News roundup: Kaiser/Best Buy Lively partners; Teladoc’s mental telehealth, Livongo execs depart; approved apps make comeback in US, DE; United Airlines tests COVID CommonPass for international flying

October 24, 2020 | by

Kaiser Permanente is adding to its existing partnership with Best Buy Health. The joint program will develop remote patient-monitoring tools for older adults centered on Lively Mobile Plus. By pressing a button on the phone, users can connect with individuals trained to triage emergency and nonemergency situations, from car trouble, home lockouts, or medical emergency. Kaiser Permanente has rolled it out to their Medicare members as part of its Medicare Affinity Program for independent living at home. In 2019, the Kaiser system piloted Lively Mobile Plus after Best Buy’s acquisition of GreatCall. Becker’s Hospital Review 6 October and 22 October. Photo from Best Buy via Kaiser on Twitter, @aboutKP.

Teladoc launches mental telehealth to Canadian employers. Four Livongo C-levels will depart after closing. The Teladoc Mental Health Care program is available to employees of Canadian companies and provides access to psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists via phone, web or mobile app. It is in addition to Teladoc’s Mental Health Navigator and disability products in Canada. Press release, Becker’s Hospital Review  Becker’s has also been keeping a close eye on Teladoc’s SEC filings. The letter, filed 15 October, stated that Livongo CEO Zane Burke, President Jennifer Schneider, MD, CFO Lee Shapiro (widely conceded as the merger engineer), and SVP of business development Steve Schwartz will leave the company after the closing. Livongo’s Executive Chair Glen Tullman will keep his seat on the combined company’s board of directors. Look for more changes that won’t make Livongo employees happy. Our previous Skeptical Takes on the merger here.

Approved Apps Revive! The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) announced a new partnership with the UK’s ORCHA–the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps–to develop an approval procedure for health apps. Announced at the virtual HLTH conference, the objective is to create a review process to vet safe and effective health apps out of various app stores. ORCHA’s automated, intelligent review engine can assess thousands of apps against more than 300 measures in order for a healthcare organization to build and manage a health app program. Both are trying to solve the same problem faced by Happtique and IMS Health (now IQVIA) in those long-ago days of 2014. ATA release, Healthcare IT News 

For Readers with long memories, iMedical Apps is still with us and their team is still reviewing health apps both personal and professional. They’ve extended their reach to reviewing apps to prescribe with iPrescribeApps.

Meanwhile, in Germany, the Digital Healthcare Act (DVG) now finally permits doctors to officially prescribe apps to patients. The Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) certified Kalmeda for tinnitus and Velibra, a therapy program for anxiety disorders as Germany’s first two insured health apps. Germany also is kick-starting prescribed health apps through fast-tracking medical apps that are CE-marked as Class 1 and 2a low-risk medical devices. Healthcare IT News

United Airlines is testing an app-based ‘health pass’ to speed safer global travel. CommonPass, created by the Commons Project Foundation and the World Economic Forum to enable travelers to securely share their COVID-19 test status, taken 72 hours before flight, across borders. The app will also facilitate a health declaration that may be required by the destination country and generates a quick response (QR) code scannable by airline staff and border officials. UAL’s London-Newark test follows on a test with Cathay Pacific between Hong Kong and Singapore. FierceHealthcare, MarketWatch

News roundup: Amwell’s socko IPO raises $742M, Walmart and the Clinic Wars, Taskforce on Telehealth Policy report released, Israel’s Essence releases fall detection sensor system

September 18, 2020 | by

Telehealth bullishness shows no sign of diminishing. On Wednesday, Amwell‘s (the former American Well) IPO stunned markets by not only debuting at $18 per share (a price only large investors received) but also opening at $25.51 on the NYSE (AMWL) and floating more than 41 million shares for a raise of $742 million. If underwriters exercise all their options, the raise could exceed $850 million. Only last week, the SEC filing projected a sale of 35 million shares at $14 to $16 a share. Back in August, the raise was estimated to be only about $100 million. (One could consider this a prime example of ‘sandbagging’.) Friday closed at $23.02 in a week where Mr. Market had a lot of IPOs and hammered traditional tech stocks. As reported earlier, Amwell is backed by Google via a private placement and also Teva Pharmaceutical.

Smaller and lower profile than Teladoc, Amwell provides services for 55 health plans, 36,000 employers, and in 150 of the nation’s largest health systems, with an estimated 80 million covered lives. Like Teladoc, Amwell has yet to be profitable, with 2019 losses of $88 million and $52 million in 2018. FierceHealthcare, Marketwatch. Meanwhile, the Teladoc acquisition of Livongo has gone quiet, as is usual.

