouraring.com/blog/activity-score

https://ouraring.com/blog/how-oura-measures-temperature

https://ouraring.com/blog/nighttime-movement

How Can Connected Health Technology Improve Patient Outcomes?

How Can Connected Health Technology Improve Patient Outcomes?

Daniel was completely shaken.

He was a man in his late 50’s. His brother, 63 years old, recently had a heart attack that scared the whole family. 

Thankfully, his brother got medical attention quickly. After a trip to the cath lab and a few stents, he’s been recovering well at home, all things considered. 

But the experience was a wake-up call for Daniel. 

Not only did he almost lose his brother, but his mom also passed at a young age from heart disease. He knew heart disease sometimes has a genetic component. With what happened to his mom and his brother, he knew he needed to get his heart health checked out. … And he’d be the first to admit that he hadn’t seen his primary in years.

But he had three kids at home. He had a wife. They all depended on him.

So he made an appointment with his physician. And sure enough, Daniel had pretty significant undiagnosed hypertension.

After a three-minute talk with his doctor where he was too stunned to begin formulating questions, he walked out of the office with a new prescription in hand.

But later, the questions flooded his head:

  • Was taking medicine just a part of his everyday life now?
  • Is there any way to lose weight, adjust diet, or exercise to decrease the dosage of medication needed?
  • What are the common side effects to look out for?
  • Is medicine the only way to treat hypertension?

He felt helpless and confused. All he knew was that he needed to take care of his cardiac health for the sake of his family. So despite his questions, he religiously took his meds. And thankfully he did start seeing blood pressures in the healthy range. 

If you’ve been a physician or a medical provider for longer than a few years, I’m sure you’ve had a patient like Daniel. While he did get the care he needed, there are definitely some gaps in the process. 

If you’re looking for a way to fill in those gaps and holistically care for your patients, implementing the connected health model could be the game-changer you’re looking for.

Here at Heads Up Health, we’re passionate about helping you help your patients. Which is why we’re also passionate about connected health. Let’s dig into exactly what connected health is, how it can help your patients, and how we’ve integrated it into our technology.

What Is Connected Health

Why did you first decide to open your own practice?

Maybe you wished you could do more for your patients… but you only had so much time to see so many patients.

Maybe your patient list was too long to remember each one… but you want to care for your patients on a personal level.

Or maybe… you became frustrated with how disconnected traditional healthcare can be.

Regardless of your reason, you made the choice to practice medicine in a way that feels more comprehensive and gives you more time with each patient. And that is so important to the patients you care for. This is why the connected health model could help you help your patients even more.

But what exactly does “connected health” mean? If you searched online for the term, you’d probably get at least 5 different definitions. And it’s hard to pin down an exact explanation, because it’s more of an attitude or frame of mind around healthcare. ¹

Basically, the idea of connected health is that the patient should be connected to their clinicians, and clinicians should be connected to each other, all keeping the patient’s health at the center.¹ Wellness and preventative medicine is highly emphasized in this model, as well as the clinicians meeting the patient where they are on a continuum of care.¹ In the connected health model, the patient is an active participant in their health plan.²

The term “connected health” is often used within the context of “telehealth” or “health technology.” While practices implementing connected health don’t necessarily need to be using technology to keep everyone connected, tech and telehealth companies have stepped up to help in a major way.² 

Heads Up Health Gives You a Connected Health Platform for Your Practice 

Heads Up Health is a company that uses technology to collect data from:

  • Clinically validated wearable devices
  • smart watches
  • health apps
  • lab results
  • remote patient monitoring devices, such as blood glucose monitors and blood pressure monitors

After collecting the raw data, it’s formatted and organized so you can easily analyze, make improved clinical decisions, and avoid medical errors. The more you know about your patients’ day to day health, the better you’re able to treat them. That’s why the data that’s extracted and organized by Heads of Health is so valuable. Plus, all of that data is displayed beautifully and clearly in one user-friendly platform.

4 Major Ways Connected Health Through Heads Up Health Benefits Your Patients

The connected health technology Heads Up Health provides not only makes your life easier, but it helps you deliver real results to your patients. Let’s dig into specific ways connected health through Heads Up Health can improve outcomes for your patients.

  1. It’s simple to use.³

Not only is the data clear and easy for you to use, it’s also easy for the patient to collect. In most cases, participation from the patient is nearly effortless. Often they simply wear a monitor, a smart watch, or click a few buttons in an app. Since most of us have our smartphones and smart watches on anyways, often these types of monitors and devices don’t disrupt our routines, which makes the data easy to obtain, reliable, and consistent.³

  1. There are fewer errors, and the accuracy of health trends are better than ever.⁴

The numbers collected from medical devices and smart devices tend to be much more accurate than self reported data.⁴ More accurate data results in more accurate diagnosis, and more appropriate interventions. It’s human nature to want to fudge the numbers on a medical form, or to forget to log a check on your blood glucose log. But with all that automated, the data is comprehensive and accurate. This gives you a realistic picture of the illness and a clear view of what next steps to take.

  1. Allows for more thorough monitoring of chronic diseases.

Because of the accuracy and consistency of the data collected through Heads Up Health, the way you monitor chronic diseases could totally change for the better. If your patients are forgetful or inconsistent in the past with self monitoring, this is a great option for them. 

