Weekend news roundup: GE Healthcare spins off, adds CTO; Allscripts now Veradigm; NHS Brainomix AI stroke trial success; Withings home urine scanner; Careficient buys Net Health EMR; CommonSpirit’s class action suit on data breach

January 7, 2023 | by

GE Healthcare now trading on its own. On Wednesday, GEHC rang Nasdaq’s traditional opening bell virtually on its first day of trading Wednesday (4 Jan). The bell ringing was unique as the first company in Wisconsin to do so from their plant in Waukesha. GE retained approximately 19.9% of the outstanding shares of GE HealthCare common stock with the remaining 80.1% distributed to current GE shareholders. Today it closed at $58.95 and remains headquartered in Chicago. (It moved from Amersham UK back in 2016.) Management is now independent, with Peter Arduini as CEO and adding yesterday a new chief technology officer, Taha Kass-Hout MD, MS, from Amazon’s health AI area to lead the company’s new science and technology organization through their four areas: Imaging, Ultrasound, Patient Care Solutions, and Pharmaceutical Diagnostics. Release, Yahoo Finance  Also Mobihealthnews

Remember back in 2019 when problematic EHR Practice Fusion was renamed Veradigm? Allscripts has now renamed the entire company as Veradigm, after expanding it to analytics and research. After two years of reorganizing and downsizing (plus paying off Practice Fusion fines), selling off their hospital/large practice EHRs to Constellation Software/N. Harris Group for $700 million last May, the slimmed-down Veradigm Network encompasses electronic health records, practice management systems, and patient communication platforms. Interestingly, a search first leads you to a main corporate website under Allscripts and doesn’t forward automatically to Veradigm, making this a softer-than-usual name change. Now Veradigm can pick up a few companies on the market, as they announced last year. Release    Hat tip to HISTalk

NHS using Brainomix AI to diagnose stroke faster, tripled near-full recoveries to 48%.  The key finding: patients diagnosed using AI made near full recoveries increased from 16 to 48%. The trial of e-Stroke Suite took place in 22 hospital trusts in England across 111,000 suspected stroke patients. The AI in the e-Stroke Suite cut average diagnosis to treatment time by an hour from 140 to 79 minutes. The AI technology was developed by UK company Brainomix. Daily Mail, Oxford Academic Health Science Network case study (Note: Oxford AHSN, Brainomix, and Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust (RBH) are partners in the National Consortium of Intelligent Medical Imaging (NCIMI).)

Withings is debuting the U-Scan, an in-home urinalysis device, at CES. The 90 mm device sits in the toilet bowl and uses cartridges to analyze urine components, sending results to the Withings Health Mate app. Cartridges for Europe so far are Cycle Sync for menstrual period tracking and ovulation windows, and Nutri Balance for hydration and nutrition. Nutri Balance analyzes specific gravity, pH, vitamin C, and ketone levels. The U-Scan will debut in Europe at the end of Q2, with the U-Scan starter kit priced at €499.95.  Both await FDA clearance. Withings U-Scan page, Mobihealthnews

Careficient buys Net Health’s home health/hospice EMR. Careficient already is present in the home health, hospice and home care cloud EMR market. Net Health is selling its home health, hospice, home care and palliative solutions EMR, marketed under HealthWyse and Hospicesoft, as well as its revenue cycle management (RCM) division, to concentrate on wound care and rehabilitation therapy. This expands Careficient’s client base by 750 locations in 39 states. Transaction cost was not disclosed. Release

Add to the cost of hacking multiple class action lawsuits. CommonSpirit Health, based in Chicago and the second largest health system in the US covering 21 states under CHI and Dignity Health names, not only has to remedy a massive 600,000 patient data breach discovered last October [TTA 3 Dec], but also fight a class action lawsuit filed 29 December by a patient in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Financial, health insurance, and medical information were all breached. The suit requests damages exceeding $5 million and injunctive relief, including stronger data protection practices. It will be the first of many as a quick search indicates multiple law firms seeking claimants. FierceHealthcare, WGNRadio

News roundup: CVS abandons (?) Cano Health buy; Signify adds home RPM; BioIntelliSense RPM acquires AlertWatch; GE Healthcare, AMC Health partner; Viome raises $67M, other fundings

