December 6, 2021 -- InvestorsHub NewsWire -- NetworkNewsWire
Editorial Coverage: Keeping up with precise documentation and a
myriad of regulations is not only burdensome for physicians, it
also restricts important physician/patient interaction and limits
accurate and compassionate patient care. Many in healthcare believe
it is the single largest pain point in the physician/patient
relationship. The idea of outsourcing this task to third parties
that have the resources and expertise to generate the requisite
documentation much more cost effectively seems like a rational
economic division of labor. And make no mistake about it,
technology is increasingly tipping the scale in favor of virtual
documentation solutions with the latest advances in automatic
speech recognition (“ASR”) and natural language processing
(“NLP”). These technologies are integral to the virtual
documentation solutions developed by Augmedix Inc.
(NASDAQ: AUGX)
(Profile). A pioneer in virtual, real-time,
medical-note documentation, Augmedix is “re-humanizing healthcare”
and alleviating healthcare system pressures with its unique digital
health platform that provides virtual medical documentation and
live clinical support. The company is at the vanguard of the next
generation of technologies being integrated into a healthcare
marketplace that is notoriously cautious to make changes. Along
with Augmedix, others in the sector, such as Vocera Communications Inc.
(NYSE:
VCRA), Phreesia Inc. (NYSE:
PHR), American Well Corporation
(NYSE:
AMWL), and DarioHealth Corp. (NASDAQ:
DRIO), are leading a transformational shift in
healthcare to a more efficient standard of care, office practices
and data management.
- Augmedix estimates physicians doing status-quo documentation
cost up to $100 billion annually while contributing negatively to
patient, job satisfaction.
- Using smartphones or Google Glass in combination with AI, ASR
and other cutting-edge tech, Augmedix frees up physicians to focus
on patients.
- Augmedix Ambient Automation Platform (“AAP”) is a turnkey
solution to easily, securely generate patient medical records in a
cost-effective manner.
- Augmedix sees its total addressable market as 295,000 U.S.
physicians, which equates to approximately $6 billion in annual
revenue.
Click here to view the custom infographic of
the Augmedix Inc. editorial.
Free Physicians from Tedium
Today’s healthcare standards are ripe for innovation for a
multitude of reasons, including the most important: better patient
care and improved outcomes. New practices and systems are also
needed to lessen the financial drain on an already-strained
healthcare system. And then there are the physicians themselves.
When physicians are allowed to focus exclusively on being a
physician, they can save up to three hours per day (that’s 33% of a
typical day), improve
productivity by as much as 20% and increase satisfaction
with work-life balance by more than 40%.
Not much emphasis seems to go into the state of mind of
the more than
one million physicians practicing medicine in the United
States, but it should, considering the implications of exhaustion
or frustration. Physician burnout is very real, costing the
country some $4.6
billion every year.
A primary culprit is documentation. Ever notice how much time a
physician is on a computer during an office visit versus time spent
actually interacting with a patient? Augmedix
Inc. (NASDAQ:
AUGX) estimates that physicians working on their
own documentation cost the U.S. healthcare industry as much as $100
billion each year, while simultaneously lowering efficacy and
satisfaction for both the physician and patient.
Augmedix’s Ambient Automation Platform (“AAP”) removes the
documentation burden and turns the focus to the patient by
providing physicians with smartphones or Google Glass units that
access the Augmedix platform. The physician opens a secure
communications channel through the Augmedix-supplied device, and as
the patient and physician interact naturally, the device transmits
the audio and video to the platform. The data then runs through the
company’s proprietary technology and is turned into a medical note
that lands in the patient’s medical records, all without the
physician having to manually type during visits.
From small practices to major healthcare enterprises, the
platform makes economic and practical sense, while also maintaining
the highest degree of security. At a time when in-person solutions
are losing favor to virtual solutions, Augmedix is delivering its
medical note solutions and a suite of associated products to
companies throughout the healthcare spectrum across the United
States.
Meeting EHR Demand, Following Telemedicine
Trends
Augmedix’s platform is compatible with more than 35 specialties
in a variety of healthcare settings. The tech is agnostic to any
app a physician uses for telemedicine visits, a trend that boomed
during the COVID-19 pandemic and will almost certainly remain
entrenched in healthcare operations moving forward.
How quickly the data is processed is up to the physician. When
Augmedix’s real-time service is selected, trained
medical-documentation specialists review the conversation as it
occurs and collect pertinent data in a software application named
Notebuilder. From there, Augmedix’s proprietary AAP, which
incorporates structured data models, ASR, machine learning and NLP,
converts the inputs into a medical note that is then immediately
uploaded into the patient’s electronic health record (“EHR”) for
sign-off by the physician shortly following the end of the
patient’s appointment.