The Clinic Wars continue. Another front in the consumer health wars (and repurposing retail) is more, bigger, better clinics onsite. CVS drew first blood early this year with the expansion of MinuteClinics into fuller-service HealthHUBs, with a goal of 1,500 by end of 2021. Walgreens flanked them with 500 to 700 Village Medical full-service offices [TTA 9 July]. In this context, the expansion of Walmart Health locations looks limp, with their goal of 22 locations in Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, and Chicago metro by end of 2021. Another concern is with scale and modularizing the Walmart Health locations’ construction via constructor BLOX,  One wonders with recently reported layoffs of 1,000 at corporate and the replacement of industry innovation veteran Sean Slovenski with Lori Flees, whether there’s some radical rethinking of their clinic business investment as not mass but targeted to underserved areas that avoid CVS and Walgreens. FierceHealthcare, Walmart blog  CVS also announced the doubling of their drive-thru COVID-19 testing sites to 4,000 by mid-October. FierceHealthcare

More Weekend Reading. Here in the US, the Taskforce on Telehealth Policy, a joint effort between the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), the Alliance for Connected Care, and the American Telemedicine Association, has issued a report that focuses on maintaining quality care, fitting telehealth into value-based care models, enforcing HIPAA for patient privacy, and ensuring widespread and equitable access to broadband and technology. The involvement of the NCQA is a major step forward in advancing policy in this area. Press release/summary, Report page, Powerpoint slides, and webinar recording  Hat tip to Gina Cella for the ATA.

New entrant in passive fall detection. Israel’s Essence SmartCare is launching MDsense, a multi-dimensional fall detection solution for the residential market. It is sensor-based, using wall mounted intelligent sensors rather than wearable devices that statistically are not worn about half of the time and have their own well-documented performance concerns. The release also mentions it can differentiate between multiple persons and pets, which this veteran of QuietCare would like to see. MDSense is part of Essence’s Care@Home system which uses AI and machine learning to continuously collect actionable data to respond to fall events and manage care better towards improved outcomes.

COVID effect on US practices: in-person visits down 37%, telehealth peaks at 14%; ATA asks Congress to make expansion permanent

June 30, 2020 | by

A Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University/Phreesia tracking study of outpatient visits in 50,000 US healthcare practices, specialty as well as primary care, has tracked the effect of the COVID pandemic on practice visits during the period 8 March through 20 June. Using as their baseline the week of 1-7 March, which was the last ‘normal’ week in line with February, the results are not unexpected:

  • From 15 March to 20 June (three months), practice visits, including telehealth, plummeted 37 percent
  • Disproportionately affected were pediatricians, pulmonologists, and surgical specialties such as orthopedics
  • Against the baseline, week of 14 June visits are still down 11 percent
  • The nadir was 29 March, off 59 percent
  • The rebound tracks the same by US region, with the least dip in South Central and Mountain regions. (The most affected, of course, are New England-Mid-Atlantic and Pacific, with the highest COVID rates and the least rebound.)
  • Looking at the ‘rebound week’ of 14 June, the effects linger on in pediatrics, pulmonology, and (interestingly) behavioral health. (Anecdotally, behavioral health patients are continuing with telehealth for convenience versus the physical visit.)
  • Telehealth visits took off starting 8 March and at their peak were 13.9 percent of visits (19 April)
  • Since 26 April, telehealth visits have declined as in-person visits resume, and are at 7.4 percent as of 14 June (46.7 percent less). However, compared to the baseline of nearly zero (0.1 percent), it’s nearly a 140 percent increase.

Phreesia is a scheduling and patient check-in platform. The practices surveyed are Phreesia clients, covering 1,600 provider organizations, with 50,000 providers in 50 states.

Physicians were also interviewed as part of the study. The office operation has had to change, and the patient experience in returning to practices is very different. Making up deferred care is complicated, and precautions to mitigate risk of viral transmission inevitably slow care down. 

Much of the press around this study is that telehealth is receding quickly. As a trend in an extraordinary time when there was no alternative, as practices reopen a shift back to the office is to be expected, and often there is no substitute for in-person exams and procedures. Still, there are elements of long-term uncertainty on the future of practice telehealth. Both CMS and payers announced that payments for telehealth (audio/visual and telephone only) would remain in place only for the duration of the pandemic. What are their long term plans? Providers are having difficulty getting paid or paid enough even in parity states. State Medicaid presents even more of an unwanted ‘discount’.  Telehealth also demands a commitment to (ultimately) a HIPAA-compliant platform, workflow/staff support, and input in the practice’s EMR/population health platform. STAT, HealthcareITNews

The American Telehealth Association (ATA), coming off their virtual annual meeting last week, sent a letter to Congress with 340 signatories supporting a permanent expansion of telehealth after the public health emergency (PHE) ends in four priority areas:

  • Remove location restrictions 
  • Maintain HHS authority to determine eligible practitioners who may furnish clinically appropriate telehealth services
  • Authorize Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) and Rural Health Clinics (RHC) to furnish telehealth services 
  • Make permanent the HHS Temporary Waiver Authority to respond to emergencies

Release and letter

ATA’s annual conference now 22-26 June–and fully virtual; announces three awards and Fellows

June 12, 2020 | by

The American Telemedicine Association has reimagined their annual conference and gone fully virtual–including an exhibit hall and poster displays. This year’s theme is “Moving at the Speed of Innovation…. Accelerating Telehealth Adoption”–if it hasn’t accelerated enough during the COVID pandemic, there’s always consolidating the gains.

