Canary Care goes into administration, is acquired by Lifecycle Software (UK)

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Canary-Care.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Abingdon-based Canary Care, a developer and marketer of wireless sensor-based home health monitoring systems, has gone both into administration (the closest US equivalent is Chapter 11 bankruptcy) and been acquired by Lifecycle Software Ltd., a developer of CRM and billing software for telecommunications, internet service providers, and utility companies. In US terms, this is basically a pre-packaged bankruptcy.

According to their listing on Companies House, the administration started on 31 August. At the end of August, Lifecycle acquired the company (5 September press release). The Lifecycle website now features that Canary Care will be ‘keeping your dearest nearest’.

Stuart Butterfield, a Canary Care director as well as interim managing and technical director, was kind enough to answer my inquiry about the company’s status with a message that expressed a great deal of hope:

So, we’re still very much alive, and will continue to provide the Canary Care product and service that our existing customers know and love. As you will be aware, adoption of TECS is painfully slow. However, our new owner provides us with the stability and resources to continue to develop the Canary Care offering and we’re very excited and optimistic about the future and the opportunity to bring Canary Care to a wider audience.

Innovative assistive technology/TECS, despite the investments by major players, remains a difficult area for funding and adoption not only in the UK but also in the far larger market of the US and Canada. While we see a Best Buy acquiring GreatCall, we’re also reminded that GreatCall picked up the remnants of Lively for the IP and Healthsense for their assisted living customers and for the technology. The “name” health tech companies of the early ’00s are largely gone or no longer independent (Viterion, Living Independently, HealthSpot, Cardiocom, WellAware…)

In many ways, we have not progressed much from, say, 2007, in the field, except for tech advances and the number of players.

We wish Canary Care and Lifecycle success–and the patience they will need with this market. Hat tips first to a UK industry insider who alerted this Editor, as well as Gerry Allmark, managing director of UK Telehealthcare for help in sourcing Companies House.

Iron Bow partners with Vivify Health for $258 million VA telehealth contract

One mystery solved! Iron Bow Technologies announced that its telehealth delivery partner for their award of $258 million in the Veterans Affairs Home Telehealth program is Plano, Texas-based Vivify Health. As noted in our original article [TTA 6 Feb] on the much-delayed VA remote patient monitoring award, Iron Bow was an existing contractor in other VA Telehealth services, Clinical Video Telehealth (video conferencing) and Store-and-Forward (clinical imaging review), but did not have vital signs RPM capability. The addition of Vivify with its mobile and tablet-based solutions and integrated peripherals adds that capability.

Vivify structures its main telehealth solutions based on escalating patient ‘risk’: 1) healthy and ‘at risk’ (may have early stage disease), 2) rising risk (has complex chronic disease) and 3) high risk (for hospitalization). The approaches are scaled up from engagement on BYOD mobile and web for (1), to vital signs monitoring and telemedicine clinician visits via mobile and tablet (2), to the highest level of an integrated kit with tablet and integrated peripherals (3). These further divide into five ‘pathways’ which are more product-oriented.

Cost is, of course, a factor, with VA a very demanding client in this regard as individual VISN (region) budgets are tight. Medtronic, the incumbent, has not only been using the venerable Cardiocom Commander Flex hub, but also provides VA with Interactive Voice Monitoring (IVR) which is an inexpensive patient management solution. (Ed. note: having worked with IVR in the past, it can work well if used with primarily lower-risk patients, is structured/implemented properly and integrated with live clinical check-ins.) Vivify’s system is all new–and not inexpensive, especially at the high-risk level. From their website, Vivify uses BYOD for the lower levels and the integrated kit for the highest and poorer outcome patients. This Editor notes they offer a voice telephony care solution which presumably is IVR. This gives them a welcome flexibility in price, but also a complexity which will be a training issue with VA care coordinators.

Other factors affect mobile-based solutions. Many at risk at-home veterans are older and thus don’t have smartphones or tablets. Reliable broadband connectivity is also an issue. Many don’t have Wi-Fi, which is a prerequisite for tablet use, and may live in areas with poor cellular reception.

