The Future of Clinical Trials in the Post-Pandemic Era: HITLAB Seminar Series 6 May

April 30, 2020 | by

Wednesday 6 May, 11am to 12 noon Eastern Daylight Time

How can virtual trials improve patient enrollment, retention, and engagement in a clinical trial? How much of the future CRO model will be defined by digital solutions? These are two questions key for many digital health companies as they expand and/or pivot their business model. Answering these questions will be the task of the panel discussing “Clinical Trials in the Post-Pandemic Era”, a free virtual midday seminar hosted by HITLAB in New York.

Panelists are: Joris van Dam, Head of Digital Therapeutics at Novartis, Natalia Kotchie, Vice President R&DS Applied Data Science Center at IQVIA, Bill Taranto, President & General Partner at Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, and Jeff Ventimiglia, Senior Vice President, Medidata Solutions (sponsor). The panel will be moderated by Professor Stan Kachnowski, Director of the Digital Health Strategy program at Columbia Business School.

Seats are limited to 1,000. Registration is necessary through Eventbrite here. Registrants will receive a follow-on email with instructions on how to access the webinar.

Update: healthcare/digital health conferences canceled/postponed due to COVID-19 include SXSW, Naidex, EPIC (updated 13 Mar).

March 12, 2020 | by

Your Editor has been offline since Monday to this afternoon (EDT) due to a Fios network outage, not a health outage due to COVID-19. Since last week and the HIMSS20 cancellation, major conference and meeting cancellations and reschedulings are multiplying like fig buttercups in the spring. And yes, WHO has declared it a pandemic as Italy closes down and the US bans travel and even trade from Europe for the next 30 days, but not the UK. (There are additional relief measures including a requested payroll tax reduction, tax deferrals and assistance to small businesses. Many schools and businesses are going remote and long-term care residences, a nexus of infection, are being strongly encouraged to defer non-medically necessary visitors.)

Below are some of the majors and of interest to Readers in the digital health area. Most are the largest conferences with international attendees:

What’s on? The DHACA Day on 18 March at Brown Rudnick in London. Agenda and registration here.  Updates at @DHACA_org.

Additional updates 13 March

Running lists are up at Forbes (including sporting events such as the NBA, Broadway, and every major St Patrick’s Day parade; happily the NY International Auto Show is moved to 28 August) and MedPage Today. Healthcare IT News has a list of government and academic information resources led by the CDC, the WHO, and the NHS. We’ll repeat the NHS pages from our earlier article:

The UK Department of Health and Social Care and Public Health England has provided the following links to coronavirus guidance (hat tip to DOHSC via LinkedIn):

👩‍⚕️ Health: 
🚂 Transport: 
👩‍🎓 Education:
👨‍💼 Employers:
🏡 Social care:

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

Health 2.0 NYC Empowered Patients event rescheduled to 16 May; apply now to the Digital Health Breakthrough Network (NYC)

May 8, 2018 | by

Empowered Patient 2018: Using Big Data & Technology to Empower Patients & Providers to Make Healthier Decisions
Verywell, 1500 Broadway (at 43rd), 6th Floor (Verywell)–now 16 May

Overview: Big Data is rapidly transforming the healthcare industry – from personalizing content to the patients’ individual needs to making medical diagnoses and outcomes more predictive. The panel of industry experts from various companies ranging from healthcare publishing, research, and technology will discuss how Big Data is enabling this evolution with content, product, and services to democratize health information and provide insights that improve medical care, research, and the overall patient experience. Technology is already making a difference, but raises privacy and ethical issues.

Agenda:
6:00 – Meet, Greet, and tweet with healthy snacks provided by event sponsor: Verywell
6:30–  Panel Discussion
7:15 – Get to know other healthcare innovators in the community

Moderator: Dr. Deepna Devkar, Senior Director, Data Science, Dotdash
Panel:
Marlene Guraieb, PhD – Senior Data Scientist, Oscar Health
Dmitriy (Dima) Gorenshteyn, PhD, Senior Data Scientist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Rob Parisi, SVP/GM Verywell – This evening’s sponsor and site host is a leading health and wellness site that provides trusted advice for a healthier life to its 20 million monthly unique visitors.
Joy Fennel, Empowered Patient – pilot patient on mymee, a digital therapeutic solution for autoimmune disorders – see www.mymee.com
Libbe Englander, PhD., CEO, Pharm3r, a healthcare analytics company helping improve outcomes with big data

Tickets $15, the snacks and drinks (and crowd) are great. Register and pay here. TTA and Editor Donna are longtime supporters of Health 2.0 NYC and Medstartr, the organizing groups behind this event.