Perhaps due to the complete cancellation of HIMSS and the addition of Joe Kvedar, MD, incoming ATA President, this year’s ATA has a five-day menu of healthcare leaders and over 300 speakers in 100+ sessions. Here’s a sample from the keynotes:

  • Ken Abrams, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Deloitte Consulting
  • Rachel Dunscombe, CEO, NHS Digital Academy; Tektology
  • Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, Chair, AMA Board of Trustees
  • Thomas Goetz, Chief of Research, GoodRx
  • Jennifer Goldsack, Executive Director, Digital Medicine Society
  • Victoria Guyatt, Head of Ethnography, IPSOS
  • Joe Kvedar, MD, Professor, Harvard Medical School; Senior Advisor, Mass General Brigham (Partners HealthCare); Incoming President, the ATA
  • Ali Parsa, Founder and CEO, Babylon Health
  • Suchi Saria, Assoc. Professor, Machine Learning & Data Intensive Computing Group, Johns Hopkins University and Bayesian Health
  • Jennifer Schneider, MD, President, Livongo
  • Michelle Segar, Director, Univ. of Michigan Sport, Health and Activity Research & Policy Center
  • Jeroen Tas, Chief Innovation & Strategy Officer, Philips Healthcare

Registration is priced gently at $450. Full information, schedule, and registration here.

ATA 2020 Awards

The ATA Champion award this year is to the Veterans Health Administration, US Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA has been a leader in telehealth and store-forward technologies since, well, 2002 or so. VA Video Connect last year had 1.3 million appointments. (Sadly, your Editor’s former company, Viterion, which pioneered with VA in a RPM platform, is not currently a telehealth/RPM vendor–VA’s sole vendor is Medtronic.)

The President’s Award for the Transformation of Healthcare Delivery went to The Children’s Health Virtual Care Program at Children’s Health in Dallas. They have pioneered telemedicine programs for children.

The ATA’s Woman of the Year is  Tania S. Malik, J.D., an entrepreneur and a lawyer focused on healthcare, and specifically, telehealth solutions that facilitate online patient-provider interactions for primary care, mental health treatment, and naturopathic and integrated medicine.

Six Fellows were also named to ATA’s College of Fellows. Release.

 

$8bn COVID-19 supplemental funding House bill waives telehealth restrictions for Medicare beneficiaries (US)

March 6, 2020 | by

The House of Representatives, which controls appropriations, has passed H.R. 6074, the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act. The bill provides $8.3 billion in new funding that includes a significant telehealth waiver for Medicare. From the bill summary on Congress.gov:

Within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the bill provides FY2020 supplemental appropriations for

the Food and Drug Administration,
the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention,
the National Institutes of Health, and
the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund.

In addition, the bill provides supplemental appropriations for

the Small Business Administration,
the Department of State, and
the U.S. Agency for International Development

The supplemental appropriations are designated as emergency spending, which is exempt from discretionary spending limits.

The programs funded by the bill address issues such as

developing, manufacturing, and procuring vaccines and other medical supplies;
grants for state, local, and tribal public health agencies and organizations;
loans for affected small businesses;
evacuations and emergency preparedness activities at U.S. embassies and other State Department facilities; and
humanitarian assistance and support for health systems in the affected countries.

The bill also allows HHS to temporarily waive certain Medicare restrictions and requirements regarding telehealth services during the coronavirus public health emergency.

Sponsored by retiring Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), it was introduced and passed in the House 415-2.

In the text of the bill, the telehealth-pertinent portion permitting CMS to waive restrictions on telehealth for Medicare beneficiaries during this emergency is Division B, Sections 101-102. This cost is estimated at $500 million by The Hill.

The bill went to the Senate yesterday (4 Mar) for final approval. There is already an amendment proposed by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to offset the $8 bn of the bill with unobligated, non-health related foreign aid funds (FreedomWorks). Whether this is the ‘offset’ for telehealth that is mentioned in The Hill as under negotiation is not revealed.

