Trying to Change the World for the Better: Meet Medivizor

“Medivizor’s vision is to improve the lives of people with serious medical conditions and those who care for them and to effectively apply software and the social web in the field of health for the betterment of humanity. This might sound like a lofty goal, and indeed, it is. We want to change the world for the better!”

As one satisfied patient, AnneMarie Ciccarella has pronounced, “Step Aside Dr. Google:  Enter Medivizor.” As the CEO of Medivizor, Tal Givoly describes, “Today, when people become sick, they often use the web to find information.  They find too much information.   Much of it, irrelevant. Much of it, not easy to understand and interpret.   Most frustrating [for them is]  finding something that seems hopeful, and wasting precious time with [their] doctor [only] to be disappointed.”

Within this dilemma, is Medivizor’s purpose. Medivizor provides medical and health information, vetted by physicians, to subscribers.  That information is personalized to their specific diagnosis  and delivered to them on an ongoing basis. Medivizor takes the futility out of the web search.

And the best part about it:  It’s a free service.

“It’s a subscription service. You sign up once, begin getting information from then on. That’s another key attribute,” relates COO Ronen Keinan.   Right now, the service supports breast cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer, melanoma, and diabetes and is adding more diagnoses as they grow.  Even if the service doesn’t support your diagnosis now, “You can sign up now and put in your primary medical condition – and we’ll let you know when we add support for it,” Mr. Givoly states.

The first question you might ask is, “How are they doing this?”

“We have a medical staff that’s overseen by our Chief Medical Officer.  Some review is automated and some human–physicians and PhD’s–that do peer-reviews, ” Mr. Givoly states.  Medivizor relies on content from PubMed.  “We strive to provide ONLY relevant information in words most can understand and act upon….The information is intended to provide value to the patient and or caregiver (and medical team). We develop a medical profile for the individual.  Then we semantically match new information according to that meta-data,” Mr. Givoly explains.

The health information provided is explanations of cutting-edge medical and scientific research, notifications of matching clinical trials,  lifestyle tips, community resources, and relevant treatment options. “Decisions of whether to include content is a medical team decision that gauges level of evidence and user interest ,” Mr. Keinan says. 

As Ms Ciccarella states, “A big part for me?  It’s interactive.  I let them know if information is helpful or not and why.”  And Medivizor responds to feedback.   

Medivizor’s formative team includes Tal Givoly, Chief Executive Officer.  Mr. Givoly was Chief Scientist of Amdocs (DOX), where he headed up innovation activities across the $3B company. Before that he held leadership positions in product management, software and product development. Ronen Keinan is their Chief Operating Officer. Keinan has 20 year of experience in high-tech and was most recently the Vice President of Portfolio Management at Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN).  Oren Fuerst, Ph.D., Chairman of the Board,  is a seasoned entrepreneur, investor, and author. Dr. Fuerst built, and continues to lead a number of companies focusing on medical devices and health informatics.  Prof. Steven Kaplan (MD) is the Chief Medical Officer. He is Chief of the Institute of Bladder and Prostate Health at Weill Cornell Medical College and also serves as Director of the Iris Cantor Men’s Health Center at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

The motivation for starting Medivizor comes from life experiences of its founders. “Each of the founders had a personal perspective and they knew each other over time and came together. For example, Oren Fuerst was a caregiver for his mother’s cancer and experienced the information problem first hand. Even though he was very knowledgeable and well-connected, it was just overwhelming and impossible to keep track.”  Mr. Givoly relates.  “Prof. Kaplan, a world-renowned doctor and researcher, has people coming in every day with irrelevant Google printouts.   And I saw good friends cope with their young child’s leukemia and what they had to go through in terms of medical research.   We got together and built the product/service/team to solve the big problem:  That medical information isn’t personalized.  That despite the enormous amount of information, finding ‘the right stuff’ is simply ineffective and inefficient.”