The other work and labor-intensive parts for Vivify and Iron Bow are to integrate their reporting platform into VA’s complex and secure systems, which also involves a highly structured updating process: CPRS (computerized patient record systems), the VistA EHR and whatever replaces it (Epic is being trialed in Boise, Idaho–scroll down to ‘Big Decisions’ and Dr Shulkin).

Founded in 2009, Vivify has compiled an impressive track record with CHRISTUS Health (TX), RWJ Health (NJ), Trinity Health (MI), Centura Health (CO) and other large systems plus home care. It has also been conservative in its venture funding, with $23.4 million to date and its last big round from LabCorp and others in 2014 (CrunchBase).

Release. Hat tip to Vivify’s Bill Paschall via LinkedIn.  P.S. Stay tuned for an announcement of 1Vision’s partner. 

Editor’s clarification: The VA Home Telehealth contract is structured as a one-year base period, followed by four one-year optional periods, for five years total. The awarded amount over the five-year period is $258 million for Iron Bow/Vivify. It is the same amount/term for each of the three other awarded companies, totaling just over $1 billion for the five-year program. This is comparable to the 2011 five-year program value of $1.3 billion divided over six awardees. Thanks to Josie Smoot of Iron Bow Technologies’ press office.

VA awards over $1 billion in Home Telehealth contracts–at long last (updated)

Breaking News, Updated  The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on 1 Feb issued over $1 billion in awards to four companies to provide Home Telehealth vital signs monitoring technologies to veterans in home care and monitoring. The four companies are Medtronic, Care Innovations, Iron Bow Technologies, and 1Vision LLC. The $1 billion is split evenly between the four ($258 million for each company over the five-year duration). The contracts are for an initial year (31 Jan 2018 end date listed on GovTribe.com), renewable annually for five years total. The bid process started in 2015 and the award had originally been scheduled for early-to-mid 2016.

On the suppliers:

  • Medtronic is the incumbent as a supplier since 2011, dating back to Cardiocom’s 2011 award for its home monitoring units (Cardiocom was acquired in August 2013). Medtronic is a Dublin, Ireland HQ’d company with a US headquarters in Minnesota.
  • Care Innovations is well known to our Readers as the developer of Health Harmony and the acquirer of the QuietCare telecare/behavioral monitoring used in senior housing. Their parent is Intel.
  • Iron Bow Technologies is a supplier to VA in other healthcare areas (telemedicine and store-and-forward) and is a large, privately held IT company with multiple Federal contracts and deep Federal contractor roots. Their revenue has been reported at over $462 million (Washington Technology Top 100 2016).
  • 1Vision LLC is a new company formed as a joint venture between HMS Technologies, Inc. and MBL Technologies, Inc. Neither are previously engaged as home telehealth providers, but both are Federal contractors. According to their individual websites, HMS is an IT systems integrator and MBL is engaged primarily in cybersecurity.

The question for this Editor is how Iron Bow and 1Vision, which are not telehealth (vital signs) monitoring companies but telemedicine and IT service providers respectively, will execute Home Telehealth with the VA. Have they partnered with yet-to-be disclosed providers in providing home telehealth services to the VA? (Watch this space)

While the award is the largest in US telehealth, the VA is, by this Editor’s experience in her last position with Viterion Corporation, extremely demanding on its service providers and will be even more so in the future. The future reasons are clear: 1) President Trump has put a Klieg light on the VA and 2) he’s named a new VA secretary, Dr David Shulkin, who is currently VA Undersecretary for Health (confirmation hearing notes courtesy of POLITICO, nomination approved by the Senate committee Tuesday, and easily confirmed Monday night 13 Feb), who has been highly engaged with HIT issues, including both the VistA EHR modernization/replacement and initiatives such as the recently unveiled Digital Health Platform [TTA 12 Jan]. (more…)

A review of digital health patent slugfests and Unintended Consequences

Mobihealthnews provides a recap of the past four years of patent actions pitting company against company in the hushed but deadly rings of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the US International Trade Commission. On the fight card: the never-ending American Well-Teladoc bout (Teladoc winning every decision so far by a knockout [TTA 18 June]–a second American Well patent being invalidated on 25 August); CardioNet vs MedTel, which the former won but has had to chase the latter out of the arena and down the street to collect; Fitbit-Jawbone which has gone both ways [TTA 27 July]; and the long trail of blood, sweat and Unintended Consequences around Bosch Healthcare’s heavyweight IP pursuit against mainly flyweight early-stage companies (not noting, as we did, their apparent ‘draws’ vs Philips and Viterion, then owned by Bayer).

