Virus-(almost) free news: Cera’s $70m raise, Rx.Health’s RxStitch, remote teledentistry to rescue, Alcuris responds, Caravan buys Wellpepper, and Teladoc’s heavy reading

March 21, 2020 | by

Keeping calm and carrying on (but taking precautions, staying inside, and keyboarding with hands that resemble gator hide), yes, there IS some news that isn’t entirely about COVID-19:

This Editor had put aside the $70 million funding by the UK’s Cera at end of February. What is interesting is that Cera Care is a hybrid–specializing in both supplying home-based care, including dementia care, and providing tech-enabled services for older adults. The funding announcement was timed with the intro of SmartCare, a sensor-based analytics platform that uses machine learning and data analytics on recorded behaviors to personalize care and detect health risks with a reported 93 percent accuracy. It then can advise carers and family members about a plan of action. This sounds all so familiar as Living Independently’s QuietCare also did much the same–in 2006, but without the smartphone app and in the Ur-era of machine learning (what we called algorithms back then).

The major raise supports a few major opportunities: 50 public sector contracts with local authorities and NHS, the rollout of SmartCare, its operations in England and Wales, and some home healthcare acquisitions. Leading the round was KairosHQ, a US-based startup builder, along with investors Yabeo, Guinness Asset Management, and a New York family office. Could a US acquisition be up next?  Mobihealthnews, TechEU

Located on NYC’s Great Blank Way (a/k/a Broadway), Rx.Health has developed what they call digital navigation programs in a SaaS platform that connect various programs and feed information into EHRs. The interestingly named RxStitch engine uses text messages (Next Gen Reminder and Activation Program) or patient portals to support episodes of care (EOC), surgeries, transitions of care (TOC), increasing access to care, telehealth, and closure of care gaps. Their most recent partnership is with Valley Health in northern NJ. Of course they’ve pitched this for COVID-19 as the COVereD initiative that supports education, triage, telehealth, and home-based surveillance as part of the workflow. Rx.Health’s execs include quite a few active for years in the NY digital health scene, including Ashish Atreja, MD.

Teledentistry to the rescue! Last summer, we focused on what this Editor thought was the first real effort to use telemedicine in dentistry, The TeleDentists can support dentists who are largely closing shop for health reasons to communicate with their own patients for follow up visits, screen new patients, e-prescribe, and refer those who are feeling sick to other telehealth providers. For the next six weeks, patients pay only $49 a visit. More information in their release. Hat tip to Howard Reis.

What actions are smaller telehealth companies taking now? Reader and commenter Adrian Scaife writes from Alcuris about how their assistive technology responds to the need to keep in touch with older people living alone at home. Last week their preparations started with giving their customers the option to switch to audio/video conferencing with their market teams. This week, they reviewed how their assistive technology and ADL monitoring can keep older people safe in their homes where they may have to be alone, especially after discharge, yet families and caregivers can keep tabs on them based on activity data. A smart way for a small company to respond to the biggest healthcare challenge of the last 30 years. Release. 

Even Caravan Health, a management services company for groups of physicians or health systems organizing as accountable care organizations (ACOs) in value-based care programs, is getting into digital health with their purchase of Wellpepper. The eight-year-old company based in Seattle works with health plans to provide members with outpatient digital treatment plans, messaging services, and an alert system to boost communication between care teams and patients. Purchase price was not disclosed, but Wellpepper had raised only $1.2 million in debt financing back in 2016 so one assumes they largely bootstrapped. Mobihealthnews

And if you’re stuck at home and are trying to avoid chores, you can read all 140 pages of Teladoc’s Investor Day presentation, courtesy of Seeking Alpha. 

Babylon Health fires back at critic @DrMurphy11; Dr. Watkins–and Newsnight–return fire (UK)

February 27, 2020 | by

Last month, this Editor took note of the Twitterstorm around Babylon Health on the issues raised surrounding diagnosis of women’s cardiac symptoms. @DrMurphy11, who has been raising performance issues with the Babylon chatbot for the past three years, ran a test on the app. First using a male patient, then a woman, with identical cardiac symptoms, the app returned two different diagnoses: the man was advised to go to an ED on an emergency basis and given information on a heart attack, the woman to her GP in six hours and given information on a panic attack.