At this point, the start-up is a labor of love.  They are searching for ways to keep the service going but they are certain of one thing, “Medivizor is not intended for marketing,” Mr. Givoly states.  “There’s a lot of great information on web and  a lot of marketing.  Medivizor is not intended for marketing.” The founders are using three models to obtain some return on investment, first, “premium services to be introduced in future, second, licensing of software to medical professionals and third, referrals (clinical trials, treatment, etc.). But, business is not determining the information that is provided,” Mr. Givoly reiterates.

“What we provide is unique in many ways. First, is that it is truly personal: The user doesn’t “search” for information; they get information just relevant for them. We know enough about the person to do so. We sift through all the information and find what’s relevant, couple this with our medical team insights and the social web (crowdsourcing). We are HIPAA compliant and safeguard user data!” Mr. Keinan states.

“When I went to sign up,” says Summer Plum, a patient subscriber. “It immediately recognized Ehlers-Danlos (a rare genetic disorder characterized by extremely loose joints, fragile or stretchy skin, a genetic disorder) which is novel and nice.”  Ms. Ciccarella notes, “I use it for me and for my mom with metastatic breast cancer. It’s useful and helpful.  I am thrilled with the site…. ”

Making the content of journal articles accessible to everyone is a challenge.  “We aim for 10th grade English. We may personalize based on literacy in future. We take it down from, literally, Flesch-Kincaid grade levels of 18-22 down to 10. That’s a gap.”   To deal with this difficulty, they have added a “help box.”  Ms. Ciccarella remarks,  “There is a “helpful” box to interact back.. .if enough people said, ‘HUH?’ they would rewrite and resend information.  I have returned questions in the “helpful” box …. and got back a clarification of the information.”

“We intend it to be suitable for both the e-Patient and the average person. The balance is delicate, I admit. ” Mr. Givoly states. “However, data we’ve seen suggests that it does include ~90% of US adults.”

The company has a long list of conditions they are working to add.  “We’d like anybody coping with a serious or chronic medical condition to add Medivizor to their tools.   We believe strongly in being smart/engaged patients. Medivizor can help save time/effort and focus medical information checking.   Medivizor provides you info and ongoing updates specifically for your situation, as new things become available. If you want to know when we support a condition of interest… You can sign up and put in that primary medical condition – and we’ll let you know when we add support for it,” Mr. Givoly adds.

“I can only say one thing: It’s not the same as anything out there. Clean interface and ongoing information.” says Ms. Ciccarella.  Dr. Gia Sison, a physician recently turned breast cancer patient agrees, “Once people try it, you truly appreciate its usefulness!  Just signed up. Nice website and easy to understand both from a doctor/patient point of view.” 

Patients can use the information and resources they receive from Medivizor to collaborate with  their local primary care physicians.  However, Medivizor doesn’t provide medical advice, nor does it replace a person’s medical team – it supports it.  Users can simply share what they get in Medivizor directly  with the ‘share with doctor’ feature. 

Ms. Plum says, “ It does take an immense amount of personal knowledge to be able to sort through all the information available [on the web]. ”  Mr. Givoly agrees, ” That’s one of the challenges we try to address: Simply what you need to know….We try to package that and we try to help build on knowledge.  Provide general knowledge and then become more specific. So it’s gradual.

Dr. Sison agrees, “In this world of medical information overload on the net it’s vital to have a one-stop hub for all (healthcare professionals/patients).”  Ms. Ciccarella states, “The site is FOR patients. Helps us be better members of our medical teams. We can ask the right questions and make best use of doctor’s time.”

Patient Advocate, Claudia Nichols states, “I see Medivizor as a clinical resource for my practice!”

 “We strive to provide as much transparency as we can.  Our mission is truly to make the world a better place by applying software and the social web for the betterment of humanity. We take great care to protect our user’s data and privacy.    We do not share personal information with others without explicit consent of the users. Best scientific evidence is always the prime consideration when sharing information with users. If there are controversial matters – we coach to reflect that.  If anything is ever sponsored, we would, obviously, make it very plain to see that.  Bottom line – we are trying to do good and avoid tarnishing our reputation. “

In the end, patient endorsements speak to Medivizor’s value.  As Ms Ciccarella states, “I can’t say enough about the service! “

Based on the twitter chat #HCHLITSS Health Communication, Health Literacy and Social Sciences