The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) approved of the waiver. Ann Mond Johnson, the ATA’s CEO, urged “CMS to implement its waiver authority as soon as possible to ensure health care providers understand any requirements and help speed the deployment of virtual services” and pledged “The ATA and its members will continue to work with federal and state authorities, including HHS and the CDC, to address the COVID-19 outbreak and ensure resources are appropriately deployed for those individuals in need of care and help keep health care workers safe.” ATA press release, Hat tip to Gina Cella for the ATA heads-up

News roundup: docs dim on AI without purpose, ‘medtail’ a mall trend, CVS goes SDH, Kvedar to ATA, Biden ‘moonshot’ shorts out, and Short Takes

July 27, 2019 | by

Docs not crazy about AI. And Dog Bites Man. In Medscape‘s survey of 1,500 doctors in the US, Europe, and Latin America, they are skeptical (49 percent-US) and uncomfortable (35 percent-Europe, 30 percent-Latin America). Only 20 percent fess up to actually using an AI application, and aren’t crazy about voice tech even at home. Two-thirds are willing to take a look at AI-powered tech if it proves to be better than humans at diagnosis, but only 44 percent actually believe that will happen. FierceHealthcare

This dim view, in the estimation of a chief analytics and information officer in healthcare, Vikas Chowdhry, is not the fault of AI nor of the doctors. There’s a disconnect between the tech and the larger purpose. “Without a national urgency to focus on health instead of medical care, and without scalable patient person-centered reforms, no technology will make a meaningful impact, especially in a hybrid public goods area like health.” The analogy is to power of computing–that somehow when we focused behind a goal, we were able to have multiple moon missions with computing equivalent to a really old smartphone, but now we send out funny cat videos instead of being on Mars. (And this Editor growing up in NJ thought the space program was there to market Tang orange drink.) HIStalk.

Those vacant stores at malls? Fill ’em with healthcare clinics! And go out for Jamba Juice after! CNN finally caught up with the trend, apparent on suburbia’s Boulevards and Main Streets, that clinics can fill those mall spots which have been vacated by retail. No longer confined to ‘medical buildings’, outpatient care is popping up everywhere. In your Editor’s metro area, you see CityMDs next to Walmarts, Northwell Health next to a burger spot, a Kessler Health rehab clinic replacing a dance studio, and so on. The clever name for it is ‘medtail’, and landlords love them because they sign long leases and pay for premium spots, brighten up dim concourses, and perhaps stimulate food court and other shopping traffic. Of course, CVS and Aetna spotted this about years ago in their merger but are working expansion in the other direction with expanding CVS locations and on the healthcare side, testing the addition of social determinants of health (SDH) services via a pilot partnership, Destination: Health with non-profit Unite Us to connect better with community services. This is in addition to previous affordable housing investments and a five-year community health initiative. Forbes, Mobihealthnews

ATA announces Joseph Kvedar, MD, as President-Elect. Dr. Kvedar was previously president in 2004-5 and replaces John Glaser, PhD, Executive Senior Advisor, Cerner. He will remain as Vice President of Connected Health at Partners HealthCare and Professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School. A question mark for those of us in the industry is his extensive engagement with October’s Connected Health Conference in Boston, one of the earliest and now a HIMSS event. ATA’s next event is ATA2020 3-5 May 2020 in Phoenix–apparently no Fall Forum this year.

The Biden Cancer Initiative has shut down after two years in operation. This spinoff of the White House-sponsored ‘moonshot’ initiative was founded after the death of Beau Biden, son of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden. Both Mr. Biden and wife Jill Biden withdrew due to ethics concerns in April. According to Fortune, the nonprofit had trouble maintaining momentum without their presence. However, the setup invited conflict of interest concerns. The Initiative engaged and was funded by pharmas and other health tech companies, directly for Initiative support but mainly for indirect pledges to fund research. Most of these organizations do business with Federal, state and local governments. Shortly after the formal announcement, Mr. Biden the Candidate announced a rural health plan to expand a federal grant program to include rural telehealth for mental health and specialized services. Politico   But isn’t that already underway with the FCC’s Connected Care Pilot Program, coming to a vote soon? [TTA 20 June]

And…Short Takes

  • Philips Healthcare bought Boston-based patient engagement/management start-up Medumo. Terms not disclosed. CNBC
  • London’s Medopad launched with Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT) in a three-year RPM deal. DigitalHealthNews
  • Parks Associates’ Connected Health Summit will be again in San Diego 27-29 August with an outstanding lineup of speakers. More information and registration here.

And in other news, Matt Hancock holds tight to his portfolio as UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in the newly formed Government under new PM Boris Johnson. Luckier than the other 50 percent!

 

 

International news roundup: ATA dispatches, compete for funding in Helsinki, Spry FDA-cleared for COPD, Merck acquires ConnectMed Kenya

April 18, 2019 | by

There’s not much news so far from the just-wrapped ATA 2019 conference in New Orleans, but POLITICO Morning eHealth highlighted a drop-by by Sen. Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, urging attendees to demonstrate to their local politicos that telemedicine is safe and effective–and be ready to answer questions about fraud or misuse. Louisiana’s Ochsner Health System is branching into retail with the O Bar, cleverly designed to look like an Apple Store to merchandise wearables and other health tech devices. For Ochsner patients, they can enroll into RPM programs and have their data directly input into their Epic EHR. American Well released a survey of 800 doctors, with the unsurprising finding that 22 percent have used telehealth to treat patients, but this is up 340 percent since 2015; also that the doctors finding telehealth most attractive to practice are also reporting high levels of burnout. Looking for more substantiative news from NOLA.