October 21, 2022 | by | 1 Comment

CVS Health apparently backs away from a strategic primary care buy. Earlier this week, both Barron’s and DealReporter (via FactSet) reported that CVS Health is no longer pursuing an acquisition of Cano Health, a primary care provider group in Florida, Texas, Nevada, California, Illinois, New Mexico, and Puerto Rico that concentrates on senior health, Medicare Advantage patients, and value-based care. Cano has 4,000 employees and 280,000 members. Reasons why were not disclosed by either CVS or Cano. Cano shares listed on the NYSE fell on the news from Monday’s open of $8.22 to $4.50 today (20 Oct). An alternative buyer may be Humana, which has a right of first refusal on a sale dating back to 2019, but Humana has been quiet on the acquisition front of late.

Walking away seems contrary to CVS’ stated strategy of pursuing deals in primary care, provider enablement, and home health, but CVS can afford to be choosy. There’s speculation that CVS has a different provider/VBC enablement target in mind.  Jailendra Singh of Truist Securities identified ACO management services organization Privia Health as a potential buy that would fit well with CVS’ pending buy of Signify Health, which includes competitor Caravan Health (more on this here). But who knows if this ‘walk away’ is final? Healthcare Finance, FierceHealthcare

CVS’ pending deal, Signify Health, announced the addition of spirometry testing to evaluate patients for COPD. This will be added to their existing suite of in-home diagnostic testing and tracking, In-Home Health Evaluation, targeted to Medicaid and Medicare Advantage members. Mobihealthnews

If there’s a Cinderella this inflationary, recessionary year, it’s remote patient monitoring (RPM). BioIntelliSense has been in RPM since 2020 with on-body/stick-on sensors such as the BioButton and the BioSense 30-day monitor. Their latest addition through acquisition is the AlertWatch clinical intelligence and triage system. AlertWatch will join BioIntelliSense’s product group within Medtronic’s HealthCast portfolio in US hospital patient monitoring as part of their existing partnership. In the past ten years, AlertWatch achieved four FDA 510(k) clearances for its specialized product offerings for the operating room, intensive care unit, and labor and delivery unit.  BioIntelliSense release

Veteran RPM company AMC Health will be partnering with GE Healthcare (GEHC) for post-discharge in-home care monitoring. This will extend GEHC’s hospital-based monitoring into post-acute patient needs and anticipate future care needs, potentially reducing unnecessary readmissions. It’s also planned that eventually both hospital and home data will be integrated into GE’s Edison Health database. GEHC also announced additional details about its spinoff, due to happen in early 2023. [Also TTA 12 Nov 21 and 20 July] Mobihealthnews

Healthcare/health tech raises haven’t entirely disappeared. Viome, which uses AI to test the oral and gut microbiome to prevent, diagnose, and treat chronic diseases and cancer, just raised a $67 million Series C led by Bold Capital Group with participation from Khosla Ventures, West River Group, Glico, Ocgrow Ventures, and Physician Partners, for a total raise since 2017 of over $169 million (Crunchbase). Viome recently launched the CancerDetect test for oral and throat cancers under the FDA Breakthrough Device Designation. Last year, they expanded their partnership with GlaxoSmithKline to research and potentially develop interventions for some cancers and autoimmune diseases. Viome release  

Mobihealthnews rounds up several other financings from genomic tester Variantyx’s $20 million in debt financing to mental health app Mindful Care’s modest $7 million Series B and dataset research collaboration platform Rhino Health‘s $6.7 million seed round extension for an $11 million total.

Rounding up the week with good news: AliveCor’s Series F round, Scotland’s Smplicare gains £750K for fall research

August 19, 2022 | by

AliveCor has moved to a Series F round led by GE Healthcare. In this funding-parched environment, this is impressive though the funding amount is (sigh) not disclosed. The round was joined by NGK-NTK (through a CVC partnership with Pegasus Tech Ventures) and existing investors including Khosla Ventures, Bold Capital Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, and WP Global Partners. The fresh funding will be used to advance new innovations, their AI roadmapping, and existing ones such as introducing subscription services, KardiaCare and KardiaComplete for patients, payers and employers, and KardiaPro for physicians. KardiaCare has 165,000 members, claiming 2 million users and 160 million ECGs to date. GEHC and AliveCor currently partner on integrating KardiaMobile 6L’s ECG data directly into GE Healthcare’s MUSE Cardiac Management System.  Release. Hat tip to Dr. Dave Albert, founder and Reader.

