Could a patient personality test help clinicians improve medication and treatment compliance? Los Angeles-based startup Frame Health is testing that approach at Kaiser Permanente.
Bruce Ettinger, Frame Health's founder and CEO, said he started the company to help solve a long-standing challenge faced by healthcare providers and insurers: how to manage patients who don't stick to medication or treatment regimens and are more likely to be readmitted to the hospital. He became interested in the link between health and personality while working as a behavioral health executive.
Frame Health has developed a personality assessment to identify potentially noncompliant patients and tools that help clinicians better communicate with patients based on their personality profiles. Research linking personality types to health behaviors and mortality lends credence to its approach.
Studies show that nearly half of medications for chronic diseases are not taken as prescribed, and another 20% to 30% of prescriptions are never filled. The result is preventable deaths and hospital readmissions that cost the healthcare system between $100 billion and $289 billion annually.
Often, clinicians “feel they're ineffective, not because they don't know what to do, but because they're unable to get the results from patients that they're looking for,” Ettinger said. “We provide a tool that offers care providers the opportunity to have a better understanding of their patients.”
Frame Health has won or been a finalist in several digital health competitions. With financial support from Kaiser Permanente's Innovation Fund, the company has joined a burgeoning industry of vendors using digital tools and behavioral health approaches to improve patient engagement and compliance.