It’s Helsinki for pitching your digital health idea in June. The 11th edition of the interestingly named EC2VC Investors Forum and Pitch Competition is now part of HIMSS/ Health 2.0 Europe 2019. Healthcare startups and SMEs looking for funding can apply, with 12 companies to be selected to present before a jury panel of digital health investors. The format is a four-minute pitch, followed by six minutes of Q&A. More information and to apply by 6 May, with finalists selected by 13 May. The event is 11 June from 13:00 to 16:00 at Messukeskus Helsinki Expo & Convention Centre. 

Spry Health’s Loop wearable device gained FDA clearance. Spry is a RPM device company with a wrist-wearable device that measures pulse oximetry, respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure (research only) through optical sensors. While users can receive reports on the display and alerts, it is primarily meant for clinical monitoring by physicians in healthcare systems. The RPM is meant to detect signs of patient deterioration and exacerbations early so that actions can be taken. For the present time, the company is focusing on the device’s use in COPD patients. Certainly there is a large market in the US–there are 12 million diagnosed patients, with COPD the third leading cause of death with over 120,000 deaths per year. Mobihealthnews, BusinessWire, MDDIOnline

Merck acquires Kenyan digital health startup ConnectMed. The pharma company is purchasing ConnectMed’s telehealth applications in Kenya serving about 8,000 consumers, as well as related management systems. Merck will use the platform in conjunction with its Curafa point of care clinical and pharmaceutical services. Started in September of last year, these are run by local independent pharmaceutical technologists, clinical officers and nurses for underserved populations in Kenya. ConnectMed will cease operations. During its lifetime, it developed three DTC digital health services in Kenya and South Africa. WT/Startup Africa

Spring is here, so are some events to enjoy–and broaden your horizons

April 10, 2019 | by

AI in healthcare: hope or hype? MedStartr, Rent24NYC, Thursday 18 April, 6 – 9pm

Our colleagues at MedStartr are hosting a panel discussing a hot topic: AI in healthcare. Panel and speakers include Melissa Honour, IBM Watson, Artificial Intelligence Portfolio Lead; Joseph Gough, EVP Innovation, Remedy Health;  Samantha Nazareth, MD, Gastroenterologist, writer, broadcast commentator, and healthcare analyst. More to come! Cost is $20 but there are drinks and snacks throughout. Register on Meetup. TTA is a media partner of Health 2.0 NYC and MedStartr.

Validating Your Digital Health Solution: Why, When and How. Partners HealthCare Pivot Labs, Liberty Hotel, Boston, Monday 22 April, 6-9pm

On the journey to commercializing your health tech product, there are multiple ways to test it. It can be difficult to determine where to start, how to do it and what to evaluate. During this free session, Partners HealthCare Labs will address why validating your digital health solution – whether for clinical or economic outcomes – can benefit your product. RSVP at this link.

Two coming up very soon via Aging 2.0 NYC:

Thursday-Friday 11-12 April: The Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE) will hold a two-day workshop on Design For Older Adults at Weill Cornell’s Division of Geriatrics. If you are designing technology, consumer or health products, or living environments for older adults, this is a unique opportunity to network with colleagues and glean advice from leading experts in aging and design. Because of the highly interactive nature of this workshop, attendance is limited to 35 attendees. Aging2.0 members receive a discount. Email Adrienne Jaret at adj2012@med.cornell.edu or call 646-962-7153 (mention Aging2.0).

Monday, April 29: Aging2.0 and CaringKind will host the third annual Technology for Caregivers showcase from 1:30pm-7:30pm at CaringKind’s headquarters at 360 Lexington Avenue. This one-day event will give caregivers and the Aging2.0 community the opportunity to try the latest technology for caregiving and dementia, and provide startups the opportunity to showcase their products. Last year’s event was featured on CBS and saw more than 300 caregivers interact with 25 innovative startups. If you would like to have your company featured contact us at newyork@aging2.com. Register here.

And finally, we’d be remiss in not mentioning next week’s ATA19 which will be held 14 – 16 April in New Orleans at the Convention Center. Less and less referring to itself as the American Telemedicine Association, the conference is also less significant than it once was due to the specialization of health tech, the rise of HIMSS earlier in the year, as well as early fall’s Health 2.0 and the Connected Health Conference. Nevertheless, for many companies in the field it is still a must-attend if not a must-exhibit. Registration is still open here.

Two more events for the calendar: ATA’s EDGE18 (Austin TX), SEHTA/Brunel MedTech Connects (London)

September 6, 2018 | by

EDGE18, American Telemedicine Association, 26-28 September, Fairmont Austin, Austin TX

The revamped fall meeting of the ATA is being held in Austin, Texas this year as EDGE18.  The conference will highlight emerging best practices in telemedicine and virtual care, which are accelerating delivery model innovation, program design, and technology implementation. Speakers will include industry thought-leaders from WalMart, Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Ascension Healthcare, Babylon Health, AHIP, and NY Presbyterian Hospital. There will also be interactive workshops and immersion tours (space limited) offering “hands-on” previews of new technologies and programs at the Austin offices of Fjord Austin, Dell Medical School, and others. For more information and registration, see their website.  