The Reader will note our tracking Bosch’s activities go back to 2012 (here, here and here). Moreover, with Mr Tim Rowan of Home Care Technology, we broke the news of Bosch’s demise in June 2015, drawing the conclusion that their offense versus Cardiocom’s patents (now in Medtronic’s cardiac division) directly led to the invalidation of their key patents, IP–and the very basis of the company’s existence. See the 19 June 2015 article and our recap one year later in reviewing AW-Teladoc. (Any similar phrasing or conclusions within the Mobihealthnews article, we will leave to our Readers to decide!)

Medtronic’s moves in post-acute cardiac care management, monitoring

Medical device giant (and inverted to Dublin) Medtronic announced today the launch of their Beacon Heart Failure Management Service in the US. It combines their implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) or cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) devices with post-acute patient monitoring from Medtronic Care Management Services (MCMS). The patients are checked both through their recorded cardiac device diagnostics and what they called ‘branching logic’ questions which collect daily qualitative, biometric and symptom information, plus provide patient education. Care managers then review the data along what they term ‘established clinical pathways’ check for growing risk factors and alert providers if needed.

What is interesting is that the in-home delivery and collection platform or hub is not specified. Medtronic happens to own one of the telehealth pioneers, a company which used to be called Cardiocom–which is now part of Medtronic Care Management Services in their Cardiac and Vascular Group (CVG).

No launch clients/partners are mentioned, save a quote from a cardiologist at The Stern Cardiovascular Foundation in the Memphis TN area. ReleaseFierceMedicalDevices

In other Medtronic news, earlier this week they announced the acquisition of cardiac device company HeartWare for $1.1 billion. HeartWare has developed small implantable (more…)

Unintended consequences: American Well loses, loses patent, to Teladoc

On Tuesday, the Federal District Court of Massachusetts not only dismissed the American Well patent infringement lawsuit against Teladoc, but also invalidated American Well‘s patent, held by co-founder Dr. Roy Schoenberg since 2009. It was invalidated on the grounds that the claims in the patent were “too abstract” to be patentable and do not “amount to an inventive concept.” American Well is appealing the court decision.

Teladoc started this call-and-response in March 2015 by petitioning the USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office) to invalidate several American Well patents. (AW claims to hold 28 patents and 22 pending applications). Shortly before Teladoc’s IPO on the New York Stock Exchange last June, American Well sued Teladoc on patent infringement. Those in the industry saw an effort to scupper the IPO. Our Editor Chrys at the time took a decidedly jaundiced view of American Well’s grounds for infringement:
This author is wondering who thought this was such a novel technology as to warrant a patent? What were they thinking? Having worked on developing unified messaging systems for a mobile phone operator at the turn of the century (now that’s a scary 15 years ago) I am just picking myself off the floor after reading this.
Surely all these functions are no more than what is in every instant messaging program, dating back to 1990s? Replace the words “medical service provider” by “friends” or “contacts” and “consultation” by “chat” or “call” it seems to me you get … Skype and Face Time and more! [TTA 9 June 15]
No matter, the result was yesterday’s double shot of a decision. In addition, three Teladoc complaints against American Well‘s patents to invalidate them are still in progress with the USPTO. A triple, anyone? MedCityNews, Teladoc press release, American Well press release
All this is despite the sobering facts that telemedicine has been unprofitable to date–and that IP wars have unintended consequences. (more…)