@DrMurphy11 came out earlier this week to BBC Two’s Newsnight’s Emma Barnett on a profile of ‘healthcare juggernaut’ Babylon as Dr. David Watkins, a consultant oncologist. You can see him on YouTube here (at the 1 minute and 3 min. 30 mark). He demonstrates the response of the chatbot, using as the patient an older male smoker with chest pains. The chatbot advises him that he might have either gastritis or ‘sickle cell crisis in chest’–and to go to his GP in 6 hours. What is far more likely than sickle cell with this history is, of course, a heart attack, as a consultant cardiologist, Dr. Amitava Banerjee confirmed on the program. Dr. Banerjee has also been critical of Babylon’s chatbot on cardiac diagnosis and Health Secretary Matt Hancock in his visible advocacy of Babylon in the NHS alone (at 6 min.) According to Dr. Watkins, he has been documenting chatbot problems to the MHRA and the CQC since 2017, and the problems haven’t been fixed.

Timed with the Newsnight piece, Babylon fired back with a press release labeling Dr. Watkins a “troll” and stating that only 100 of his 2,400 tests demonstrated any concerns with the chatbot. According to the release, Babylon’s staff “have attempted to start a positive conversation with this anonymous person. We have invited him in to start a dialogue, to test our AI, and to meet with the senior doctors who build our products” without response. Babylon has also cited that all of Dr. Watkins’ trials were theoretical tests and cites millions of real uses without a single report of harm, that it meets regulatory standards in five countries including use in the NHS, and that its real life users are highly satisfied (85 percent at 5 stars).

At 6:48 to 12:40 in the video, Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis grills both Babylon’s Dr. Keith Grimes and Dr. Watkins. She brings up that Babylon’s former head of regulatory affairs, Hugh Harvey, had stated that no one has assessed how well the app works. Dr. Watkins also counters Babylon’s non-contact claim that he contacted one of the Babylon leadership members back in 2018 on chatbot problems. Dr. Grimes responded to Ms. Maitlis’ remark that founder Ali Parsa is not a doctor that over 600 doctors work for Babylon. This Editor will leave it to Readers to decide what side won, or if it was a draw. Also Mobihealthnews global edition. (For US Readers, Newsnight and Ms. Maitlis conducted the exclusive, disastrous–for Prince Andrew–interview on his relationship with the late Jeffrey Epstein.)

A potpourri of upcoming NYC events

February 27, 2020 | by

Thursday 27 February, 6-8 pm, WeWork Soho
Behavioral Modification and Big Data: How Digital Health Helps Patients with Medication Adherence

HITLAB, which is a digital health research, teaching, and advisory services organization with the objective to improve healthcare delivery worldwide, is presenting a talk on digital health, eye care, and medication adherence. The featured speaker is Dr. Thomas Wong, an Associate Clinical Professor and Director of New Technologies at SUNY Optometry. Cost is $6.93 including Eventbrite’s take! Event information and tickets here.

Upcoming in HITLAB’s Seminar Series are When Patients Lose Patience: The Healthcare Consumer in 2020 (19 March) and The New Clinical Trial: Medication as a Core Business Strategy to Improved Drug Trials (23 April). Future events and notification signup here. 

Friday 28 February, 8 am to 6.30 pm, CONVENE West 46th Street
Columbia Business School’s 16th Annual Healthcare Conference

Speakers at this CBS conference will focus on the transformative impact New York City is having on the healthcare industry, and are from a cross-section of established healthcare organizations, emerging companies, and investment firms will present informed views. The Conference includes four panels, an inaugural CBS Start-up Showcase, and a Sponsor Expo. It also includes a buffet breakfast and lunch as well as a networking happy hour from 4:30 – 6:30 pm. Cost is $350, $200 for Columbia alumni, and only $75 for students. Conference information and tickets here.

Tuesday-Thursday 12-14 May
Columbia Business School Digital Health Executive Education Course

This three-day intensive executive education course sponsored by Columbia Business School Executive Education and HITLAB is an industry-first program that distills how digital technologies can transform life science research, clinical development, patient experience, operations, and business models. Upon completing the program, participants will earn three days toward a certificate with select alumni and tuition benefits. Application and additional information here.

Tuesday-Thursday 1-3 December, Bryant Park Ballroom
2020 HITLAB Innovators Summit

Mark your calendars for this three-day conference which will focus on the diffusion of digital technologies in the healthcare system, with speakers and attendees who are on the front lines of identifying, validating, integrating, and scaling emerging technologies that are improving patient outcomes. Preliminary conference information and 2019 information here.