The UK funding environment is also perking a bit in the public/private area. Edinburgh-based startup Smplicare now has £750,000  to explore how commercially available wearable technologies can predict the risk of falls and other age-related health issues. Funding came from private investors and UK Research & Innovation (UKRI)’s Healthy Ageing Challenge, with the goal of adding five years of healthy, independent living for everyone by 2035. Overall, the challenge has seven themes and an extensive list of partnerships worth referencing if your technology, platform, or social enterprise is in this area of keeping older people active, productive, and in their communities. Smplicare’s tech uses a questionnaire to easily determine levels of clinical fraility, then a dashboard to project trends. Their project is to monitor 300 individuals 55+ and with a history of falls agreeing to wear a mainstream wearable for six months. What this will enable Smplicare to do is to have enough data to create an AI-powered algorithm that will predict the likelihood of a fall, possibly saving the NHS more than £4.4 billion annually. The research is led by Smplicare’s chief innovation officer, Dr. Adrian Smales, an award-winning PhD in health informatics. Support comes from the analytics team at Data Lab, Scotland’s innovation center for data and AI, and on the clinical side, Dr. Atul Anand, an NHS and University of Edinburgh geriatrician with experience in big data clinical studies. Insider.co.UK, The Scotsman

Midweek heat wave roundup: GE Healthcare’s new name, hospital-to-home health trending big, over 2 million patient records hacked

July 20, 2022 | by

GE’s breakup into three public companies, announced last November [TTA 12 Nov 21], has been formalized with brand names. No surprise, the healthcare business has but a teeny tiny change to GE HealthCare (logo left) and after the spinoff will be trading sometime in early 2023 under GEHC on Nasdaq because “GE HealthCare will benefit from the exchange’s profile and track record as a market for innovative, technology-led public companies, particularly in the healthcare sector. The heritage ‘meatball’ (as we called it in marketing internally, but formally the Monogram) will be retained but the color will change from poison green to “compassion purple” to reflect more humanity and warmth and achieve greater distinction”. The hardest hit part of GE, the energy businesses, will be spun off as GE Vernova and key color an ‘evergreen’. What is left will be GE Aerospace, retaining its name and change its color to an ‘upper atmosphere’ blue that is almost black. Outer space, anyone? GE release, interview on YouTube

Au courant is hospital-to-home (H2H) and home health, digitally enabled mais bien sûr.

  • Mass General Brigham (MGB) is reportedly expanding its current 25-bed program to 200 in the next 2.5 years. Since 2016, MGB has treated nearly 1,800 H2H patients. By end of 2023, they plan 90 hospital-at-home beds managed across Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, and Salem Hospital. Their new head for home-based care will be Heather O’Sullivan, who comes from EVP and chief clinical innovation officer spots at Kindred at Home, acquired by Humana in 2021. FierceHealthcare
  • Out in rural Wisconsin, Marshfield Clinic is rolling out a H2H program with DispatchHealth, to coordinate medical care for injuries and illnesses including viral infections, COPD exacerbations, congestive heart failure, and more. The goal is to reduce non-emergency ED visits. DispatchHealth can also perform services such as onsite diagnostics, mobile imaging, and CLIA-certified labs for kidney function, electrolytes, and urinalysis. In March 2021, they closed a $200 million Series D bringing their funding to unicorn level. HealthcareITNews
  • UHG’s Optum has moved closer on its $5.5 billion acquisition of LHC Group home health and hospice [TTA 31 Mar] with shareholder approval on 21 June. Once closed later this year, LHC will be integrated into Optum Health. LHC operates in 37 states and the District of Columbia, employing about 30,000 individuals. Home Health Care News, Becker’s

And what would a week with a heat wave that melts runways at RAF Brize Norton and Luton be without a couple of big data breaches to heat up things? Stolen: an iPad chock full of 75,000 Kaiser Permanente patients’ PHI from Kaiser’s Los Angeles Medical Center’s COVID-19 testing center. While the information on the iPad included first and last names, dates of birth, medical record numbers, and dates and location of service (but not SSN or financial information), Kaiser was able to remotely erase the data. At this point, there is no evidence of theft or misuse. NBC Los Angeles, Becker’s   An even larger breach of 2 million records came via a February hack attack on health provider debt collector Professional Finance Company (PFC). Hackers got into PFC’s computers and accessed patient names, addresses, SSN, health insurance, and medical treatment data. Among the 650 client companies affected were Banner Health and Nevada physician network Renown Health. Healthcare Dive

Thursday news roundup: Walmart hiring 50K workers including health, Anthem name-changing, GE Healthcare-AliveCor partner, IPO for Komodo Health amid slowdown?

