DUBLIN, Oct. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Updox, the first single collaboration platform for healthcare customer relationship management (CRM), has partnered with STRAND® (formerly Creative Pharmacist) to help community pharmacists coordinate care with prescribers and healthcare partners to control asthma and improve adherence.

Leveraging integration with the STRAND platform, Updox Pharmacy Connect allows pharmacists to easily and securely engage patients to educate and encourage adherence in asthma treatment and prevention. Updox not only provides HIPAA-compliant communications channels but also offers visibility into the process so users can see when faxes are received or emails are read. Providers can then take knowledgeable, more informative action, knowing that messages were delivered. Use cases include:

• Tailored patient notifications to patients taking asthma control medication to streamline delivery of additional education initiatives or refill reminders.
• Pharmacists can alert patients through secure text or email messages about clinical screenings, correct use of prescribed medications, avoiding environmental asthma triggers or other asthma-related pharmacy services.
• Pharmacies can securely message providers to update on patient adherence and collaborate on asthma action plans.

Approximately 25 million Americans have asthma. That number continues to grow and disproportionately impacts children in low-income populations. Asthma costs the United States about $56 billion in medical costs.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), better asthma education is needed to help lower incidents of asthma and reduce associated costs. Patients can prevent asthma attacks if they are taught to use inhaled corticosteroids and other prescribed daily long-term control medicines correctly and to avoid asthma triggers, such as tobacco smoke, mold and outdoor air pollution. In 2008 less than half of people with asthma reported being taught how to avoid triggers. Almost half (48%) of adults who were taught how to avoid triggers did not follow most of this advice.

"Coordination between pharmacist, physicians and payers is integral in improving patient outcomes. Direct coordination between patients, physicians and pharmacists is essential to reduce asthma incidents and the costs associated with treatments, ER visits and hospitalizations," says David Pope, PharmD, CDE, chief of Innovation and co-founder, STRAND. "By coordinating care between pharmacists and prescribers and using communications tools like Updox to engage patients in awareness and education initiatives, we can save lives."

STRAND is a first-of-its-kind intervention platform, transforming the community pharmacy marketplace by inspiring and empowering pharmacists to tackle growth areas in their business – clinical pharmacy practice – and improve both the health of the business and patients.

"While there isn't a cure for asthma, severe attacks are preventable through disease management and medication adherence. Those are the two areas where communication between prescribers and pharmacists is essential and that's what Updox Pharmacy Connect delivers," says Michael Morgan, chief executive officer, Updox. "Through one of the largest Direct messaging networks in the nation, Updox links pharmacists with more than 1.2 million other vetted healthcare providers to support secure communications between patients, prescribers, pharmacists and other out-of-hospital providers. This leads directly to stronger care coordination, lower healthcare costs and improved patient outcomes."

STRAND and Updox launched a joint webinar series to highlight their partnership and focus on industry issues. The next program, "Reducing Asthma Incidents and Enhancing Patient Engagement," will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 7, at 1 p.m. ET.

About Updox
Committed to simplifying the business of healthcare, Updox is a single business management platform for out-of-hospital healthcare providers. Named for the past four years to the Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies, Updox is integrated with more than 100 electronic health records (EHR) and serves more than 300,000 users and 80 million patients.

Through a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, Updox provides patient engagement, internal productivity and provider communication solutions that work together to connect healthcare providers, including physicians, patients, payers, pharmacies, labs, supply chain partners and other out-of-hospital partners. Through the Updox network, customers can access a full suite of applications including secure patient text messaging, secure messaging, document management, patient portal, appointment scheduling and reminders, credit card payments, and health alerts, all with the goal of driving improved outcomes through more efficient communications, patient/partner engagement and care coordination. Learn more at http://www.updox.com or follow the company on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

About STRAND
Co-founded by a community pharmacist and a technology expert in 2008, STRAND is the U.S. market leader in helping pharmacists launch clinical services within their community. They support community pharmacists across the country in engaging patients with chronic disease, such as diabetes, through STRAND, a wide-reaching intervention, documentation, and education platform capable of developing the new Pharmacist eCare Plan. Their mission is to transform the community pharmacy marketplace by inspiring and empowering pharmacists to engage clinical pharmacy practice to improve both the health of their business and the health of their patients. For more information, please visit https://strandrx.com.

SOURCE Updox LLC