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For Immediate Release
May 23, 2006
Park tenant, Castle Technologies,
awarded $100,000 grant
Richmond, Va. – The Virginia BioTechnology Research Park announced today that tenant company, Castle Technologies, has been awarded a $100,000 Phase I SBIR contract from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to design a chronic disease prevention and management system for community health care settings and community health centers, of which there are over 5000 sites nationwide.
The CDC estimates that the costs of treating people with chronic diseases account for more than 75% of the nation’s $1.4 trillion medical costs. According to the Bureaus of Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, chronic diseases — such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes — account for seven of every 10 deaths and affect the quality of life of 90 million Americans. Although chronic diseases are among the most common and costly health problems, they also are among the most preventable.
“Preventing and managing these diseases is virtually impossible without information systems that assure ready access to key data on individuals as well as populations of patients,” commented Justin Samson, president of Castle.
Recognizing the need for better information storage and retrieval methods in the health care industry, President Bush outlined his vision that every American should have an electronic health record (EHR) by 2014. This will allow for accurate medical information to be quickly retrieved by doctors, nurses and other health care workers who are not a patient’s primary care physician. In addition to increasing quality of medical treatment, EHR systems will reduce cost of care by helping to prevent medical errors, which, according to The Institute of Medicine, kill up to 100,000 patients and cost $29 billion annually.
Utilizing its experience, the Phase I contract will allow Castle to develop such a system. Castle will research, design and develop a prototype for use in community health centers. The final product will be a highly configurable and cost-effective chronic disease prevention and management system. It will have a strong emphasis on primary and secondary prevention along with a case management component for managing patients diagnosed with chronic diseases. The system also will be developed with the EHR in mind, having standard interfaces with those systems. Their final report to the CDC will include plans for a $750,000 Phase II grant, which will involve commercialization of the product.
“We are extremely excited to be working with the CDC in developing these systems and helping health care organizations transition to using electronic health record systems,” said Samson. “We believe our web-based product will become the standard solution in the health care field for chronic disease prevention and management.”
Contact:
Nicky Colomb
Virginia BioTechnology Research Park
Phone: (804) 828-6884
E-mail: ncolomb@vabiotech.com
Web site: www.vabiotech.com
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