Hat tip to HITLAB chair Stan Kachnowski, Ph.D., MPA

100% increase in physician telehealth and virtual care usage in three years: AMA study

February 13, 2020 | by

The American Medical Association’s newest physician survey has a lot of good news for those of us in healthcare tech. It found greater across-the-board physician adoption of digital tools, whether virtual consults, patient visits, adoption of patient portals, workflow enhancements, or clinical decision support.

While current usage was greatest for other tools, the greatest increases were virtual visits via telemedicine, doubling from 14 percent to 28 percent, and remote monitoring for improved care from 13 percent to 22 percent of the over 1,300 physicians surveyed in both years. 

AMA last surveyed physicians on their digital health adoption in 2016. Both the 2019 and 2016 surveys were performed by WebMD and examined seven key digital tools. In current use, 2019/2016:

  1. Remote monitoring for efficiency: 16%/12%
  2. Remote monitoring and management for improved care: 22%/13%
  3. Clinical decision support: 37%/28%
  4. Patient engagement: 33%/26%
  5. Tele-visits/virtual visits: 28%/14%
  6. Point of care/Workflow enhancement: 47%/42%
  7. Consumer access to clinical data: 58%/53%

Also notable was that primary care physicians (PCPs) see greater advantages in digital health more than specialists, though in top two boxes, they are equal. Multi-specialty groups like digital health best.

Providing remote care is also a driver for digital health adoption, the only one which increased several points in the very/somewhat important indicator.

Not surprisingly, older physicians are less enthusiastic about digital health, but they have increased adoption much in line with younger cohorts.

And way back in the appendix of the study, doctors look to emerging technologies to assist them with their chronic care patients, with millenials not that far behind.

Articles: Health Data Management, HealthLeaders
Study: Summary, AMA Digital Health Study 2019

Propel@YH opens again for 2020 accelerator candidates

February 12, 2020 | by

Yorkshire & Humber AHSN (Academic Health Science Network) today opened applications for the second year of its Propel@YH digital health accelerator. The accelerator is aimed at helping digital health innovators of startup and scale-up size navigate the NHS in the Yorkshire and Humber region and who are already there or are willing to establish an operation there.

10 companies will have access to expert partners such as NHS providers, commissioners and academic institutions. The program this year is being supported by the University of Leeds’ innovation hub, Nexus; Barclays Eagle Labs national incubator network, leading health law firm Hill Dickinson, and Leeds City Council.

Last year, their six finalists were DigiBete, Healthcare Engineering, HeteroGenius, Medicsen, Medicspot and Scaled Insights. 

But hurry–applications close on 12th March. Release, Propel@YH website, application

Considering 2019’s digital health investment picture: leveling off may be a Good Thing

February 7, 2020 | by

2019 proved to be a leveling-off year for digital health investment. The bath may prove to be more cleansing than bubbly.

We noted that the always-fizzy Rock Health engaged in some revisionist history on its forecasts when the final numbers came in–$7.4bn in total investment and 359 deals, a 10 percent drop versus 2018. When we looked back at our 2019 mid-year article on Rock Health’s forecast [TTA 25 July], they projected that the year would end at $8.4 bn and 360 deals versus 2018’s $8.2 bn and 376 deals. That is a full $1bn under forecast and $0.8 below 2018. Ouch!

In their account, the 10 percent dip versus 2018 is due to average deal size–decreasing to $19.8M in 2019–and a drop in late-stage deals. Their analysts attribute this to wobbliness around some high-profile IPOs, citing Uber, Lyft, and Slack, as well as the near-collapse of WeWork right before its IPO towards the end of 2019.

New investors and repeat investors increased to 627 from 585 in 2018, with no real change in composition.

The headliners of 2019 were:

  • Amazon’s acquisition of Health Navigator adding symptom-checking tools to its health offerings
  • Google’s buy of Fitbit
  • Optum’s purchase of Vivify Health, which gives it a full remote patient monitoring (RPM) suite (right when CMS is setting reimbursement codes for RPM in Medicare)
  • Best Buy’s addition of Critical Signal Technologies for RPM
  • Phreesia, Livongo’s and Health Catalyst’s IPOs. For Livongo and Health Catalyst, current share prices are off from their IPOs and shortly after: past $25 for LVGO and $31 for HCAT. Phreesia closed today at a healthy $33, substantially up from PHR’s debut at $15. (Change Healthcare, on the other hand, is up a little from its IPO at $16, which isn’t bad considering their circumstances on their financing.)