March 17, 2022 | by

In the midst of war, inflation, and the contradiction of a tight labor market, it’s somehow reassuring that Walmart needs to hire 50,000 new workers–and fast, by end of April. According to reports, some of those new hires will be bolstering the health and wellness areas. In the past, Walmart has hired heavily in their in-store pharmacies. Many of these jobs are lower-end–delivery drivers for direct-to-fridge InHome groceries, in-store workers, and supply chain staff. One higher-level worker area that points to health is global tech, creating offices in Toronto and Atlanta, with Walmart planning jobs for 5,000 engineers, data scientists, analysts, and tech experts. Additional hires will go to increasing its advertising business which is based in the New York metro area. Especially for those high-skill positions, six weeks is not quite plausible in this market. But you have to admire them for trying. CNBC, Becker’s

Anthem changing its name–again. Health insurer giant Anthem, Inc. has announced a renaming to Elevance Health. According to the release, the name is a combination of elevate and advance, presumably for health but as they say in their release, vaulting beyond healthcare into the rarefied air of ‘whole health’. It also reflects vaulting beyond the health plan business, as they fully savor the rarified air of healthcare diversification like fellow giants UnitedHealth Group, Centene, and CVS Aetna.

The parent company of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, Anthem owns non-Blues Amerigroup, Integra Managed Care in NY,  pharmacy benefits manager IngenioRx, plus a $25 million investment in digital health hub Sharecare. Plan and product names, along with organizations will not change at this time–these are major changes that usually require state department of insurance approvals.

To this Editor’s Gimlet Eye, the coined name Elevance feels pharmaceutical and not in a good way–it’s very close to an old anti-depressant, Elavil. A return to WellPoint, a name the company had up to 2014, would have accomplished the same ends. But there’s always the shock of the new, the opportunity to change the tired signage, and behind this, someone making a point for themselves. Undoubtedly the shareholders will agree at the 18 May annual meeting, since they always do, and it will start to be used–presumably with a logo and new graphics they don’t have now–at end of Q2. Another gimlety view–it takes a certain myopia to announce a name change given what’s happening in the world. Healthcare Dive

In time for HIMSS, GE Healthcare and AliveCor, developer of the KardiaMobile ECG, announced their partnership to transmit KardiaMobile 6L data directly into GE Healthcare’s MUSE Cardiac Management System for clinical evaluation. MUSE is used by 87 percent of the top cardiac hospitals in the US. The direct integration of KardiaMobile 6L data that is taken anywhere into the MUSE workflow and then into an EMR, targeting atrial fibrillation but also other cardiac monitoring, is a big validation and win for AliveCor. Release

Analytics software company Komodo Health is preparing an IPO as early as this summer. Goldman Sachs and SVB Securities are rumored to be the lead bookrunners. Timing will depend on markets and financing. Komodo completed last March a $220 million Series E for funding to date of $314 million [TTA 25 Mar 2021]. With a valuation now topping $3 billion, Komodo may be the ‘IT’ company of healthcare IPOs in a market much tamer than last year’s Wild West Rodeo. What they do isn’t easy to explain, but they feed their 325 million patient encounter database drawn from EHR, pharma, lab, and government data into proprietary software to map patient journeys, providing analytics on more than 325 de-identified, real-world patient insights. These are used to drive better health outcomes across therapeutic areas. The primary markets for their data are life sciences and pharma for R&D, clinical trials, and medical affairs, but are seeking to expand to providers and payers.

Other IPOs rumored to be on tap are Included Health (the former Grand Rounds/Doctor on Demand) [TTA 20 Oct 2021] and Tempus Labs in precision medicine.

