Cielo MedSolutions

Dave Morin, CEO of Cielo Med Solutions, found himself looking for a job in 2005 (download 10 minute iPod compatible video, 51MB). He approached his friend Jim Price about starting a company. They started researching advances in healthcare management, and determined that the emerging market for electronic medical record solutions was not a good opportunity for them. A number of dominant players had already made it to market focused on the most evident segment, large scale providers.

Instead, they happened upon a product, Clinfotracker, at University of Michigan's tech transfer office. This product, subsequently renamed Cielo Clinic, allowed providers to track and optimize patient treatment at the individual doctor level, something not possible with other solutions. Having seen evidence of the product's clinical effectiveness, the next step was to determine whether a business case existed for bringing it to a wider market. They discovered two potential segments, large health systems and physicians associations, and over the past two years have been expanding their installed base in Southeast Michigan.

Family care physicians see on average 20 – 30 patients per day, 5 – 6 days per week, leaving them with an average 16.5 minutes per patient (download 8 minute 20 second iPod compatible video, 43MB). Couple these time constraints with the need to spend time documenting prevention regimens for pay for performance programs, and you see there might be an opportunity for a solution that simplifies the documentation process. Enter Cielo MedSolutions.

As Dave Morin, Cielo's CEO, explains, most patient tracking systems are designed for large scale provider workflows and do not track patients in ways that are important for family providers. Cielo's technology grew out of family practice physicians' desire to manage preventive medicine more effectively at the individual level. Cielo's system interfaces with large scale hospital systems and complements the Electronic Medical Record, a standard for sharing patient medical data.

In future segments, we will learn how Dave and a partner founded Cielo MedSolutions and gained the rights to the technology underlying their system.