As discussed above, remote monitoring takes so little effort on the part of the patient that collecting the data is easy for your patients.

Because of this, you’ll have the data you need to catch dangerous data trends before they turn into a hospital visit.⁴ In fact, one study showed that cardiac patients who received alerts to an app about their condition had a 16% decrease in overall hospital admissions.

The ability to more tightly manage chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease could add years to your patients’ lives, save them thousands of dollars in hospital visits, and improve their quality of life for years to come. 

Plus, many patients enjoy following along and seeing how their numbers trend. This encourages active interest and participation from the patient.³

  1. Remote patient monitoring makes care more accessible and often more affordable.

Remote patient monitoring through Heads Up Health brings healthcare specialists to remote areas where patients might not have care locally. This is a game-changer for individuals living in rural communities and less access to care.⁵ Since a patient can be virtually monitored from anywhere, this aspect of connected health truly connects patients to the care they need.³

Remote patient monitoring tends to be affordable for both the practice and the patient, breaking down some of the financial barriers to patients.⁷ Additionally, remote patient monitoring is reimbursable through health insurance, making it a win-win for everyone. Even cash-based practices have started moving to the payer system for RPM services due to the revenue generating opportunity.

About 60% of all healthcare organizations already use some type of connected health technology, and it’s easy to see why.⁶ It’s easy to use, has less errors, improves patient outcomes, and is highly accessible.

At Heads Up Health, We’re Passionate About Using Connected Health to Bring You Closer to Your Patients

Remember Daniel from the opening story? At Heads Up Health, we use connected health to help patients just like him by:

  • Makes connecting with your patients easy with our beautiful, efficient platform. Patient data is securely organized and succinct. This means your time with your patient can be spent educating and addressing concerns, instead of trying to make sense of the numbers.

    (The system can even be branded to your practice as well!)
Open Client Dashboard Chiba@2x

  • Providing you with effortless, pertinent data and trends. Changes in therapy are easy to assess. So if Daniel was your patient and lived in a rural area, you could potentially lower his medication dose, knowing that you can regularly track his blood pressure monitor to see if he’s tolerating the change. 
Clients Gladd@1x

  • Making compliance simple and encouraging patient participation. The simpler a tool is to use, the more likely a patient will use it. Since the remote patient monitoring features require little work from the patient, patient compliance is improved. Plus, patients often are interested in tracking their own health trends through the platform, encouraging the patient to be an active participant in their health plan. 
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If you would like to get started leveraging the Heads Up connected health intelligence platform in your practice, click here to register for your free account.

After registering you will get an opportunity to schedule with a Heads Up Data Architect to help you with setting up the Heads Up Connected Health Platform to get the most out of it for your unique practice.

Click here to register for free.

References:

  1. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1t5PtSvahfBokAvRAqqPIlkxUqqYMuvZ7
  2. https://watermark.silverchair.com/hct114.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAsQwggLABgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggKxMIICrQIBADCCAqYGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMQPuWN1kmad5QuN5YAgEQgIICd1jahlgSPo2ha7tld_8om-44BQ6SoiqVk-mK9Yfut7ehem6RxqhvaMlCbzFFklnd8C1OPyDsTrprL-HmkdaV0oJOA3xQfz3K7t4EFZJa3SDTJ9CRVhfomJws4OugCwd2Pzins1JalxFtfveG19y2fpqSOuNXQOViO_v1iAqI-AQ7gCHPamoF7AsgXqSt5xMqFgYJryLfa5TvhSJAWZdyoQTkPJyLUKUPxO2ler76sHEjQJZsvtyFitWVZ5ccy858ask8–cVDZhiLlR96GliykduJJomjNNgYs1Ppkg_zSe14dBzYWCpn9-jfRPbiLUrl7nQrmqefbjXNdYzwIGZPBwuwbuvGFlc991IV2uPFwCycwIJv5y7dm33f3v6QXFeC4ZfwwPddRR6UgKIxk5Ghdrgck7xnzFD6Wu3tw5oHkHd-dNNc47Q0tnGjyjPBV9jU6jx8jc2LIsKgMIG1X2YLQhZVNLYf_wd1BHSBdoY1ieCCbRuisC9I4YzqqDMDdS0UoQztndxQcMDKTkJaLS7HiPse5ACwW6V0sovogIOcvsOVnPn-2AWVHmRh3FP67xWMRA3FD5JREN4adoAq4Wvj-Mlh1caDsGlaoSbANqYTotMw8KBt_nIJzLaRAAssxuGtJthwIe5rsoWo6IDr9yB9Ptek_s_XUyPsrsXpF5kGrJY-LyO3KcRmcYfSd5U9kFr653aTzXrgHOMMa9tzrbvhsheWaH_XLPBT9NTTW1sSk1KyVCTKpd7o3hOc_wXHvkwIpOj4-vKZ199SCVDDQPPJ7siCWxF0oUWDKwMCNhhE9TaBDqlt_iZnXoYr72H-_WjfI-HGl9-NCU
  3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5701967/
  4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4272470/?report=reader
  5. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1t5PtSvahfBokAvRAqqPIlkxUqqYMuvZ7
  6. https://go.frontier.com/media-center/20-stats-and-facts-about-the-internet-of-things/
  7. https://aetonix.com/care-pathways/understanding-all-the-costs-of-remote-patient-monitoring/