Medtronic favoring early-stage acquisitions, diabetes; American Well and Teva

Medtronic plc, now firmly planted in the Auld Sod of Ireland, reported a tidy $7.304 bn in its 4th quarter global revenue closing 24 April versus a prior year of $7.257 bn, with a net loss of $1 million. Their report yesterday (2 June) was primarily centered around the integration of Covidien and the foreign currency loss. Results were especially strong in the US with an 8 percent gain in fourth quarter. Earlier speculation that the major Covidien acquisition in addition to Corventis, Zephyr Technologies (through Covidien) and telehealth provider Cardiocom would slow future investments seems to be the direction CEO Omar Ishrak is taking, based on his comments during the analyst call. The Covidien strategy of making early-stage company acquisitions is to his liking and with new revenues from Covidien (and a more favorable tax domicile) certainly there is not a lack of funds despite a small loss in fourth quarter revenues. Another change from being a cardiac-centric device company is apparent in the growth area of global diabetes, shifting from pumps to diabetes management. They have a minority investment in diabetes manager Glooko, a partnership with IBM Watson Health for diabetes management, and acquired a Dutch clinic and research center, Diabeter. Jonah Comstock at Mobihealthnews has more on that call.

In a surprising move, Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals is putting a reported ‘tens of millions of dollars’ into American Well and their telemedicine (virtual consult) platform. The pharma interest at once may be narrow in utilizing these consults in clinical trials, but as we have seen with Merck’s telemedicine clinics in Kenya, there’s also a focus on monitoring critical medication at long distances. Late last year American Well completed an $81 million Series C, but it is not clear whether Teva is a part of this and the news is just now catching up. MedCityNews, Globes (Israeli business website)

Do startups truly threaten the ‘healthcare establishment’?

Or are successful startups fitting into their game? Chris Seper in MedCityNews paints the picture of one side of a quandary. The ‘healthcare establishment’ fundamentally and to its detriment does not understand and is threatened by the startup and innovation process. A startup may begin with an idea which is, in his words, ‘almost always flawed, sometimes deeply’. If the founders are smart, they will test their ideas, validate them and change them appropriately. If not, they will fail. But it is easier for the Establishment to point at the most egregious of the bad ideas and use them to rationalize the status quo.

But being congenital contrarians, we paint the house on the other side of the street. Has the Establishment caught up with–or in some cases, co-opted startups, making them and their funders ‘do their diligence’ and be more cautious before emerging? This Editor would argue yes, and largely for the better.

**The ‘Wild West’ days are over. A few years ago, a truly bad or deeply flawed health tech idea or could easily find funding, because it was all blank slate, new and ‘transformative’.The sexiest hooks were Quantified Self, sleep, employer health incentives, interactive coaching, genomics, app prescribing and (last) wearables. A lot of founders imagined themselves as the Steve Jobs of Healthcare, down to the black turtleneck. Now there is a history of success and failure. The railroads reached the dusty frontier towns.

**There’s now a ‘Startup Establishment’. National accelerators (more…)

Medtronic, Covidien and what it might mean for digital health

“This acquisition will allow Medtronic to reach more patients, in more ways and in more places,” Medtronic Chairman and CEO Omar Ishrak

Cover the Earth? While the healthy Medtronic offer ($42.9 billion in cash and stock) for Ireland-headquartered Covidien plc is not a ‘digital health deal’, it does point to Medtronic’s strategy which includes digital health. There is of course the obvious: growth by acquisition and integration. Acquisitions require cash, and the highly controversial change of domicile to Ireland via ‘tax inversion’ will fatten the exchequer in two ways. First is through the lower overall Irish corporate tax versus the 35 percent US tax, one of the highest in the world. Second is much more flexibility in repatriating plentiful foreign earnings at lower Irish corporate rates rather than the high US rates which Medtronic has avoided. Third is increasing dividends, which can drive up stock price and investor interest. Of interest to the latter is also that Covidien adds horizontal (and global) competitive strength to Medtronic in the clinical area–surgical, vascular, respiratory and wound care.

More Ways-More Places. Not just staples and sutures, Covidien has developed its own advanced in-hospital mobile patient monitoring in Vital Sync as well as several hospital monitoring devices in their Nellcor line. In addition to technology collaboration, the next point of integration could then be with Medtronic’s post-acute telehealth devices from Cardiocom, purchased less than one year ago. We noted at the time that it gave Medtronic entreé into the “chronic condition management continuum– not only into telehealth via Cardiocom’s devices and hubs, but also their clinical and care management systems.”