Rock Health only counts US deals in excess of $2 million, which excludes the global picture, but includes some questionable (in this Editor’s estimation) ‘digital health’ players like Peloton, explained in the 25 July article.

Rock Health’s analysts close (and justify their revisions) through discussions with VCs expecting further headwinds in the market–then turn around and positively note the Federal backing of further developments in building the foundation for connected health as tailwinds. No bubbly forecasts for 2020–we’ll have to wait.

Is this necessarily bad? This Editor likes an occasional dose of reason and is not displeased at Rock Health’s absence of kvelling.

Confirming the picture is Mercom Capital’s analysis which also recorded a 6 percent dip 2019/2018: $8.9bn with 615 deals, dropping from the $9.5bn and 698 deals in 2018. Their ‘catchment’ is more global than Rock Health, and encompasses consumer-centric and patient-centric technologies and sub-technologies. Total corporate funding reached $10.1bn.

Over half of Americans of all ages use digital health tools, self-diagnose after internet search: ResMed/Edelman survey

October 24, 2019 | by

Compensating for shortcomings? ResMed, a remote patient monitoring company, with Edelman Intelligence, found in their research on the consumer acceptance of digital health technology some interesting behavioral information as well that demonstrates frustration with the status quo in healthcare. Over 3,000 individuals were surveyed, across 37 percent Baby Boomers, 26 percent Gen Xers, 28 percent Millennials and 9 percent Gen Zers. 

  1. 56 percent of those surveyed currently monitor their health with at least one digital data collection tool
  2. 60 percent attempt to diagnose themselves after browsing symptoms on the Internet – including 76% of millennials (confirming an earlier survey by Harmony HealthcareIT citing 73 percent of millennials self-diagnosed via internet research)
  3. 78 percent stated it should be easier to find medical care
  4. 63 percent said they were sick of feeling like their healthcare doesn’t matter in the current healthcare system
  5. 47 percent of responders said they would like to communicate through text
  6. 38 percent said they would like to participate in video chats.

While the percentages in #5 and #6 have been fairly standard responses over the years in other surveys and to this Editor should be higher by now, the frustration level experienced in #3 and #4, after years of ‘new healthcare models’ that supposedly empower the patient and the rise of urgent care clinics almost everywhere, is perhaps indicative of an increasing awareness of the flaws of the healthcare system and its shortcomings. It’s not cost–it’s delivery. ResMed release, Mobihealthnews

SNF emergency telehealth provider Call9 shuts down most operations, after $34M raise (updated)

June 26, 2019 | by

Is it a symptom of a bubble’s downside? In an interview with CNBC, Dr. Timothy Peck, the CEO of Call9, profiled in TTA only a month ago, confirmed that his company will be shutting down operations. Call9 provided embedded emergency first responders in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) on call to staff nurses. The first responders not only could provide immediate care to patients with over a dozen diagnostic tools, but also would connect via video to emergency doctors on call. 

Headquartered in Brooklyn, the shuttering of the four-year-old company has laid off over 100 employees as it winds down operations. They claimed 142,000 telemedicine visits and 11,000 patients who were treated via its services. In the past few months, Call9 had inked deals with Lyft for patient transportation and was expanding to Albany NY. They also operated a community paramedicine division utilizing their emergency doctor network.  

This Editor can now reveal that through a reliable industry source, I was informed of Call9’s difficulties earlier this month. Not wanting to ‘run with a rumor’, I contacted Dr. Peck. He confirmed to me information that later appeared in the CNBC article: that the company was refining its model in the face of a change in previous funders and working with some new partners to stay in a model with embedded clinical care specialists in nursing homes. While they would scale back, they still had current contracts. However, the changes in their model would mean that the company would be in a ‘bit of a stealth mode’. After we discussed the business situations that most early-stage health tech companies have faced with funding, we agreed to touch base in a few weeks when things developed.

CNBC, with a different source, had essentially the same information from Dr. Peck on the winding down of the company but in this case also confirmed layoffs, including a ‘pivot’ of the company into a different model around technology in nursing homes. They also confirmed that a part of the company, Call9 Medical, will remain in operations.

Update: Skilled Nursing News had additional detail on Call9’s partnerships which included SNF providers Centers Health Care, CareRite, and the Archdiocese of New York’s long-term care arm, ArchCare. Their first client was Central Island Healthcare, where Dr. Peck lived for three months testing the model. The article goes on with Central Island’s executive director explaining that he is now seeking a telemedicine provider, as they adjusted their services to Call9’s capabilities.