News roundup: GE Healthcare spins off, Mercy Health accused of telehealth tech theft, NHS’ proposed $8.1bn bump for backlogs–with a 83 y/o in a 7am queue

November 12, 2021 | by

Breaking up GE is so very hard to do–or is it? The long-rumored spinoff of GE Healthcare will be happening by early 2023. Leadership will also be changing, with Integra LifeSciences CEO Peter Arduini becoming president and CEO on 1 January, replacing Kieran Murphy who came from the Life Sciences business and the UK. A GE connection will remain since GE chairman and CEO Lawrence Culp will serve as non-executive chairman of GE Healthcare after spinoff. Also spinning off by 2024 will be the power and energy business. What remains of General Electric will be the commercial aviation and defense aviation business. 

A spinoff of GEHC was in the works in 2018, but faltered when the then-CEO left. It currently is a $17 billion business which, like its competitors Siemens Healthineers, Philips, Fujifilm, Toshiba, and Hitachi, has been affected by supply chain disruption. In third quarter, there was a 6% decline in revenue to $4.3 billion in the period compared to a year ago. Barron’s estimates that the valuation of GEHC would be about $54 billion after spinoff, even with debt and related costs.

For GEHC and its people, at least one decision about the future is resolved. And one could hope that GEHC could finally free itself of the Welch (and later) ‘take it or leave it’ legacy that never seemed to fit healthcare, the brutal GE internal culture, and chart its own course of innovation and improved customer service.  CNBC, Healthcare Dive

Mercy Health, a health system headquartered in St. Louis, is being sued by former telehealth provider LifeScience Technologies LLC (LST) for misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, civil conspiracy, and more . LifeScience’s m.Care was being used by Mercy from 2015. In the lawsuit filed by LifeScience, Mercy is being accused of giving Myia Health’s software development team improper access to LST’s virtual health software using @Mercy.net credentials. Mercy then invested $5 million in Myia Health and replaced m.Care with Myia’s ‘derivative’ software. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, Eastern Division on 25 October. Springfield News-Leader, LST release

Last month’s proposed NHS budget from the Finance Ministry included a $8.1 million boost to help resolve patient waiting lists and modernize technology. The ‘boomerang’ of cases from the pandemic lingers on. The increase represents $3.2 billion for testing services, $2.9 billion to improve technology, and $2 billion to increase bed capacity. VOA. Perhaps the increase will help a gentleman like Keith Pratt, aged 83, who faced at London Road Community Hospital first a lost blood test that was part of his diabetes checkup, and then, because he had no computer nor access to log in for a new appointment, was forced to queue at 7am at the walk-in clinic. Derbyshire Live reported that “Keith feels that people without internet access are being overlooked when it comes to accessing NHS services in Derbyshire. He said: “I’ve not got a computer and I am like thousands of other people who haven’t got a computer, not just older people like myself.” Will the technology improvements include not losing tests, and phone backup for appointments? Wouldn’t that be nice?

CEO change at GE may mean delay or cancellation of GE Healthcare spinoff–for good or ill

October 3, 2018 | by

The well-publicized and unvarnished dumping of GE‘s CEO John Flannery after only 13 months has led a leading research analyst to predict that the planned GE Healthcare spinoff will be delayed or even halted. Analyst Jim Corridore of CFRA stated on CNBC that incoming CEO Lawrence Culp, a recent board member who was CEO of Danaher, a scientific, industrial and healthcare conglomerate, may decide that the division should stay. 

At $19 billion in revenue with a profit of $3.4 billion, 15.8 percent of GE’s total sales and 43.2 percent of its operating profit in 2017, the wisdom of a GEHC spinoff always seemed doubtful. The selloff was in line with Mr. Flannery’s strategy of refocusing on GE’s industrial and energy business. However, this was not going terrifically well, at least in the BOD’s view, with a sluggish turnaround, shares dropping off the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, projections of missing year-end targets, activist investor Nelson Peltz hovering, and exacerbated by problems at GE Power with its new line of natural gas-fired power turbines. Perhaps a few were doubly offended by the selloff of the corporate jets (relative pennies) as well as the expensive and frankly hard-to-justify corporate HQ move from Connecticut to Boston.