Approval will take time. Both the US and UK, through various regulatory agencies, scuppered the Pfizer-AstraZeneca deal on similar tax domiciling and competitive grounds. If it does go through, there will be a lot of reorganization. But while it digests, this Editor will be watching Medtronic for its usual pattern of making smaller ‘more ways/more places’ deals in the interim with an eye to diversifying past US-taxable medical devices. One pointer is their just-announced partnering with Sanofi to develop drug delivery-medical device combinations and care management services for diabetes patients (MedCityNews).

Related reading: Medtronic hints at more acquisitions following $43 billion Covidien deal (MedCityNews); The Medtronic, Covidien Inversion Deal Is More About Dividends Than Tax (Forbes); Medtronic agrees to buy Covidien for $42.9b in cash, stock (Boston Globe); Medtronic’s $43B Covidien deal—and Irish tax move (CNBC)

 

Conflicting telehealth signals – is the VA or E Riding of Yorkshire CCG on the money?

Can there be two greater contrasts than the recent decisions by the Dept of Veteran Affairs in the US (VA) to award a five year $28.8m telehealth contract to AMC Health and that of the E Riding of Yorkshire CCG to “axe” its telehealth service?

The sheer size of the VA deal makes every recent deal in Europe seem very small in comparison. AMC’s CEO said: “AMC Health’s outcomes-based approach to telehealth and ability to actively engage patients to proactively self-manage their chronic conditions perfectly aligns (more…)

Medtronic’s telehealth strategy begins to emerge (UK & US)

Hot on the heels of our two recent posts (12 August and 27 August) on Medtronic’s takeover of Cardiocom, maker of telehealth devices, came the news in the FT yesterday that Medtronic had won cardiology management contracts with NHS hospitals (University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Trust and Imperial College  Healthcare NHS Trust).  They will also develop local cardiac services.

Now in an article today, Fierce Medical Devices explains how the two fit together (more…)

Medtronic confirms forecast direction change, the market reacts, and brains are stimulated

The ‘reasons why’ we (and others like David Shaywitz in Forbes) proposed back on 12 August for Medtronic’s purchase of Cardiocom were fully confirmed by their CEO Omar Ishrak in Bloomberg (21 August) and an analysis in Forbes (24 August). However, the Forbes article continues on to dump a bucket of cold water on Mr. Ishrak’s  ‘solutions provider’ strategem (so reminiscent of 2008-9 with different companies), positing that telehealth belongs with wireless/mobile companies (Qualcomm), companies further downstream (Allscripts, a major US pharmacy benefits manager) or other technology/monitoring companies. Mr. Market held the roses though (Deutsche Bank’s reiterated hold rating in Benzinga reflecting the consensus in Yahoo Finance).

What is interesting are their advances in brain stimulation to relieve pain in two areas. (more…)

Signs of a home monitoring bubble?

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Ambio-health.jpg” thumb_width=”175″ /]Suddenly home-based remote monitoring is very warm, if not hot. The news of investments at all levels–from Medtronic’s purchase of Cardiocom [TTA 12 Aug] to a $525,000 third angel round investment in AmbioHealth (which this Editor doubts would have been on MedCityNews’ radar a year ago)–sounds like home telehealth is finally, finally gaining traction with investors, which have been more attracted to hospital-based and fitness monitoring. But is it the right type of traction based on reasonable expectations? We were among the first to point out in 2010 in positing the FBQs* that where the data goes, how it’s being used and who’s taking action on it was critical. Now Robert Pearl MD in Forbes is also examining the new song of home RPM and finding a few off notes (or to mix metaphors, finding a pan of fool’s gold):

That’s because some promoters of home monitoring technology believe doctors will carefully scrutinize each EKG or blood sugar reading and use the information to tailor perfect regimens for their patients. This is not how medicine works.

and

Looking at thousands of EKG tracings won’t add much value either. In fact, putting all that information into an electronic medical record (EMR) only makes it more difficult for doctors to identify other, more vital pieces of information. Instead, doctors need to understand which of a few possible patterns are happening to determine the appropriate course of action.

Dr. Pearl’s prescription is for smartphones to embed telehealth monitoring capabilities at a price point slightly above the current cost, but less expensive than stand-alone devices (more…)

Well someone thinks telehealth is good news!