Payer providers included Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Healthfirst, plus some Medicare Advantage plans, splitting the savings from avoiding unnecessary ER admissions. Another appeal made by the company for its services was to keep in place higher acuity–sicker–patients in SNFs who would otherwise have to go into the hospital.

As our Readers know, these pages have covered the comings and goings of many health tech and app companies. Some succeed on their own, are acquired/combined with others and go on in different form, or are bought out at their peak, leaving their founders and some employees cheerful indeed. On the other hand, and far more common: the demise of some is understandable, others regrettable, and nearly none of them are cause for celebration in our field–Theranos and Outcome Health being exceptions. This Editor has been a marketing head of two of them (now deceased except for their technology, out there somewhere), and has discussed marketing, funding, and business models with more startups and early-stage companies than she can count.

If anything, investors have less patience than they did back in the Grizzled Pioneer period of the early 2000s, when a $5 million round put together from a few personally (more…)

Leeds Digital Festival 2019: a two-week showcase of digital health and care

April 11, 2019 | by

100% Digital Leeds, Tuesday 23 April – Sunday 4 May, Leeds, several venues including Co>Space North

This Editor is quite surprised at a two-week festival mainly about digital health and care in Leeds, but this program seems to have something for everyone–tech developers, interested consumers, medical staff, NHS policymakers, and many more. 

100% Digital Leeds centers around the city’s health mission statement–“Our city’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2016-2021 sets out a clear vision that ‘Leeds will be a healthy and caring city for all ages, where people who are the poorest improve their health the fastest’. This includes maximising the benefits from information and technology as a key priority.”

There are 16 events planned across the two weeks as of now, with such intriguing titles as “The future for artificial intelligence in health and care – dystopian future or digital paradise – you decide!”,  a session on teen mental health and social media, “Putting the human into redesigning health and care services”, a session on design, and “Can digital offer sanctuary for refugees and asylum seekers?” which is the first I’ve seen this topic addressed.

The events are curated by mHabitat on behalf of Leeds City Council and NHS Leeds Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). Key speakers will include representatives from the event program’s sponsor, the UK’s leading privately-owned IT and business consultancy BJSS, NHS England, NHS Digital, international speakers, academic experts, patients and citizens with first-hand experience of using digital to manage their conditions, and industry.

Much more on the Leeds Digital Festival website here including detailed descriptions of the sessions and venues. #LDF19, Twitter and Instagram @wearemhabitat  Hat tip to Anna Goddard of KC Communications for the alert.

RSM’s Medical apps: mainstreaming innovation with Matt Hancock

February 28, 2019 | by

This event on 4 April run by the Royal Society of Medicine’s Digital Health Section continues the successful series started by this editor (now no longer involved) seven years ago. It will examine the growing role that apps are playing in healthcare delivery.

Join colleagues to hear renowned speakers, including the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, discuss the current and future part apps can play in the NHS and broader healthcare industry. We will hear Wendy Clarke, executive director at NHS Digital talk about the new NHS app. As apps move from concept to pilot to practice, demonstrating efficacy becomes increasingly important, so will be looking at how we can best assess clinical effectiveness. It is well recognised that poorly designed software can hamper rather than enhance healthcare. Matt Edgar Head of design for NHS Digital will talk of the importance of good design in medical apps, and how it can improve patient and clinician experience. The use of cutting edge technology in healthcare necessarily opens new regulatory and legal issues. We are pleased to have our legal counsel, Julian Hitchcock back to share his experience with this, with a particular focus on the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare. We will also be examining the importance of interoperability, as medical apps become more mainstream, and how to make this happen. We have some presentations, too, from new and established medical start-ups, showcasing the transformative effects these new technologies can have. Finally, we will take a look at what the future may hold with futurologist Lewis Richards, Chief Digital Officer of Servest.

Aims:

This meeting aims to: 

  • Encourage clinicians to consider medical apps when deciding on an appropriate intervention
  • Aid understanding of the medicolegal issues around medical app use
  • Reduce the fear, uncertainty and doubt about the use of medical apps

Objectives:

By the end of this meeting, delegates will be able to,

  • Have an understanding of the current state of the art of medical apps
  • Explain the latest position on regulation and endorsement of medical apps
  • Have an appreciation of how to assess the clinical effectiveness of medical apps. 

