Stephen J. Schueler, M.D., practices emergency medicine on the weekends at Holmes Regional Medical Center and shifts his attention to entrepreneurial matters the rest of the week. He is President of Pixel Perfect Software, which resides in a modest
Published in The Brevard Technical Journal (a Florida Today Publication)
by Jan Tucker
Stephen J. Schueler, M.D., practices emergency medicine on the weekends at Holmes Regional Medical Center and shifts his attention to entrepreneurial matters the rest of the week. He is President of Pixel Perfect Software, which resides in a modest warehouse on South Patrick Drive in Indian Harbour Beach.
The company publishes and distributes consumer software products, helping customers learn about preventive medicine, pharmaceutical information, self-diagnosis of symptoms, and the type of treatment they will receive from their own physicians.
Information—A Boon to Patients and Physicians
Dr. Schueler started his consumer-based health information business after experiencing a level of frustration in his emergency practice. He was educating a lot of patients after they were in the system, and knew he could have helped many safely avoid the expense of a visit.
He jokes, “After realizing that everybody and their brother had already written a book about health, I noticed that the computer section of the book stores were just as big as the health section.” But no one had yet combined the two areas.
He quickly released his first product, “Home Medical Advisor Pro,” a home medical information software package. He refers to the service provided by Pixel Perfect as consumer health “informatics,” a term he coined to suggest automatic access to information.
“Consumers need to become more self-aware as the health care industry is changing,” says Dr. Schueler. “Consumers are literally becoming their own primary care providers. People are helping themselves and family members are becoming better-prepared caregivers.”
As the cost of health care delivery rises, people need to bear more responsibility to determine when certain symptoms require a visit to the doctor, hospital, HMO or clinic, what provider or specialist they should visit, and what drug combinations to avoid. Today’s consumer is more educated and self-reliant. They tend to seek this information on their own, and technology opens the door to a lot more information.
“Physicians like this tool,” comments Dr. Schueler, “Patients can use it at their own pace at home to learn about their disease process.” This fosters two things:
- A better line of communication between the patient and physician because the patient has a better understanding of their health and what they can expect.
- Less liability associated with treating patients. Informed patients better understand the limitations of the diagnostic process.
The software packages range in price from the high $30s to the low $60s. Upgrades are discounted for current customers, who also qualify for the upgrade price on any other package once one is purchased. In effect, customers are viewed as members.
Over a million customers are already onboard, ranging from the home user to medical workers, physicians and dentists. The software can be found at Target, Software City, Egghead Software, Best Buy, and Comp USA. Sample data can also be downloaded free from the Internet.
Self-Diagnostics
Dr. Schueler refers to the software as a health encyclopedia that also helps diagnose symptoms. Consumers can search to access information ranging from the symptoms of a disease to its diagnosis and treatment. The interface is interactive and self-directed.
Schueler explains, “The real goal of Home Medical Advisor is to help people understand their symptoms, identify which symptoms and groups of symptoms are important, and know how the diagnostic process is approached by a physician.”
Members can view narrated video images of actual operations, watch instructional tapes about a medical condition of interest, input their own symptoms to determine what might be causing their problem, and call up anatomical and clinical images that pinpoint affected areas of the body.
The software creates links between diseases, the drugs that treat them, the tests used to diagnose them and the symptoms that manifest the disease.
Home Medical Advisor is also used extensively by nurses and physicians for teaching. Its anatomical and clinical image library enables one to see in detail the parts of the body affected by a particular disease or injury.
Preventive Medicine
Pixel’s second title, Self Health, focuses on preventive medicine. It has an extensive teaching library with over 70 minutes of digital video dealing with topics ranging from self-evaluation to cancer detection, cardiac fitness evaluation, how to take your pulse and check your blood pressure, and a complete library on how to take care of your baby.
With this software, you can determine where your weaknesses are, what diseases you are most susceptible to, and what you should do about it. An artificial intelligence engine in the program takes you through a health risk assessment. It asks questions about your diet and lifestyle habits, to determine what you can do to reduce your risk for disease.
Pharmaceutical Information
The Corner Drug Store title was developed in answer to many letters Pixel received requesting information about drugs. Home Medical Advisor Pro has an extensive drug library and provides information on the interaction between drugs, but The Corner Drug Store goes further.
It represents the largest video relational database ever compiled on the topic of pharmaceutical agents, both prescription and over-the-counter. Dr. Schueler merged several sources of information to create this package:
- A book written by two pharmacologists and a pediatrician on over-the-counter drugs and pharmacy products
- A midwestern, syndicated TV show by Max Leber, a pharmacist talking about special drug topics, drug profiles, side effects, and drug interactions
- A physician-written drug database
- A medical glossary
- A drug interaction program
The end result of these five products is worth more than the sum of its parts. Every module is “hot-wired” so the user can go from one piece of information to its related data. Words appearing in yellow on the screen can be selected to provide definitions, and anything in green is a link that takes the user to another topic.
Users can look up almost any drug and find text and video information—5 1/2 hours of video to be exact. The drugs can be searched by category such as anti-anxiety or anti-anginal medications.
By selecting more than one drug and performing a search, patients can determine which drugs in combination produce negative side effects. With the touch of a mouse key, if you have a known allergy to one drug, you can determine which related drugs you should avoid. The software provides you with more information than you can get from your local pharmacist or physician, and it’s more accessible.
Developing the Software
Each Pixel Perfect software package was developed through an alliance. Schueler explains, “I like to approach my titles like you would a scientific review paper.” He finds physicians who have made noteworthy contributions in a particular area. Those who contributed to The Corner Drug Store, for example, were pharmacologists and drug experts.
Many physicians from virtually all specialties (many from Holmes Regional Medical Center) assisted with Home Medical Advisor Pro, providing information and serving as editors. Self Health was compiled by Dr. Schueler and two other physicians. Dr. Ronald Citron, a cancer specialist from California, wrote the data for the health risk analysis system.
How do the contributors come together? It’s a big networking game at this point. The people who have healthcare “content” such as personal wellness providers, or people who have produced videos or books, are seeking software developers who can help them produce a professional, multimedia software product, and then publish and distribute the product.
Pixel Perfect Software takes the content and “spins” it into a multimedia title. Experts in the subject matter such as Dr. Schueler help ensure content providers that the end product is professional and well-developed.
Dr. Schueler explains, “The most important thing about Pixel Perfect Software is that all of our developers are local and we code all of our programs rather than using an authoring tool. We develop all of our interfaces using our own coding. When you see something on the screen, the programmers have made it happen in code.”
This process provides a lot of flexibility. The code is modular and portable, enabling easy improvements, updates, and the ability to spin off new products to reach the total market. Pixel doesn’t experience the technical problems involved in dealing with a third party developer.
Follow-on Products
A spin-off product, “Medical Center 7” emerged following the Home Medical Advisor Pro launch. It’s a “seven pack” providing consumers with an affordable combination of information about pharmacology, medical recordkeeping, health risk, diet, fitness, anatomy, and diagnostics all rolled into one.
Staying current is critical. Since its introduction, Home Medical Advisor Pro has been updated to keep abreast with changes in the medical field. Later editions focused on specialized areas of healthcare such as pediatrics (written by a pediatrician) and women’s health issues (by a female OBGYN and plastic surgeon).