MedTech Connects: SMEs to Universities – Brunel University Showcase, 10 October, Darwin Room, Hamilton Centre, Brunel University, London UB8 3PH, 09:30 – 15:00

Brunel University, SEHTA and the GLA are hosting a free conference to highlight research, teaching and commercial collaborations through the Co-Innovate programme, a Brunel initiative supported by the EU through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). This major event is designed to start partnerships leading to collaborations with Brunel’s Design, Computer Science and Business schools, and collaborative research bids including current opportunities from InnovateUK, UKRI, SBRI and the Industry Challenge Fund. More information and registration is here.

VA’s ‘Anywhere to Anywhere’ telehealth initiative finalizes

May 24, 2018 | by

VA Secretaries may come and go (or never get there), but their initiatives stay. With much fanfare last year, then-Secretary David Shulkin announced the ‘Anywhere to Anywhere’ telehealth and telemedicine program [TTA 3 Aug]. This program will use VA practitioners to provide virtual patient care across state lines when a veteran cannot make it to a VA hospital or clinic. The Department of Veterans Affairs published the proposed rule last October [TTA 3 Oct 17] with the Final Rule published in the Federal Register on 11 May.

Technically, it preempts state and local regulations around telehealth. “VA is exercising Federal preemption of conflicting State laws relating to the practice of healthcare providers; laws, rules, regulations, or other requirements are preempted to the extent such State laws conflict with the ability of VA health care providers to engage in the practice of telehealth while acting within the scope of their VA employment.”

It was widely supported by ATA, the American Association of Family Physicians, American Medical Informatics Association, Federal Trade Commission, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), and many other industry organizations. It also enjoys wide Congressional support.

There is plenty of room for growth. Only 1 percent of VA’s veterans used Home Telehealth, while 12 percent used other forms of telehealth. They will be doing so with few suppliers: Medtronic, 1Vision/AMC Health, and Care Innovations. Iron Bow/Vivify Health was found to not have tablets which met the US production qualification. This Editor wonders how the current three suppliers will fare.

This telehealth program will be located in the apparently newly named Veterans Health Administration Office of Connected Care. mHealthIntelligence.com

Updated–Rounding up this week’s news: VA budget, Shulkin’s troubles, ATA’s new CEO, Allscripts’ wheeling-dealing, Roche buys Flatiron, Nokia out of health?, NHS Carillioning?

February 17, 2018 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Lasso.jpg” thumb_width=”100″ /]Here’s our roundup for the week of 12 February:

VA wins on the budget, but the Secretary’s in a spot of bother. Updated. Last week started off as a good week for Secretary Shulkin with a White House budget proposal that increased their $83.1 billion budget by 11.7 percent, including $1.2 billion for Year 1 of the Cerner EHR implementation in addition to the agency’s $4.2 billion IT budget which includes $204 million to modernize VistA and other VA legacy IT systems in the interim. While the Cerner contract went on hold in December while record-sharing is clarified, the freeze is expected to be lifted within a month. POLITICO  Where the trouble started for Dr. Shulkin was in the findings of a spending audit by the VA’s Inspector General’s Office of an official European trip to Copenhagen and London which included unreimbursed travel by Mrs. Shulkin and free tickets to Wimbledon, at least partly justified by a doctored email. This has led to the early retirement of the VA Chief of Staff Vivieca Wright Simpson and also an investigation of hacking into Wright Simpson’s email. It also appears that some political appointees in the VA are being investigated for misconduct. CNBC, FierceHealthcare.

Updated: POLITICO doesn’t feel the love for Dr. Shulkin in today’s Morning eHealth, linking to articles about the supposed ‘internal war’ at the VA, with veterans’ groups, with the Trump Administration, and within the VA. It’s the usual governmental infighting which within the 16 Feb article is being whipped by POLITICO and co-author ProPublica to a fevered pitch. Dr. Shulkin comes across as doctor/tech geek who underestimated the politicization of and challenges within an agency with the mission to care for our veterans. It’s also an agency having a hard time facing the current demands of a dispersed, younger and demanding veteran group plus aging, bureaucratic infrastructure. As usual the ‘privatization’ issue is being flogged as an either/or choice whereas a blend may serve veterans so much better.

Digital health entrepreneur named CEO of the American Telemedicine Association. A first for ATA is a chief from the health tech area who is also one of the all-too-rare executive women in the field. Ann Mond Johnson, who will be starting on 5 March, was previously head of Zest Health, board chair and advisor to Chicago start-up ConnectedHealth (now part of Connecture), and had sold her first start-up company Subimo to WebMD in 2006. She began her career in healthcare data and information with The Sachs Group (now part of Truven/IBM Watson). Ms. Johnson replaces founding CEO Jonathan Linkous, who remained for 24 years before resigning last August and is now a consultant. ATA release, mHealth Intelligence. ATA relocated in January from Washington DC to nearby Arlington Virginia. And a reminder that ATA2018 is 29 April – 1 May in Chicago and open for registration.