Mr. Culp is apparently well-thought of, having retired after a highly successful 14-year run at Danaher, but he has his work cut out for him. He will also need to quickly judge whether to continue the GEHC spinoff process or bring the cattle back into the fold, as the drive was well underway down the trail. Somehow, spinning off 40 percent of your operating profit seems strategically foolish given a plummeting share price.

A jaundiced opinion. Perhaps as an outsider, Mr. Culp can change the ‘death star’ culture at GE. This Editor, in her brief encounter with GEHC as part of an acquired company (Living Independently Group, developer of QuietCare, circa 2008-9) found their business practices and many of their people to be both ruthless and self-referential to the point of stumbling blindness. The LIG acquisition was part of an ill-considered and perhaps ego-driven experiment by GEHC’s CEO at the time to get into home, remote monitoring, and assisted living health, a developmental, small-scale, early-stage area. It was obvious that GE’s vaunted methodology and hospital-based acute care experience were worse than useless when it came to understanding what is still a developmental area. The home health businesses were sold, closed, or (in the case of QuietCare), spun off into a joint venture. That CEO and a few other people leveraged it well; LIG’s employees, shareholders, and others at GEHC did not. 

As Star Wars fans know, Death Stars are destroyed in the final reel.

GE’s change at the top puts a healthcare head first

June 13, 2017 | by

This Monday morning’s Big News was the stepping down, after 16 years, of GE‘s CEO Jeff Immelt effective August 1, and the rise of GE Healthcare’s head, John Flannery. The focus of most articles naturally was the fate of GE. Mr. Immelt may have steered the company through a severe recession starting in 2008, but he managed to lose about a third of the company’s value in the process. Expect some changes to be made in Boston. “I’m going to do a fast but deliberate, methodical review of the whole company,” Flannery told Reuters in an interview. “The board has encouraged me to come in and look at it afresh.” In an earlier call with investors, he said the review would have “no constraint.”

Mr. Flannery is a 30-year GE veteran, head of Healthcare since 2014, and previously head of GE India, its equity business in Latin America and GE Capital in Argentina and Chile. According to Fortune, GEHC is 15 percent of GE’s total business and in recent years has been smartly up in revenue. They have partnered recently with UCSF on predictive analytics, Boston Children’s Hospital on a pediatric brain scan database, and Johns Hopkins of a more efficient hospital bed allocation process. Also is an example of telemedicine remote diagnosis using a GE Health portable ECG device connected to the Tricog smartphone app to take a reading in India which was diagnosed in San Diego.

Usually healthcare CEOs become CEOs of other healthcare companies–witness the rise of one of Mr. Flannery’s predecessors, GE veteran Omar Ishrak, as CEO of Medtronic.  Fortune’s healthcare reporter interviewed Mr. Flannery two weeks ago–more of this interview will be published according to the author. (But hasn’t as of June 21!)

Walgreens partners with Chicago health tech incubator MATTER (US)

December 24, 2016 | by

Walgreens, the US retail pharmacy part of Walgreens Boots Alliance, on 20 December announced its own alliance with Chicago healthcare incubator and innovation community, MATTER. This Editor believes it is the first retail partnership with a health tech-focused incubator or accelerator in the US; most of these partnerships are with angel networks, VCs, health system venture arms or large commercial healthcare partners such as Qualcomm, Allscripts or GE Healthcare. Walgreens’ contribution will be to mentor and collaborate with MATTER entrepreneurs. Reportedly they have or have had more than 150 startups in their program. They are also part of Chicago’s push to slice itself some health tech cake versus cities like San Diego, Palo Alto, Dallas, Boston and New York via the recently launched Health Care Council of Chicago (HC3), which was co-created by MATTER and Leavitt Partners. Hopefully, Walgreens will get some of their $140 million back via their Theranos lawsuit ending their blood testing misadventure [TTA 17 Nov, Ch. 24] and spread their bets with legitimately promising startups. Press release, ChicagoInno