Book here – best to book soon too, as currently the RSM has not allocated the largest lecture theatre to the event so it will almost certainly sell out.

About time: digital health grows a set of ethical guidelines

February 27, 2019 | by

Is there a sense of embarrassment in the background? Fortune reports that the Stanford University Libraries are taking the lead in organizing an academic/industry group to establish ethical guidelines to govern digital health. These grew out of two meetings in July and November last year with the participation of over 30 representatives from health care, pharmaceutical, and nonprofit organizations. Proteus Digital Health, the developer of a formerly creepy sensor pill system, is prominently mentioned, but attending were representatives of Aetna CVS, Otsuka Pharmaceuticals (which works with Proteus), Kaiser Permanente, Intermountain Health, Tencent, and HSBC Holdings.

Here are the 10 Guiding Principles, which concentrate on data governance and sharing, as well as the use of the products themselves. They are expanded upon in this summary PDF:

  1. The products of digital health companies should always work in patients’ interests.
  2. Sharing digital health information should always be to improve a patient’s outcomes and those of others.
  3. “Do no harm” should apply to the use and sharing of all digital health information.
  4. Patients should never be forced to use digital health products against their wishes.
  5. Patients should be able to decide whether their information is shared, and to know how a digital health company uses information to generate revenues.
  6. Digital health information should be accurate.
  7. Digital health information should be protected with strong security tools.
  8. Security violations should be reported promptly along with what is being done to fix them.
  9. Digital health products should allow patients to be more connected to their care givers.
  10. Patients should be actively engaged in the community that is shaping digital health products.

We’ve already observed that best practices in design are putting some of these principals into action. Your Editors have long advocated, to the point of tiresomeness, that data security is not notional from the smallest device to the largest health system. Our photo at left may be vintage, but if anything the threat has both grown and expanded. 2018’s ten largest breaches affected almost 7 million US patients and disrupted their organizations’ operations. Social media is also vulnerable. Parts of the US government–Congress and the FTC through a complaint filing–are also coming down hard on Facebook for sharing personal health information with advertisers. This is PHI belonging to members of closed Facebook groups meant to support those with health and mental health conditions. (HIPAA Journal).

But here is where Stanford and the conference participants get all mushy. From their press release:

“We want this first set of ten statements to spur conversations in board rooms, classrooms and community centers around the country and ultimately be refined and adopted widely.” –Michael A. Keller, Stanford’s university librarian and vice provost for teaching and learning

So everyone gets to feel good and take home a trophy? Nowhere are there next steps, corporate statements of adoption, and so on.

Let’s keep in mind that Stanford University was the nexus of the Fraud That Was Theranos, which is discreetly not mentioned. If not a shadow hovering in the background, it should be. Perhaps there is some mea culpa, mea maxima culpa here, but this Editor will wait for more concrete signs of Action.

News roundup: of logos and HIMSS roundups, Rock Health’s Digital Health Consumer Adoption survey, and the millennial/Gen Z walkaway from primary care

February 21, 2019 | by

HIMSS19 was last week. Onsite reports to this Editor declared it ‘overwhelming’, ‘the place to be’, ‘more of the same’, and ‘stale’. With a range of comments like these, everyone’s HIMSS is different, but HIMSS is well, a place that for most of us in digital health, have to be (or their companies have to be). It is still a major commitment, and if you are small, a place where you might be better off with no display and simply networking your way through. 

HIMSS must be conscious of a certain dowdiness, because HIMSS is ‘reforming’ with a preview of a new logo and graphics here that changes out their Big ’80s curvy lettering and muted colors to hard edges in typefaces and equally hard blues.

Mobihealthnews (a HIMSS company) delves into blockchain (Boehringer Ingelheim and IBM Canada) and Uber Health’s continuing foray into non-emergency medical transport. Dimensional Insight’s blog takes some of the sessions from the data governance and healthcare business intelligence perspective, including the opioid crisis, AI to detect cancer (the link between falling hemoglobin rates and a cancer diagnosis), and pediatric disease registries. And there is the always incisive HISTalk with last Monday Morning’s Update, their 2/14/19 roundup, and Dr Jayne’s Curbside Consult on John Halamka’s world travels, including nascent care coordination in China and interoperability in Australia.

