CareDox is a New York company founded in 2014 that offers a free digital health record tracking system for students in K-12 schools. Their mission is “to provide a unified health record and to enable school health programs to run more efficiently and safely.” The service itself is free to public schools due to the fact that CareDox is completely subsidized by pediatric partners who have agreed to fully underwrite the cost of each school’s installation, SIS integration and configuration, and on-going training and support. CareDox already serves over one million students on their platform in more than 2,000 schools across 30 states, and are a trusted integration partner with the leading Student Information Systems (they currently list Aeries and eSchoolPlus as integration partners).
CareDox works with schools because of a belief that “every child needs to learn to be healthy and be healthy to learn.” Keeping students in good health is a fundamental pillar for them to attend school and learn. The CareDox system promotes accurate medical record documentation and limits access to each student’s health record to authorized personnel as required to assist each student. Their emphasis on privacy and HIPAA compliance means that strict regulations are in place to keep health information out of the hands of those who are not authorized to view it.
Unique Funding/Subsidy Model:
Most US schools are not properly funded or staffed to deal with the tremendous responsibilities they have around student healthcare management. Understanding that they lack the financial wherewithal to purchase expensive health technologies, CareDox solves this challenge by not only innovating with a cloud-based solution, but also with a unique business model. CareDox works with pediatric partners to fully underwrite the cost of the CareDox health platform for public schools. This model is a win-win-win for families, schools, and the healthcare ecosystem. As we break down the siloes of health information, connect care teams, and enable population health management, we believe schools empowered by CareDox will ultimately fulfill the goal of improving outcomes for children.
Here are some examples of how CareDox uses student data in fully HIPAA and FERPA compliant ways:
Care Coordination – Schools, families, and local provider networks such as hospitals, Accountable Care Organizations, and health plans can opt-in to a data sharing agreement to manage chronic conditions and streamline delivery and access of care in their communities. For example, we work with local pediatric groups who come onsite to schools to administer vaccines, physical exams, and screenings. This data can then be shared with providers and health plans so information flows efficiently. Programs like this are completely opt-in: everyone is aware of them and has the option to not participate.
Population Health Programs – CareDox works with researchers from government, hospital, and life science companies who want access to de-identified reports and analytics around health informatics. For example a local hospital may want to know how many children with diabetes or asthma are in their region for resource planning. National studies using de-identified, anonymous data can give insights into broad trends and help focus research efforts into new drugs, devices, and medical procedures. Programs such as these move health research forward and are a beneficial public health service. No personal information of any kind is ever shared.
Patient Education – CareDox works with health organizations and curates its own health educational messaging to users of the system. This information is based on FDA approved products, publicly available resources, and agreed by the medical industry to be beneficial information for patients. For example, reminders of the national CDC schedule for vaccinations, or alerts about concussion prevention with student athletes. Parents receive information via email and also in-platform when logged into CareDox. Parents can always opt-out of these educational messages.
CareDox earns revenue from each of these types of activities; each is essential to providing the resources so that we can always offer the best product and support to public schools and families at no cost. We are proud of each of these initiatives and know that they provide valuable tools for all stakeholders and are part of the future of healthcare. Our partner school districts understand how we operate, and work with us both for the day-to-day student health technology and the larger mission of improving pediatric health.
