Midweek updates: Walgreens may sell Shields Health after 2 years; Ventric Health’s home cardiac RPM; Singapore military medical corps upgrades PACES 3 EMR

January 25, 2024 | by

Walgreens reportedly looking to sell Shields Health Solutions, working with advisers on a valuation to raise cash. That valuation may bring $4 billion in a sale. Shields provides specialty pharmacy services and is part of its US Healthcare division. Criticism of the possible sale breaking in Bloomberg 23 January was hardly muted. TD Cowen analysts cited in Healthcare Dive called it “a strange move” to sell what could be Walgreens’ highest margin business with a knock-on effect of slowing a return to profitability. They even proposed that a sale of Boots in the UK might make more sense. A Bloomberg analyst called it “a pointed reversal of the prior CEO’s strategy to diversify” but also stated that “the strategic rationale for owning it remains strong”. It is perhaps the most salable of US Healthcare’s assets, with excellent growth of 27% in its last quarter. WBA bought a minority stake in Shields  in 2019, spent $970 million to take majority control in 2021, and bought out the last 30% for $1.37 billion in 2022.

The impression left by these articles and in FierceHealthcare was that WBA is a “troubled drug-store chain in turnaround mode” (Bloomberg). That isn’t a good look.

Heart failure is a major disease, with 6.5 million in the US diagnosed and joined by 550,000 every year. Ventric Health has a newly FDA-cleared non-invasive cardiac diagnostic system for remote patient monitoring (RPM) that can be used in the home as well as clinical settings. A trained clinician can use Ventric’s Vivio system to perform an evaluation in the home or a clinic that could only previously be done in the hospital. An EKG patch and arm cuff are placed on the patient, connected to a tablet with the Vivio app and its advanced algorithms via Bluetooth, and in under five minutes–two minutes for the data collection and about a minute for the analysis, can evaluate patient heart failure. The portability of the system eliminates a lot of care barriers to cardiovascular health by being more accessible to clinicians and patients in non-hospital settings, reduces time wasted on initial diagnosis, improves support of diagnosed patients, and promotes better outcomes. Healthcare IT News

The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Medical Corps upgraded its EMR for the first time in a decade. The SAF’s Patient Care Enhancement System 3 (PACES 3) runs both the Sunrise EMR system and the newly implemented Altera Opal by Altera Digital Health. This is Sunrise’s first upgrade in Asia-Pacific. Soldiers can now access information on their medical history, manage and book their medical appointments. Also upgraded: document management, clinical and financial applications, including enhanced workflows, improved system performance, enabled compliance with regulatory obligations, and improved overall usability. It also connects securely to Singapore’s National Electronic Health Record system and other local health IT infrastructures via internet. The EMR is the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) of Singapore. Healthcare IT News

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

June 30, 2016 | by

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. Release, FierceMedicalDevices

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…)

46 percent of undiagnosed chronic disease discovered through corporate wellness program

July 14, 2015 | by

A HealthMine survey of corporate wellness program participants found that 46 percent of respondents who were diagnosed with a previously unknown chronic disease discovered it as a result of their wellness program. Corporate wellness programs have been light on ROI metrics (many are at heart incentive programs). While the survey was conducted by a provider of these programs (HealthMine’s Automatic Health) and should be seen in that light, it also indirectly confirms the proactive value of health screenings. Employees want more as well. Participants in an earlier survey that they would like programs to offer vision (74 percent), genetic testing (75 percent), blood pressure (73 percent), cholesterol (69 percent), cancer (58 percent), and hearing (58 percent). The MedCityNews article also makes the excellent point that employers, through these wellness programs, are directly or indirectly accessing employee personal health information–a legally fraught area.

When remote monitoring ends, what happens to patient outcomes?

April 28, 2015 | by

They do not maintain improvement, just as we thought. A just-published study fills a significant gap in telehealth knowledge. The study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) analyzed the long-running Partners HealthCare-Massachusetts General Hospital Connected Cardiac Care Program (CCCP) for patients with heart failure. They matched 174 patients participating in the 120-day program between January 2008 and August 2012 with an equal number of control patients, all with heart failure, previously hospitalized and receiving care at MGH. The program patients were provided with a ViTelNet monitoring hub plus devices–a digital weight scale, a blood pressure cuff and meter, and a pulse oximeter–as well as receiving patient education plus unscheduled education intervention from nurse care coordinators when results trended out of pre-set ranges.

During the 120 day program, the program patients (predictably) had consistently lower hospitalization rates versus the control group at the 30, 60, 90 and 120 day marks, though the differential narrowed over time. But after program completion, in the study’s follow up eight months after the end of the four-month program (see one year below), the program group’s hospitalization rates increased to exceed the control group’s. Mortality rates remained lower though not statistically significant:

(more…)

Big data in heart failure detection gets $2 million grant

October 11, 2013 | by

One part of the US government that hasn’t gone silent is the National Institutes of Health (NIH) which announced yesterday a $2 million research grant to IBM, Sutter Health and Geisinger Health System to jointly develop data analytics tools to help primary care physicians detect heart failure sooner. This will analyze EHR data to determine the patterns that may be indicative of a person at high risk–and investigate more effective early intervention. Big data sets sights on heart disease (HealthcareITNews)

Substantial benefits from telemonitoring trial that avoids patient involvement

September 1, 2013 | by

In a possible pointer to a future of greater benefits from telemonitoring when vital signs information is transmitted to care-givers automatically, eg from smart clothing or subcutaneous probes, Heartwire reports on the successful Dutch IN-TIME RCT involving implant-based home monitoring for patients with advanced heart failure. For those in the intervention group, in-house monitoring significantly reduced the worsening of their condition, and significantly reduced mortality, compared with the control group.

Asked why his study succeeded where others have not, (more…)