GE Healthcare gets into accelerator biz with five.eight

October 5, 2016 | by

Having tip-toed around the accelerator action with StartUp Health Academy (GE Ventures), GE Healthcare (GEHC) is taking the full dive in with five.eight, named after the 5.8 billion people worldwide (citation not provided) who lack access to quality, affordable healthcare and need tailored approaches. Up to 10 startups in the initial program will be sourced from four social impact investors – Acumen, Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group, Unitus Seed Fund and Villgro. The five.eight funding will be up to $50 million, with each startup funded up to $5 million. The first startup in the program is Tricog, a Bangalore-based startup focused on improving survival rates in India by decreasing the average time between symptoms and treatment of heart attacks. Of course this ties into GEHC’s business in emerging markets, which is their Sustainable Healthcare Solutions, their “affordable care portfolio of high-value, low-cost technologies and healthcare delivery solutions for emerging markets.” HIT Consultant, HealthcareITNews

Care Innovations’ Slovenski, 23andMe’s Schwartz move to Healthways

January 13, 2016 | by

Breaking News: Healthways, an online wellness program company based in Nashville, this morning announced that two executives well known to many of us in digital health have joined them. Sean Slovenski, CEO of Intel-GE Care Innovations, is now their President, Population Health Services. Steve Schwartz, their new SVP Strategy and Corporate Development, joins the company from VP Business Development and Strategy, 23andMe.

Mr Slovenski’s track record in 2.5 years at CI certainly impressed this Editor (formerly with the developer of their behavioral telemonitoring system bequeathed from GE Healthcare, QuietCare) with turning around the company from an outpost of Intel and GEHC having difficulty transitioning from ancient technology (remember the Intel Health Guide?) to a telehealth platform dubbed Health Harmony. He also put together a team that engineered multiple academic and health system alliances, along with an interesting turn into home digital health certification. While he came to CI from health insurance giant Humana in Louisville Kentucky running their behavioral health and wellness businesses, his prior experience includes both entrepreneurial turns at his own company and with smaller companies. He most recently engineered a Louisville outpost of CI [TTA 14 Oct 15]. Since Mr Slovenski is still listed on the CI website as CEO, this may have been a quickly executed move.

Mr Schwartz’s business development background includes long stints at two large healthcare companies, Allscripts (EHRs and practice management software) and LabCorp (lab testing). He weathered 23andMe’s FDA troubles and headed up their B2B sales area. Healthways release

Unusually, Healthways is a NASDAQ traded company that closed at $12.11 today in a down market. It’s old (in our terms) having been founded in 1981, becoming publicly traded ten years later. Its last round of venture financing was $20 million from CareFirst BlueCross Blue Shield in October 2013 (CrunchBase). Healthways has a fairly new CEO as well, who joined last August and obviously feels comfortable adding to his team.

GE Healthcare acquires health consultancy

November 12, 2015 | by

GE Healthcare announced on Monday that it has acquired a US healthcare consultancy firm, The Camden Group. [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/GE-Healthcare-logo.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]Founded in 1970, The Camden Group advices US healthcare organisations such hospitals, health plan providers, medical groups and ACOs and will become the US business unit of GE Healthcare’s international consultancy GE Healthcare Partners.

The Camden Group has been expanding for some time and acquired Health Directions LLC in January of this year for an undisclosed price. By acquiring The Camden Group GE Healthcare will get access to a range of ongoing customers. The $18bn GE Healthcare business announced a $300M commitment two months ago to create a Sustainable Healthcare Solutions unit covering emerging health markets in Asia and Africa.

The price paid for the acquisition of The Camden Group has not been disclosed.

GE Healthcare staying together: CEO (updated)

September 18, 2015 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2000px-General_Electric_logo.svg_.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]It’s ‘black and white’ but not GE blue all over! During an investor conference Wednesday, GE Healthcare’s CEO John Flannery insisted that “Bottom line is we have been black and white that all aspects of healthcare are part of our portfolio,” reported in Reuters. Investors have questioned the flatlining of both revenue and profit and the fact that GEHC doesn’t seem to fit well in the engineering/manufacturing bent of the Immelt-ized GE.

The speculation by investors and we in the healthcare press is rational. Earlier this year, GEHC announced the phaseout of the Centricity Enterprise (hospital) EHR. [TTA 15 April] Healthcare Financial Services and the services it would provide were also up in the air. Currently it lends to healthcare entities including hospitals and other health facilities to purchase equipment (made by GE) and real estate/facilities (not made by GE). Initial indicators was that GE would continue to finance what it sells. The real estate financing then is questionable, and undoubtedly an issue for healthcare facilities, as GE Capital has been sold. GE also sources funding for healthcare innovation through the Healthymagination Fund and GE Ventures, and of course has an interest in the Intel-GE JV, Care Innovations. What shape this financial arrangements will take in the future is not clear from the available information.