Allscripts’ ‘Such a Deal’! Following up on Allscripts’ acquisitions of Practice Fusion for $100 million (a loss to investors) and earlier McKesson’s HIT business for $185 million [TTA 9 Jan], it hasn’t quite paid for itself, but came very close with the sale of McKesson’s OneContent, a healthcare document-management system, for a tidy $260 million. Net price: $25 million. Their CEO is some horse trader! Some of the savings will undoubtedly go to remedying the cyberattack in January that affected two data centers in North Carolina, shutting down EHR and billing applications for approximately 1,500 physician practices, which have launched a class action lawsuit. FierceHealthcare 

Flatiron Health acquired by Roche. (more…)

Telemedicine for all creatures great and small? Veterinarians debate.

August 22, 2017 | by

Will veterinarians be covered by ongoing telemedicine legislation? This surprisingly became an issue with the New Jersey telemedicine bill [TTA 11 Aug] S.291 prior to signature by Governor Christie. The debate was whether “health care providers” covered under the licensing statutes in Title 45 of NJ’s Revised Statutes also included veterinarians in the “including but not limited to” language as well as the nature of the “proper provider-patient relationship” and “patient request”. Reportedly the Governor held his signature in order to sort this out, meeting with healthcare and veterinary representatives. The final bill does not appear to specifically address veterinary practice.

For its part, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Practice Advisory Panel (AP) came out solidly in favor of non-inclusion in human laws like New Jersey’s in their January report. Their view of the patient-physician relationship is logically different because the animal patient cannot give consent, but an owner/client can, and that difference is not specified in human medicine laws. In the AP’s view, “telemedicine shall only be conducted within an existing VCPR [veterinarian client patient relationship], with the exception for advice given in an emergency care situation until that patient(s) can be seen by or transported to a veterinarian” which is increasingly not true of human telemedicine. Law firm Fox Rothschild’s animal law practice blog cited instances such as when a Texas veterinarian was found to have violated the state practice act by offering advice over the internet. 

Many veterinarians are calling for AVMA to seek guidance from organizations like the ATA to better codify animal telemedicine practice. ATA, for its part, has stayed apart from state debates while remaining generally supportive. The gap in veterinary practice is especially acute with a declining number of practitioners caring for food animals (livestock) and in rural veterinary practice. But who will care for the unicorns? Seriously, here is a gap that needs to be filled. mHealth Intelligence

Some reflections on ATA and a future CEO–your ‘nominations’ wanted!

August 9, 2017 | by

This Editor and publication have had relationships at different levels with the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) since at least 2006. Our Readers know of TTA’s long-standing support of ATA’s annual meeting as a media partner. As a marketer, I’ve negotiated booths, sponsorships, and sent staff (including myself) to meetings, which makes this experience like many of our Readers.

It is worth reflecting that in 1993, when Jon Linkous took the ATA helm, few of us other than academics had email or used the Internet except in limited ways like IBMMail or Minitel. Once telemedicine, video consults, and vital signs data capture were the future and mostly theory. We went through the whiz-bang gadget phase, where every new one was going to change healthcare as we know it. Now we are past the buzzy cocktail party hangover into trying to make it work. We are in 2.0 and 3.0 where it’s all about integration of telemedicine and telehealth into patient engagement, behavior change, data analytics, predictive care, genomics, improving life for the aging and chronically ill population, managing the tsunami of patient data for better outcomes, smart pills, hacking and data security, EHRs, ACOs, meeting standards such as MACRA…and heavy engagement with national (Federal) and local entities. And always–getting paid enough to stay afloat!

As an organization, ATA faces an ever-expanding HIMSS, which has expanded far beyond its health information/IT/data analytics raison d’être to media properties, multiple health tech conferences, and now presence with early-stage companies through acquiring Health 2.0.

Dizzying changes, and more to come.

Who do you want to see at the helm of ATA? What will be the new CEO’s problems to solve? List your choices and thoughts in Comments below! (If you wish to be anonymous, email Editor Donna in confidence.)

Change at the top at ATA: CEO Jon Linkous departs after 24 years

August 8, 2017 | by

The American Telemedicine Association’s CEO, Jonathan Linkous, has left ATA after 24 years as CEO. An ATA spokesperson cited personal reasons, according to MedCityNews. Sources told POLITICO Morning eHealth that Mr. Linkous “simply told the organization he was leaving the job effective immediately before its board meeting this week.” It was certainly an unusual departure, without the standard transitional period of months or even a year. The ATA release was short and concentrated on the ‘transitional period’.

