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About two years ago, Dr. Joseph Levine had an epiphany. The director of the arrhythmia and pacemaker center at Roslyn's St. Francis Hospital realized that even as medical research advanced, patient care was woefully uneven.
All over the world, heart patients were arriving at emergency rooms where doctors had no record of their medical history. General-care physicians, faced with a sea of ever-evolving literature, often took too long in referring patients to specialists. Even when heart patients consulted top specialists versed in the arcane points of a malady, their general-care physicians often failed to integrate all the elements. "We did some surveys at the American College of Cardiology meeting four or five months ago," said Levine.
On some questions, more than 90 percent of board-qualified cardiologists failed to identify the care that is the standard under current research.
"We believe it occurs because medicine has become so complicated and doctors only work in small niches."
In the 1980s, Levine worked on a large-scale research study on the benefits of implanting defibrillators in patients at high risk for certain abnormal heart rhythms. In 1996, the New England Journal of Medicine published a paper coauthored by Levine detailing the increased survival rates noted in the study.
Remarkably, though, the findings did not necessarily filter down to the patients. Even in the case of a high profile patient like Vice President Dick Cheney, who fit the profile, a defibrillator was not implanted until eight months after a heart attack just after the 2000 general election.
From those vexing problems sprang a company - PlatinumMD.
The company, started in November 2000 with funding from its executives and some angel investors, is, in large part, a reflection of Levine. Asked why he became a physician, the Brooklyn native said the decision was simple.
"I liked science and I liked people," he said. "Being a physician helped me marry the two. Being an electrophysiologist helped me find an interface between basic research and taking care of patients. Electrophysiology allowed me to model techniques that could save people's lives."
PlatinumMD, meanwhile, allows Levine to build systems designed to push best practices down the food chain.
To do that, Levine and co-founder Dr. Richard Shlofmitz, director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory and interventional cardiology at St. Francis, have cobbled together a high-octane advisory panel, forged an alliance with Mineolabased Fatwire Corp. and created a series of products on the cutting edge of medicine and technology.
One service allows a patient's medical record to follow them anywhere in the world - as long as the medical facility has a fax machine - 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Another product is an educational system in which predefined case studies with known outcomes are displayed via FatWire's Update Engine software. The program, in the format of a knowledge tree, allows for a thorough testing process of doctors or nurses and can include videos.
Mike Small, FatWire's senior vice president for client services, said if the patient's symptoms included chest pains, clicking on drug-related questions would provide supporting data related to that avenue of inquiry.
"When you get to the bottom of a case study, you've gone down the path medical professionals suggest," Small added.
The company also has created an online medical flight simulator. "It's just as if you were a pilot," said Levine.
Instead of shifting weather conditions and variables like altitude and wind speed, doctors are confronted with changes in medical evidence.
"It's the first attempt at a medical flight simulator," Levine said. "It will become the standard for medical testing and an adjunct for training."
Yet another product is known as the expert system. In that program, the symptoms and circumstances of a real-world patient are entered and proposals for care are provided along with the latest medical research for the doctor or patient to examine. With the system, doctors can get an electronic second opinion while patients can audit their care and ensure that all necessary tests and, procedures are administered.
The proposals for care and the selection of medical literature is monitored by the company's blue-ribbon advisory panel. "We're committed to keeping it up to date," Levine said of the research offered. "It's being developed by the best of the best."
The company's initial software products are aimed at the 30 million cardiology patients in the United States, though Levine sees the opportunity to extend the model to other specialties such as obstetrics and pediatrics.
The newly developed software already has attracted attention, Levine said, with three Fortune 100 medical companies expressing interest in the tools.
How does Levine manage to juggle the demands of his time at St. Francis and PlatinumMD?
