Blueprint Health’s latest class tackles nosocomial infections, transitional care

February 8, 2015 | by

The New York-based Blueprint Health accelerator announced this week its Winter 2015 class of seven: GlucoIQ, GroupHub, HealthyBytes, Limestone Labs, Moving Analytics, Signifikance and TapGenes. Most have a genetic analytics or payer emphasis. Of special interest to our readers are:

  • The home-based cardiac rehabilitation system of Moving Analytics, which uses a smartphone app, Movn, to guide patients through their care plan, joined with active patient management engaging them with nurses who call weekly to review progress.
  • Toronto-based Limestone Labs‘ UV-C sanitization system for portable devices (the ubiquitous tablets and smartphones) which aren’t being cleaned effectively with wipes, and are becoming a new vector for hospital-based infections. They claim 99.99 percent kill rates with treatment of only 30 seconds. It started piloting last month in healthcare settings.
  • Healthy Bytes’ food management app, engaging patients with dieticians to monitor food intake with photos, time and other comments plus coaching.

The public demo day for this class will be 24 April. Blueprint Health is now taking applications for their summer class to be launched on 13 July. MedCityNews

Lūbax skin cancer detection app in clinical trials

February 7, 2015 | by

What is that spot? A question that many of us have worried over. A skin cancer detection app developed by Los Angeles-based Lūbax is being tested with physicians and dermatologists in the US, Australia and the UK as of 4 February, World Cancer Day. It uses image recognition software and algorithms to search a proprietary dermatology image database of over 12,000 diagnosed lesions. Their initial large melanoma clinical trials with Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, and the University of São Paulo showed sensitivity and specificity in detecting large melanomas in patients. According to their website, they are expanding the database and algorithm to include basal and squamous cell carcinomas in addition to amelanotic melanomas. There’s a signup for the clinical trial only for iPhone, but their execs in a news item have met with Samsung. BioSpectrum Asia, release on Biospace.com, startup profile on Gust.com

News highlights for Friday

February 6, 2015 | by

AnthemHealth didn’t encrypt, Blueprint Health collects, HealthSpot funds again, Sense4Baby goes to Europe, Apple Health pilots in hospitals and buddi gets bigger still.

Another hack attack claimed major US health insurer AnthemHealth, the former WellPoint. It’s estimated that 80 million of its customers, former customers and employees had data breached: names, addresses, dates of birth, emails, employment information, income, medical IDs and SSIs. The Wall Street Journal reports that Anthem didn’t encrypt data for analytics reasons. It’s unconfirmed where the hackers originated but Bloomberg’s latest report tags the usual Chinese state-sponsored suspects. Unusually, it was reported within days of discovery; Anthem has called in Mandiant (FireEye) to beef up its cybersecurity. Other reports: WSJ, Modern Healthcare….The Blueprint Health accelerator has a new initiative, the Collective. It is designed to pair up major healthcare providers and payers with startups and early stage companies. So far signed up are Aetna, AstraZeneca, HP, Montefiore, North Shore LIJ, New York-Presbyterian, Samsung, EmblemHealth, Philips and Razorfish Healthware. More information here….The HealthSpot Station telehealth/telemedicine kiosk is readying a $11.6 million funding round from four investors soon, based on (more…)

‘Chaplain Care for Veterans’ launches (US)

February 6, 2015 | by | 2 Comments

The HealthCare Chaplaincy Network yesterday debuted Chaplain Care for Veterans and Chat with a Chaplain. Both are online and consultative (email, phone and video chat) resources which provide professional spiritual and emotional support to veterans and current service members, as well as their families and friends. They are additional extensions of HCCN’s mission of training chaplains and providing spiritual support for the seriously ill as well as their families. While they are similar to their Chaplains on Hand and Chat with a Chaplain civilian services, the veterans’ version is oriented to service-related issues. (more…)

Smartphone lab attachment detects HIV, syphilis

February 4, 2015 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/85986-1024×546.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]Starting in 2010, your Editors have been writing about the work of UCLA’s Aydogan Ozcan and associates in miniaturizing microscopes (LUCAS) and labs that clip directly on smartphones. Examples: assaying food for allergy-inducing ingredients with the iTube [TTA 13 Dec 12] and accessories that run ‘analysis on a chip’ [21 Jan 13]. Columbia University researchers have now devised and tested a palm-sized device using microfluidics to run initial tests on HIV and syphilis with results in 15 minutes. It was tested on pregnant women in Rwanda, according to a study published this week in the journal Science Translational Medicine. (more…)

mHealth guide to the 2015 Mobile World Congress

February 4, 2015 | by | 1 Comment
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Mobile-World-Congress-20151.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]For our readers attending the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) extravaganza 2-5 March, there’s plenty on health tech to be found, but the MWC organizers on their website don’t make it easy. Filling the gap smartly is David Doherty on mHealth Insight with his annual mHealth guide to the 2015 Mobile World Congress–both presentations and exhibitors. Personal logistics is important as the 70,000 delegates jam Barcelona and the 2nd Health & Wellness @ Mobile World Congress organized by the European Connected Health Alliance (ECHAlliance) is held at two venues. Save it on your mobile and let it be your guide.

Caregiving a la robot: GeriJoy, Giraff Plus, CosmoBot

February 3, 2015 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/robot-cosmobot-85532261-slide-2.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]HP, a tech name not often associated with health monitoring, focuses on health tech in its Winter 2015 issue of HP Matter (produced by Fast Company). Focusing on monitoring and assistance for older adults, the Robot Caregivers article profiles the US’ GeriJoy, a ‘virtual pet’ on a tablet which acts as a therapeutic companion and, through the tablet camera, provides 24/7 video monitoring; Sweden’s Giraff Plus which combines home digital sensors with a tall mobile robot to comprehensively monitor personal well-being; and its pint-size cousin, CosmoBot (US), a character robot for education and therapeutics targeted to younger children. The wearables article notes AdhereTech‘s very smart IoT pill bottle and Proteus Digital Health’s smartpill to body sensor to smartphone monitor. There’s more about bionic prosthetic knees and making healthcare unhackable (!) promoting HP’s security software.

75 percent of patients interested in telemedicine….(US)

February 3, 2015 | by

…and 73 percent have never participated in a video consult. Those are some surprises contained in a recently published study summary, “Patient Interest in Adopting Telemedicine,” conducted by Software Advice, a site which publishes reviews on medical (and other) software. The interest is indicative of a greater willingness to use virtual visits despite concerns on the lack of in-person interaction, technical problems, no physical examination and not knowing if health insurance covers it. 63 percent of telemedicine users had increased satisfaction, and both users and non-users overwhelmingly preferred at least the notion of telemedicine to an emergency room visit. Other key benefits are ‘the comfort of home’ and not having to travel–more so than quick access to care. Also valuable in the study (more…)