CHAPEL HILL - An application that assists patients and healthcare providers to arrive at informed decisions about healthcare is being developed by Keona Health, a brand new company located in Chapel Hill, N.C. Dr. Javed Mostafa, jointly appointed professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science and the Biomedical Research Imaging Center, and the current director of the Biomedical Informatics Core at the North Carolina Translational Clinical Sciences (TraCS) Institute at UNC at Chapel Hill, is the co-founder of Keona Health and serves as its chairman and scientific advisor. 

Insight Engine, a decision support component of Kenona, will instantly offer patients personalized advice about their health, assisting them in resolving approximately ten percent of their health issues without ever seeing a doctor - and reducing wait times if a doctor or hospital visit is needed. The system will offer health care providers the ability to come to a better decision for care. For example, with Insight Engine, doctors and nurses can quickly determine the negative interaction between food and medications. The system can also automatically check to see if the treatment to be prescribed by a physician matches the medical standards, providing the decision support to patients. Triage nurses review each case that use the system, but generally can complete that review five times faster and with more comprehensive safety checks than without the system.

Considered one of the next generation health informatics companies focusing on patient-centric medical decision support, Keona Health recently received several seed investments and a grant from the NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. 

Keona Health was co-founded by Mostafa along with his students and colleagues. Some of the core team members include Jason Skowronski, president; Oakkar Oakkar, chief technology officer and SILS MSIS student; Jimmy Kaanapu, chief software architect; Stephen Dean, chief marketing officer; and Dr. Rich Medlin, medical advisor, clinical informatics fellow at UNC; and Dr. Jed Ferguson, medical advisor. Keona Health received backing from TraCS' Kickstart Program, a technology transfer arm, as well as support from other UNC units such as the technology startup incubator Carolina Launch Pad at RENCI (Renaissance Computing Institute).

For more information about Keona Health, see: keonahealth.com

 
Innovate Carolina
This initiative supports the Innovate@Carolina Roadmap, UNC's plan to help Carolina become a world leader in launching university-born ideas for the good of society. To learn more about the roadmap, visit innovate.unc.edu.

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