"I run a busy practice," he said. "I'm director at a busy institution. I work evenings, nights and weekends. But it's my passion. It's my dream that we learn to use electronic tools to extend the care we give."
bout two years ago, Dr. Joseph Levine had an epiphany. The director of the arrhythmia and pacemaker center at Roslyn's St. Francis Hospital realized that even as medical research advanced, patient care was woefully uneven.
All over the world, heart patients were arriving at emergency rooms where doctors had no record of their medical history. General-care physicians, faced with a sea of ever-evolving literature, often took too long in referring patients to specialists. Even when heart patients consulted top specialists versed in the arcane points of a malady, their general-care physicians often failed to integrate all the elements. "We did some surveys at the American College of Cardiology meeting four or five months ago," said Levine.
On some questions, more than 90 percent of board-qualified cardiologists failed to identify the care that is the standard under current research.
"We believe it occurs because medicine has become so complicated and doctors only work in small niches."
In the 1980s, Levine worked on a large-scale research study on the benefits of implanting defibrillators in patients at high risk for certain abnormal heart rhythms. In 1996, the New England Journal of Medicine published a paper coauthored by Levine detailing the increased survival rates noted in the study.
Remarkably, though, the findings did not necessarily filter down to the patients. Even in the case of a high profile patient like Vice President Dick Cheney, who fit the profile, a defibrillator was not implanted until eight months after a heart attack just after the 2000 general election.
From those vexing problems sprang a company - PlatinumMD.
The company, started in November 2000 with funding from its executives and some angel investors, is, in large part, a reflection of Levine. Asked why he became a physician, the Brooklyn native said the decision was simple.
"I liked science and I liked people," he said. "Being a physician helped me marry the two. Being an electrophysiologist helped me find an interface between basic research and taking care of patients. Electrophysiology allowed me to model techniques that could save people's lives."
PlatinumMD, meanwhile, allows Levine to build systems designed to push best practices down the food chain.
To do that, Levine and co-founder Dr. Richard Shlofmitz, director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory and interventional cardiology at St. Francis, have cobbled together a high-octane advisory panel, forged an alliance with Mineolabased Fatwire Corp. and created a series of products on the cutting edge of medicine and technology.
One service allows a patient's medical record to follow them anywhere in the world - as long as the medical facility has a fax machine - 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Another product is an educational system in which predefined case studies with known outcomes are displayed via FatWire's Update Engine software. The program, in the format of a knowledge tree, allows for a thorough testing process of doctors or nurses and can include videos.
Mike Small, FatWire's senior vice president for client services, said if the patient's symptoms included chest pains, clicking on drug-related questions would provide supporting data related to that avenue of inquiry.
"When you get to the bottom of a case study, you've gone down the path medical professionals suggest," Small added.
The company also has created an online medical flight simulator. "It's just as if you were a pilot," said Levine.
Instead of shifting weather conditions and variables like altitude and wind speed, doctors are confronted with changes in medical evidence.
"It's the first attempt at a medical flight simulator," Levine said. "It will become the standard for medical testing and an adjunct for training."
Yet another product is known as the expert system. In that program, the symptoms and circumstances of a real-world patient are entered and proposals for care are provided along with the latest medical research for the doctor or patient to examine. With the system, doctors can get an electronic second opinion while patients can audit their care and ensure that all necessary tests and, procedures are administered.
The proposals for care and the selection of medical literature is monitored by the company's blue-ribbon advisory panel. "We're committed to keeping it up to date," Levine said of the research offered. "It's being developed by the best of the best."
The company's initial software products are aimed at the 30 million cardiology patients in the United States, though Levine sees the opportunity to extend the model to other specialties such as obstetrics and pediatrics.
The newly developed software already has attracted attention, Levine said, with three Fortune 100 medical companies expressing interest in the tools.
How does Levine manage to juggle the demands of his time at St. Francis and PlatinumMD?
"I run a busy practice," he said. "I'm director at a busy institution. I work evenings, nights and weekends. But it's my passion. It's my dream that we learn to use electronic tools to extend the care we give."