Rock Health’s survey of consumer attitudes towards digital health adoption leads with these insights:

  • Wearable use is shifting away from fitness toward managing health conditions
    • There was a 10% increase in use of wearables to manage health, corresponding to a 10% decline in physical activity tracking
  • Telemedicine adoption is climbing, with urban consumers more than twice as likely to use live video telemedicine than rural consumers
    • Paradoxical but true, in terms of adoption of at least one form, it was 67 percent for rural residents and 80 percent for urban residents.
  • Highly trusted entities like physicians and health plans lost credibility in 2018—consumers were less willing to share data with them than they were in 2017. There’s an increasing distrust of ‘big tech’ and confidence in their ability to keep private data private–a wise takeaway given the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook scandals.

More acceptance of healthcare tools, less intermediation–and not trusting that data is secure spells trouble down the road unless these issues are addressed. Rock Health surveyed 4,000 respondents of US adults age 18 and over.

They’re not trad, dad. Accenture’s survey (released at HIMSS) also tracks the rejection of intermediation and gatekeepers when it comes to millennials and Gen Z in choosing non-traditional modes of healthcare, such as retail clinics, virtual and digital services. They are two to three times more likely than boomers to dislike in-person care; over half use mobile apps to manage health and use virtual nurses to monitor health and vital signs. Over 40 percent prefer providers with strong digital capabilities. Also Mobihealthnews 

Roy Lilley’s tart-to-the-max view of The Topol Review on the digital future of the NHS

February 14, 2019 | by

Well, it’s a blockbuster–at least in length. Over 100 pages long, and in the PDF form double-paged, which will be a tough slog for laptop and tablet readers. It’s Eric Topol’s view of the digital future of the NHS and it’s…expansive. In fact, you may not recognize it as the healthcare world you deal with every day.

Our UK readers may not be so familiar with Dr. Topol, but here you can get a good strong dose of his vision for the NHS’ future as delivered (electronic thunk) to Secretary Hancock. I haven’t read this, but Roy Lilley has. You should read his 12 February e-letter if you haven’t already.

Here is a choice quote: It’s a mixture of science faction, future-now-ism and away-with-the fairies.

Here’s some background. The Vision’s been around for awhile. Dr. Topol thinks and talks Big Picture, in Meta and MegaTrends. His view is patient-driven, self-managed, with their genomic sequenced and at their fingertips, with the doctor empowered by their records, his/her own digital tools for physical examination, with AI to scan the records and empower a partnership model of decision-making.

Topol In Person is quite compelling. This Editor’s in-person take from the 2014 NY eHealth Collaborative meeting is a review of vintage Topol. His expansive, hopeful view was in contrast to the almost totalitarian view (and it is fully meant) of Ezekiel Emanuel, with his vision of the perfectly compliant, low choice patient, and squeezed like a lemon medical system. At that time, I concluded:

One must be wary of presenters and ‘big thinkers’–and these doctors define the latter, especially Dr Emanuel who looks in the mirror and sees an iconoclast staring back. Fitting evidence selectively into a Weltanschauung is an occupational hazard and we in the field are often taken with ‘big pictures’ at the expense of what can and needs to be done now. Both Drs Topol and Emanuel, in this Editor’s view, have gaps in vision.

A year later, I reviewed his article The Future of Medicine Is in Your Smartphone which came out at the time of ‘The Patient Is In.’ which was quite the succès d’estime among us health tech types. “The article is at once optimistic–yes, we love the picture–yet somewhat unreal.” It seemed to fly in the face of the 2015 reality of accelerating government control of medicine (Obamacare), of payments, outcomes-based medicine which is gated and can be formulaic, and in the Editor’s view, a complete miss on the complexities of mental health and psychiatry.

Back to Roy Lilley:

There is an etherial quality to this report, spiritual, dainty. The advisory panel is 70 strong.

Studies and citations galore, from the world’s top research organizations. The advisory board–I believe well over 70–there’s not a soul down in the trenches running a hospital. Government, academics, and a few vendors (Babylon Health, natch). A lot of emphasis on AI, genomics, and training for ‘collective intelligence’. After reading but a few dizzying, dense pages, I admire the vision as before, but wonder again how we get from here to there.

Roy’s essay is a must read to bring you back to reality. 