When the asynchronous offering is chosen, the conversation
between the physician and patient is recorded and passed through
Augmedix’s ASR software model. The text output is edited by
specialists and further processed by Notebuilder into a
comprehensive and accurate medical note before returning to the
physician, typically by day’s end or the next day.
Market Opportunity
The healthcare market is rife with buyouts and mergers. In
April, Microsoft agreed to
buy healthcare cloud and AI software company Nuance
Communications at a 23% premium in a deal valued at $19.7 billion.
The buyout was the latest move by Microsoft to get in front of
medical trends as part of its Microsoft
Cloud for Healthcare unit introduced in 2020.
In what may well be another multibillion market opportunity,
Augmedix estimates its total addressable market to be approximately
295,000 physicians in the United States, which would translate to
about $6 billion in annual revenue. To that point, the company has
identified a direct expansion path to about $1 billion via
healthcare enterprises that are already clients and now part of the
Augmedix “land-and-expand” strategy where core offerings attract
customers and are then upsold additional products.
Brilliantly Simple
Augmedix stands alone among its peers with its business model
and technology that is built around an unconstrained
physician-patient conversation as the input for its note-creation
process. The company benefits greatly from the inherent flexibility
designed into its technology platform and operational
infrastructure to accommodate a wide range of doctor workflows and
several attractive end markets. The Augmedix platform is a
brilliantly simple design that squeezes the most out of today’s
technology and that can be readily enhanced as technology
evolves.
The industry’s transition towards employing new documentation
solutions is underway, and the market remains only lightly
penetrated to date, providing plenty of upside for those solutions
that are based upon ambient conversations between physicians and
patients. For Augmedix, revenue increased 33% year-over-year during
the third quarter, reaching $5.6 million. Physicians in Service
increased 51% as of September 30, 2021, compared to September 30,
2020. Even though that’s exceptional growth, Augmedix still has
hundreds of thousands of physicians to cater to from within its
stated total addressable market, which bodes well for the
future.
Market Share Is There
A pressing need exists to reduce the documentation burden faced
by physicians. An enormous opportunity is also at hand for the
companies that offer solutions. The challenge lies in finding
flexible and scalable solutions that account for the high degree of
heterogeneity among healthcare enterprises and physicians. Many
believe that Augmedix delivers the flexible, scalable solutions
that can make a real difference as others in the space look to
carve out a niche.
Vocera
Communications Inc. (NYSE: VCRA), a recognized
leader in clinical communication and workflow solutions, this month
announced a collaboration with Amazon to build a Vocera skill
for Alexa. The skill leverages a set of technologies from Alexa
Smart Properties and will be HIPAA-eligible for healthcare
customers. The Vocera skill for Alexa will expand the Vocera
ecosystem to provide a hands-free, immersive voice experience to
patients and families.
Phreesia Inc. (NYSE: PHR) offers
healthcare organizations a suite of robust applications to manage
the patient-intake process. PHR’s innovative SaaS platform engages
patients and provides a modern, convenient experience, while
enabling our clients to enhance clinical care and drive efficiency.
In September, Phreesia
earned renewed HITRUST CSF certification for information
security, validating Phreesia’s commitment to meeting key
regulations and protecting sensitive information.
American Well Corporation (NYSE:
AMWL) is a leading global telehealth platform,
connecting and enabling physicians, insurers, patients and
innovators to deliver greater access to more affordable,
higher-quality care. The award-winning company offers a single,
comprehensive platform to support all telehealth needs from urgent
to acute and post-acute care, as well as chronic-care management
and healthy living. With more than a decade of experience, Amwell
powers telehealth solutions for more than 2,000 hospitals and 55
health plan partners.
DarioHealth Corp. (NASDAQ:
DRIO) is a leading global digital therapeutics
company revolutionizing how people with chronic conditions manage
their health via a next-generation, AI-powered digital therapeutic
platform. DarioHealth offers one of the most comprehensive digital
therapeutics solutions on the market, covering multiple chronic
conditions including diabetes, hypertension, weight management,
musculoskeletal and behavioral health within one integrated
technology platform. This month, DarioHealth landed more
new clients, bringings the number of signed clients
to date to 49 as interest in the employer market demand intensifies
across the full suite of solutions.
Medical technology is a complex industry with countless nuances
and curveballs around every corner that requires the ingenuity to
lead a transition into the next age of healthcare. Using technology
that frees physicians to interact with patients more effectively is
common sense. Companies that capture a significant share of that
market could easily deliver uncommon returns.
For more information about Augmedix Inc. (NASDAQ:
AUGX), please visit Augmedix
Inc.
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