Medtronic has just announced a $200m takeover of Cardiocom, the telehealth device maker.  If you can get through the paywall, the WSJ article is here (updated link not paywalled–Ed. Donna)FierceMedical quotes Medtronic as saying that “At-home monitoring is a proven method of reducing the rates of hospital readmission…and that translates to savings for payers, providers and governments.” First area of joint working is expected to be heart failure. Recent US regulations on Medicare, and increasingly insurance payers, penalize hospitals for 30-day same-cause repeat admissions. Medtronic press release.

Editor Donna: The announcement of Medtronic’s (#4 in worldwide revenue) acquisition of Cardiocom (both Minnesota-based companies) created quite a stir in the US as Medtronic is a ‘traditional medical device’ company best known for its implantables: cardiac shunts, stents, heart valves, pacemakers, insulin pumps and interestingly, a wide range of neurostimulators for different conditions. Now with the acquisition of Cardiocom, Medtronic moves into the post-implant/post-discharge/post-diagnosis chronic condition management continuum– not only into telehealth via Cardiocom’s devices and hubs, but also their clinical and care management systems. $200 million in cold cash is a fair bet even though Medtronic’s market cap is north of $55 billion. Medtronic has to see the opportunity to make a bottom line difference to providers and payers. It is also reacting to a narrowing in its profitable core market–medical devices are now taxed, there have been recent product defect-related ‘scandals’ tarring the industry, and there is pressure to reduce pricey device costs to fit a cost-constrained environment, driven by the new healthcare ‘scheme’ (in both the British and American English senses!) Forbes‘ David Shaywitz has a smart take on it today (though he won’t hold his breath for the pharmas to follow), as well as VC TripleTree’s Chris Hoffman ‘connecting the dots’ and coming up with what we’ve been talking about for some time–integration making sense. It is also most definitely a shot over the bow for major competitors such as Alere, Bosch and Philips plus a raft of smaller companies which have been working with a scattering of hospital discharge areas, integrated delivery systems, ACOs and home health agencies, looking nervously over their shoulder–and other leading medical device companies such as Stryker, BD, Baxter and yes….GE. (Bosch also sued Cardiocom on patent infringement this time last year [TTA 7 Aug 2012]; presumably as this suit was not announced as settled or decided, Bosch is now dealing with a company its own size!)

It also should be noted that Medtronic’s CEO, Omar Ishrak, is well acquainted with home health. Mr. Ishrak was formerly the CEO and president of GE Healthcare through mid-2011–and the driver behind making what was an ultimately failed bet in getting GEHC into home health. That was in 2008-9 with a tiny company called Living Independently Group, developer of a telecare system called QuietCare, which ultimately went to the Care Innovations JV with Intel. (Disclosure: I was head of marketing at the time of the acquisition.) Like GEHC, Medtronic is acquiring a closely-held company in a very different line of business with drivers quite unlike its own; they are retaining the former CEO as a general manager of the division but whether other management or the brand name will survive is not disclosed.

Whilst on the subject of telehealth devices, Heartwire reports a meta-analysis of 52 studies that shows that just measuring your blood pressure regularly results in a significant reduction in both systolic and diastolic levels after six months. Sadly the paper itself in the latest issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine is behind a paywall so it’s not possible to try to understand how the final comment in the synopsis of the paper on the Annals website that: “Additional support enhances the BP-lowering effect.” fits with the comment in Heartwire that “Low-strength” evidence from 13 studies comparing self-monitoring plus additional support vs self-monitoring alone “failed to support a difference” between the two strategies.”

Meanwhile back in the UK, Medvivo has become the first company to be accredited to the telehealth elements of the TSA’s Integrated Code of Practice. Sadly the TSA website will only release the Code to members (TTA isn’t one) or those aspiring to achieve accreditation (TTA fails on that one too) so it’s not possible to make meaningful comment. However the prospect of a Battle of the Codes is looking up with word from Malcolm Fisk that the final version of the European Code of Practice for Telehealth Services will be available for all to read and download on the TeleSCoPE website within a month. There has been talk of a third code being developed too…