Also announced, according to Biospace, is $1 billion funding over the next five years for education to reach more than two million healthcare professionals worldwide–physicians, radiologists, technologists, midwives, nurses, biomedical engineers–geared to local needs. It will include new clinical, product application, technical and leadership training and education. A forward commitment of this magnitude does seem to confirm that GEHC is in the healthcare game.

GE moving out of the hospital EHR business–and healthcare lending?

April 15, 2015 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2000px-General_Electric_logo.svg_.png” thumb_width=”100″ /]Updated. Spring cleaning at GE continues that may affect healthcare more than EHRs. Neil Versel catches at HIMSS, if not an exclusive, close to it, by finally getting a GE exec to admit the awful truth–that they are phasing out their Centricity Enterprise (hospital) EHR. Versel: “It’s now helping customers with a “graceful transition over a number of years,” said Jon Zimmerman, general manager of clinical business solutions at GE Healthcare.” Even more remarkable, that decision was made three years ago. MedCityNews also updated their article to highlight some of their recent problems with Intermountain Health; we’ve also noted that UCSF converted to Epic after 12 years (see our Weekend Must Read).

The GE Capital exit may affect healthcare too. The other and more major part of the spring cleaning–their exit from GE Capital with the sale/spinoff of assets over the next two years–was announced over the weekend (Bloomberg). Their Healthcare Financial Services lends to healthcare entities including hospitals, life science and in senior housing/health facilities. It also houses the Healthymagination Fund, the capital source for GE Ventures, its early stage developmental arm for healthcare, software and energy. According to The Wall Street Journal, GE will retain healthcare financing to support what it makes in its GE Healthcare unit: ultrasound, imaging, patient monitoring and diagnostics industrial equipment, down to the Vscan (yes! it’s still there). We would bet that GE Ventures is safe. But does this mean that its healthcare real estate unit within Healthcare Financial Services, which lends to senior housing, skilled nursing and other medical properties, is on the block, especially as GE this weekend completed the sale of its real estate holdings? What else, we wonder, will GE sell at the right price to pull up share price–and in the longer term, the future of its manufacturing in areas like major healthcare equipment which have been facing a declining and heavily competitive US market?

Exiting the hospital EHR business makes sense for GE, but what else will it entail? While it retained a solid footprint of vendor loyalty and satisfaction (more…)

Music, art app for Alzheimer’s patients; diagnosing brain performance

March 25, 2014 | by

GE Healthcare has developed an iPad app, MIND, for patients with Alzheimer’s and other neurological disorders which presents favorite music, music videos and a virtual art gallery. The aim is to stimulate the brain, evoke emotions and promote social interaction.  This extends the pioneering research from New York City’s Institute for Music and Neurologic Function‘s Music and Memory program, which provides personalized music on iPods for those with both cognitive and physical challenges in long-term care to improve quality of life and reduce anti-psychotic drug use. GE release. Website.

Another approach to brain diagnosis and therapy for Alzheimer’s, stroke and brain hemorrhage may be pioneered by Multineurons. This startup has developed a head-worn sensor device that works with an iPad app, WakeUp, for non-invasive brain diagnosis and therapy. It measures speed (connectivity of neurons), fitness (neuroplasticity) and robustness – at 10 different points in the brain. Testing is planned to start in a Swiss rehabilitation facility this summer. MedCityNews

New diabetes telehealth trial in Mississippi (US)

January 30, 2014 | by

A new telehealth trial for diabetes patients will be recruiting patients in Mississippi this spring. Known [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ummc_aerial.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]as the Diabetes Telehealth Network, the trial is planned to provide a classic telehealth service for up to 200 patients for a period of 18 months.

This trial is a result of a collaboration between several public and private organizations: the Mississippi Governor’s office, University of Mississippi, North Sunflower Medical Center, GE Healthcare, Intel-GE Care Innovations and C Spire.

The recruited trialists will be provided with a broadband connected tablet PC which will have software to enable daily medical measurements to be transmitted to a specialist team at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. A press release states that the measurements will include weight, blood pressure, and glucose level and these will be monitored by the clinical staff at (more…)