Acting as interim CEO will be Dr. Sabrina Smith, who joined last January as COO after senior VP/COO-level positions with the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS) and the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) after 12 years with MedStar Health, the largest health system in the Washington DC metro. MedCityNews quoted ATA board president Peter Yellowlees, MD that the search is expected to take about six months. This will take the search through ATA’s Fall Forum in October and well into the ramp-up for ATA 2018 in April. ATA is seeking “a vision for the future of healthcare” and “extensive knowledge of telemedicine”, so if you have it, step up! 

Jon Linkous, from the formation of ATA to yesterday, gained much recognition for telemedicine and telehealth, to where ATA presently has 10,000 members and 450 health system and industry partners, a leading annual conference, multiple events and educational programs. They have concentrated much (and successful) effort in gaining parity of payment for telemedicine, a state by state battle, though the POLITICO report (using a quote from a former HIMSS executive director now consulting for ATA!) did not think much of ATA’s influence in the Washington DC swamps. Another major change apparent over the past five years: as an association, healthcare technology has developed way outside ‘telemedicine’. Organizations like HIMSS have exploded in size through redrawing their definitional lines plus aggressive acquisitions in media and of competitors such as Health 2.0. The next chapters won’t be simple or easy for the new CEO. Also FierceHealthcare. (Disclosure: TTA has been for many years a media partner of the ATA annual conference.)

ATA 2017 dispatch: The future is about business models and the consumer

April 24, 2017 | by

Bruce Judson, our guest ATA 2017/Telehealth 2.0 reporter, is a bestselling author of books on business and technology issues in the evolving digital era. This is the first of several articles this week. Mr. Judson writes frequently for The Huffington Post. More on about him may be found in our review of his critique of the RAND telehealth study [25 Mar].

Orlando, April 24. Yesterday, the annual convention of the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) moved into full swing. At noon, Jonathan Linkous, ATA’s CEO, took a few minutes to talk with me. During our wide-ranging discussion, three notable themes emerged:

First and perhaps most important, Mr. Linkous believes that the future development of telehealth now stands with establishing viable business models. In his view, the speed of growth of the industry now depends on how the many participants in the healthcare system develop business models that lead to appropriate investments. He noted that this contrasts with the general focus on the evolving technology. Of course, the technology will continue to evolve and major advancements will occur for the foreseeable future. But, Mr. Linkous strongly believes that “the technology is here today.” In short, it’s now about how the technology is used and deployed. New advances will be incorporated into services and infrastructure as they occur. But, the past, telehealth is now moving into mainstream investment discussions. In his view, the leaders of every health organization are now assessing the role telehealth will play in the services they offer, and the investments they need to make now.  Now, it’s about making it work. We are no longer waiting for the technology to be viable.

Second, Mr. Linkous commented on the hype surrounding the industry. He was frank in recognizing that, as with all exciting, transformative industries, the hype cycle is in full swing. One telling comment: “Unlike the past, the industry now has real revenues,” with rapidly growing businesses. In short, we may not be past the hype, but the industry is quickly moving to fulfill realistic expectations.

Finally, Mr. Linkous concluded that the future growth of the telehealth industry would largely depend on the consumer. He cited a variety of factors: the growth of value-based care, the emerging influence of millennials who are comfortable with technology, and the overall consumerization of medicine.

Many industry participants have described themselves to me as B2B businesses. Undoubtedly, they are. It’s hard to refute Linkous’s conclusion: Ultimately, the growth of the industry, like the evolution of healthcare itself, will depend on consumer choices.

TytoCare remote diagnostics comparable to in-person exam results: study

February 8, 2017 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Mom_using_on_child_ear.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]A study of the Tyto Care remote diagnostic device, conducted by Schneider Children’s Medical Center and the Sackler School of Medicine, found that the quality of readings by Tyto Care was ‘on par’ with in-person medical exams using conventional otoscopes and stethoscopes. Ears, heart, lungs and throats of 137 children aged 2-18 seeking care from the emergency department of a tertiary care facility were examined first conventionally and then again by a second remote physician using exam data captured by the TytoCare all-in-one device and attachments. Using standard statistical methods, the results were compared and the study reported “good to excellent agreement for all exams conducted using TytoCare and conventional exam tools, with a p-value <.001.” The study also recorded a separate five-point measure of patient experience and results averaged 4.4 and 4.5 out of 5 (excellent). No adverse events were recorded.

What is lacking in the release are the diagnoses of the young patients, but presumably those results will be presented with the final study. Formal presentations will be at the Israel Society for Clinical Pediatrics (HIPAK) meeting on 8 February in Tel Aviv and at the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) conference 23-25 April in Orlando, Florida. This positive report on efficacy will also aid their rollout with American Well, announced at the end of 2016 [TTA 2 Dec]. Harry Wang at Parks Associates in their blog also named TytoCare one of the two standouts of CES 2017–and the other, Partron (Croise) is not yet on the market.