Team Life Club

TLC

Overview]

Patient noncompliance is a major contributing factor to the rising cost of health care. So far efforts to correct noncompliance remain marginal. Poor adherence to prescribed drugs causes approximately 125,000 deaths annually in the US and accounts for 10-25% of hospital admissions.  More than 70% of prescriptions are never consumed leading to $77 billion in excess health care cost annually. The convergence of new strategies, technology, and stakeholders brings new opportunities to address this national problem.  One study estimates that close to 90,000 die in the US a year because of noncompliance of high-pressure treatment alone.

Donald Berwick, former head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services said that it will work with caregivers, insurers and employers to replicate successful innovations. There is a need to identify patients who are not taking their meds or would benefit from enrollment in a clinical trial.

There are many reasons that people are not taking their meds and presently the health care system isn’t designed to monitor or encourage compliance.  Granted that getting people to change their behavior may be daunting but it can be done.

TLC is designed to not only encourage compliance by offering tutorials to caregivers and stakeholders, but offers a convenient monitoring system with daily low cost reports to caregivers.  Team Life Club, using the most advanced technology, such as text-messaging reminders and audio or visual alerts will provide a comfort zone for the patient whom now knows he/she is part of an extended family that cares.

*Council for Continuing Medical Education(ACCME) and Postgraduate Institute for Medicine(PIM)   **Wall Street Journal (March, 28,2011)

Team Leaders

Marvin Schwartz, Ph.D.

Chief Scientist for CWRU Connection Zone

Chief Science Officer

Youngstown Business Incubator

Frank Merat, Ph.D.,P.E.

Associate Professor

Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Case Western Reserve University

Martha Sajatovic MD

Professor of Psychiatry

Director, Neurological Outcomes Center

University Hospitals  Case Medical Center

Paul Stephan

Director CWRU Alumni Association

Public Relations/ TLC

Jerald Price

Author/ Innovator

Marketing/Membership TLC

Kevin D. Margolis

Benesch Attorneys at Law

Robert M. Pavlik

VP Business Management and Marketing Development 

Mission Statement

The goal of the enterprise is, though lofty, to save lives.  There are thousands of lives lost because of the misuse or more so, the sudden discontinuing, of prescribed drugs by the patient, (see stats). Again our mission is to save lives and improve the quality of life of all TLC members, in addition to curbing the spiraling health care cost. 

Someone once said the only constant is change.  Primarily our goal is to change the behavior of the patient while involving the entire health care community.  Changing a person’s behavior though daunting, we believe can be achieved with the TLC method (system). The patient will find the road map to following their regimen both easy and enjoyable.   Happily our system (TLC) will encourage the patient (member) to embrace the behavioral changes that give him/her a greater sense of well being.

TEAM LIFE CLUB

TLC

MARKETING SUMMARY

“Find a need and fill it.”  Those six words have from the time they were first spoken, been the inspiration for thousands who have achieved their goals.  The market for our service has never before been more demanding.   Team Life Club is about saving lives, by contacting the patient before suicide ideation is acted upon.  We will be using the most up to date technology to achieve that objective.  Our selected staff is the best in their field and with quick access to new developments and information sources will continue to keep our company the leader in its goal of, “never leave a potential suicide undetected.”  

Executive  Summary: Our market will be every patient that psychologists  and psychiatrists worldwide  prescribe  anti-psychotic medication to.  TLC will monitor each and every patient that is entered into its system.  The doctor will be alerted daily when the patient complies or more importantly when he/she does not comply and or when suicide ideation enters the equation.

 The patient that misses his daily medication will be notified that we are aware of his oversight.   Each doctor’s office will be billed a nominal monthly amount for each patient that we track.  The thrust here is to encourage the patient to continue taking his medication or under his doctors supervision be weaned off of them.   The sudden cessations of specific drugs will in a short time and in most cases, create horrific consequences.

Market Definition and Segmentation:  Major depressive disorder affects more than 15 million American adults, or about 7 percent of the US population, 18 and over in any given year. (Archives of General Psychiatry, 2005 June)

Depression is the cause of over two-thirds of the reported 30,000 reported suicides in the U.S. each year. (White House Conference on Mental Health, 1999)

The death rate from suicide remains higher than the death rate for chronic liver disease, Alzheimer’s, homicide, arteriosclerosis and hypertension.  (Deaths: Final Data for 1998, Center for Disease Control)

Our main focus will be the monitoring of those people being treated.

An estimated 50% of unsuccessful treatment of depression is due to medical non-compliance.  Patients stop taking their medication too soon to unacceptable side effects, short term improvement of symptoms, leading them to believe that continuing treatment is unnecessary.  This without their physician’s knowledge. (DBSA, 1996)

More than 125,000 Americans die each year due to prescription medication non-compliance, twice the number killed in automobile accidents. (M-PILL)

Most alarming of all:  The annual American death toll from prescription drugs considered “safe’ can be put at around 200,000. (Donald Barlett  and James Steele. Vanity Fair. Jan.2011)

Not taking medication as prescribed incurs 290 billion in increased medical cost. (Per Boston Board health policy.  Nov.10, 2010)