SURVEYOR Health was founded as PharmaSURVEYOR in 2006 by Linda and Erick Von Schweber to commercialize technology they developed over the prior 25 years. The company name was changed to SURVEYOR Health in 2010 to better represent its larger vision.
In 2004 Linda and Erick began market research to determine the best applications for their Knowledge Surveying service, considering everything from intelligence operations to finance, from travel to job search, from computer design to selling automobiles.
While they were considering the possibilities, Linda's mother became unexpectedly ill, suddenly losing 30 pounds in 6 weeks, with constant abdominal pain. The entire power of the current healthcare system was brought to bear from diagnostics such as MRI scans to tests for worms. After tens of thousands of dollars and no diagnosis, the family changed doctors and insurance provider.
The first question the new doctor asked had never been asked in six weeks of constant doctoring. The question was "What drugs does she take?" By the end of that first visit it was clear that Linda's mother had been put on a full strength Duragesic Transdermal Patch for pain shortly before the pain started and that this drug has a well established risk of abdominal pain which was increased by other drugs she was on and which was unrecognized by the prescribing physician and all the diagnosticians who followed. That drug has since been given a black box warning by the FDA and should never have been prescribed initially. Her medications were modified and fortunately Linda's mother soon felt better, however this experience helped Linda and Erick decide on what area could be most helped by their Knowledge Surveying technology.
Having spent the prior ten years working primarily on DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and DOD (Department of Defense) government intelligence projects, Linda and Erick were shocked to find that legal prescription drugs in the U.S. are responsible for more deaths each and every week (4,000) than terrorism and the war on terrorism have been responsible for since 2001, including many deaths of our own soldiers. Always driven by what value they can provide to the community, they believed their Knowledge Surveying technology could be helpful reducing the negative impact of pharmaceutical prescription drugs on the quality of life and incidence of death.
Their technology for Knowledge Surveying and trade-off analysis and optimization is specifically designed to discover and display cost/benefit trade-offs. An important part of this is the cost of suffering caused by and management of the side effects, not merely the price of the drug.The FDA approves drugs based on cost/benefit trade-offs but those trade-offs are not always visible once the drug is on the market. A drug approved for a specific type of patient with a specific condition, is suddenly in widespread use without the prescriber having full awareness of the parameters of the original use the drug was approved for. They have found that the ability to analyze and make medication trade-offs visible to professionals and consumers alike, improves the ability to make informed decisions quickly, even in the midst of a medical intervention or emergency.
Determined to help save lives and reduce unnecessary suffering, like Linda's mother experienced, Linda and Erick created SURVEYOR Health, the only web site service for people to enter their medications list and immediately view personalized risk results on interactions and side effects that could impact their health and wellness. SURVEYOR Health's Medication Risk Maps is valuable for Medication Therapy Management and Medication Reconciliation.
By partnering with other healthcare sites and services, such as Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Personal Health Records (PHRs), SURVEYOR Health can automatically transfer a person's medication list from a partner web site, run a personalized Medication Risk Maps on their medication list, and show them the combined side effect risks and interactions. The Medication Risk Maps then provides a "what if" capability to "try" replacement medications and help find those which will reduce the adverse medication effects of greatest concern.