News roundup: Current Health’s Class II, Healthware Italy’s €10 million boost, the low state of Latin America telemedicine, weekend reading on digital health in health systems

February 7, 2019 | by

Scottish startup gains FDA Class II clearance, pilots with Mount Sinai Brooklyn. Edinburgh’s Current Health has received FDA Class II clearance for its AI-enabled remote patient monitoring wearable monitors. The single arm-worn wearable sends data every two seconds on oxygen saturation, respiration rate, pulse rate, temperature, activity, and posture. Algorithms analyze the data and alert clinicians to patient status and deterioration. The Mount Sinai pilot follows on Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust for a post-discharge monitoring program, with a 22 percent reduction in home visits plus fewer hospital readmissions and emergency department visits. Current Health is the renamed snap40. Mobihealthnews, BusinessWire release

Healthware, a Salerno, Italy-based consultancy group primarily concentrated in marketing and sales, has received a €10 million investment from Fondo Italiano d’Investimento SGR (FII Tech Growth). The investment will be used over the next two years has received to expand Healthware’s business transformation for life sciences companies and product development and services for digital health start-ups which improve health outcomes through new technologies. Release.  Hat tip to Healthware’s Antonietta Pannella

Telemedicine adoption in hospitals ranges from 65 to below 30 percent in Latin America. A study published this week in Health Affairs Global Health Policy (paywalled) looks at the different rates of hospital-based telemedicine adoption in nine Latin America countries. Leading is Chile with the aforementioned 65 percent; Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico and Peru with less than a 30 percent. In the middle: Panama (35 percent), Uruguay and Guatemala in the 40 percent range. Despite supportive official policies in many of these countries, “Efforts to implement telemedicine are isolated and scattered, often left to the public sector or taking the form of insulated projects that are not sustained” or scaled up nationally and regionally. Mobihealthnews

For weekend reading. Intersecting with the Latin America story above is this. This Editor missed the October issue of Global Health: Science and Practice published out of Johns Hopkins, but here it is. The focus of the six articles is digital health integration into health systems in the US and internationally. Hat tip to Alain B. Labrique via Twitter

Digital health versus eHealth: ‘here we go again’ with the confusion and the differences. Plus Women in eHealth (JISfTeH)

February 7, 2019 | by

Editor Donna (and Editor Steve before her) always likes a good dust-up about terminology. One of the former’s pet peeves is the imprecise usage of telemedicine (virtual visits) versus telehealth (remote patient monitoring of vital signs); she will concede that the differences have been so trampled on that telemedicine has nearly faded from use.

The Journal of the International Society for Telemedicine and eHealth (JISfTeH) makes a grand attempt to parse the differing definitions of digital health and eHealth in their opening editorial of this month’s (24 Jan) issue. eHealth has fallen so far from use that the few times one does see it is in associations such as ISfTeH and the New York eHealth Collaborative. Even the World Health Organization, which has always been a fair arbiter for the industry, defined eHealth back in the salad days of 2005 as “the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for health”–broad, but workable. After a witty aside in defining digital health as “an area of healthcare focused entirely on fingers and toes” (plus), and examining the overly broad definitions of Eric Topol and Paul Sonnier, the authors Richard E. Scott and Maurice Mars seem to settle on this: that while digital health is given a  much broader but nebulous definition (to the point of linguistic absurdity cited in Mesko et al.), and may incorporate related technologies like genomics (another poorly defined term) and ‘big data’, it would not work without that ICT. And that at least there’s a settled definition for eHealth, as stated above, for which this Editor assumes we should be happy. In the author’s closing, “Will we be sufficiently motivated to rise to such a challenge-globally agreed universal definitions? If not ……here we go again …..”

This month’s journal theme is also Women in eHealth, with articles on Brazilian eHealth distance education, digital technology in midwifery practice, and how online social networks can work for drug abuse treatment referral. There’s also a change in format, with article links opening to full PDFs of each article.

The King’s Fund ‘Digital Health and Care Explained’ 27 March

January 29, 2019 | by

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/events/digital-health-and-care-explained?utm_source=Telehealth&utm_campaign=J1083#topicsAs briefly mentioned earlier this month, The King’s Fund in London will be previewing digital health with ‘Digital Health and Care Explained: demystifying the tech revolution in health and care”, a full day meeting on Wednesday 27 March at The King’s Fund. The ‘demystification’ will include policy challenges, operational innovations, research breakthroughs–and the practical aspects of making a ‘radical transformation’ real. Registration and session information is at the link above and here. Follow the event on Twitter at #KFexplain

And put on your calendar the Digital Health and Care Congress Wednesday-Thursday 22-23 May in London. Our Readers are eligible for a 10% discount using the link above or in the sidebar, plus the code Telehealth_10.