A startup looking for funding? Look no further than the Digital Health Breakthrough Network. Sponsored by NYCEDC and HITLAB, they are in the process of recruiting their fourth class of startups. Eligible companies are early-stage startups (pre-revenue/pre-Series A), based in NYC (50 percent+ of employees), with an innovative digital health technology that presents a novel solution to a significant need in the health marketplace. Applications are open until 15 June. More information here and here.

End of year action: Vivify/InTouch, InTouch/TruClinic, Medtronic, NYCEDC winners, ActiveProtective, Adidas exits wearables, Fitbit (updated)

December 19, 2017 | by
  • Dallas-based Vivify Health is partnering with California’s InTouch Health to integrate their telehealth remote patient management with InTouch Health’s acute care video consult/device platform. For InTouch, it is a move into the home by using Vivify’s Managed Kit and BYOD and related APIs. For Vivify, this helps in their post-acute RPM sell to large healthcare organizations. (Is their VA partner Iron Bow somewhere in the mix?) Their VA Home Telehealth rival Medtronic announced their partnership with American Well a few months ago [TTA 21 Oct]. InTouch release via Telecom Reseller
  • Updated. InTouch also announced their agreement on Jan 4 to purchase DTC telehealth provider TruClinic furthering their move into home telehealth. TruClinic will be merged into InTouch. Heading it up will be recently appointed EVP of Marketing and Consumer Solutions Steve Cashman, who founded and headed pioneering but overly ambitious for the market health kiosk HealthSpot [TTA roundup here]. Release  (Our update on the state of health kiosks here)
  • Speaking of Medtronic Care Management Services, MCCM touted its VA Home Telehealth ties to Healthcare Analytics News. Intriguing claim: they’ve treated 310,000 veterans since 2011 (Cardiocom, the 2011 awardee, was purchased in 2013). VA itself credits only 156,000 patients to Home Telehealth in Federal FY 2014 (the last official count), 43,000 patients in 2010 and 144,000 in 2013. A very rough estimate by this Editor is that they were about 25 percent of the veterans in the program.
  • Announced at last week’s NYC Economic Development Commission (NYCEDC) Health 2.0 Digital Health Forum attended by this Editor were the winners of the third annual NYCEDC/HITLAB’s Digital Health Breakthrough Network accelerator program for pre-revenue startups: Altopax (VR behavioral health), Navimize (doctor/hospital scheduling), Tatch (sleep quality biometrics), and PainQX (pain level monitoring). The Forum also had Digital Health Marketplace matchmaking meetings for 65 NYC-based health tech companies with prospective clients. The Marketplace furnishes competitive grants to offset the cost of piloting between growth-stage tech companies and providers. Release, MedCityNews
  • ActiveProtective‘s controversial protective airbag to cushion hips from falls by high-risk older adults [TTA 10 Jan] gained $4.7 million in Series A funding led by Generator Ventures. Mobihealthnews
  • Adidas is shuttering its wearable device development unit and condensing its offerings, focusing on the Runtastic GPS-guided exercise offering and a shopping app. It follows similar moves at Nike and Under Armour proving that big names in sports fitness clothing couldn’t pull off wearables. Mobihealthnews
  • Meanwhile, Fitbit’s Ionic continues to develop with now an App Gallery with 60 apps–11 of which are health/fitness related–and more than 100 watch faces. (Wonder if any are Mickey Mouse?) What we termed a ‘Hail Mary’ pass may actually get past the goal line. Mobihealthnews

NYC Healthcare Innovation Festival: four big events 28 Nov – 6 Dec–readers get 20% off

November 13, 2017 | by

NYC will be a health and health tech-related hub for a busy 10 days between the holidays of Thanksgiving and the run-up to Christmas. Run by four separate organizations, they are being co-marketed as the NYC Healthcare Innovation Festival. So after you digest your turkey and trimmings, you’ll have four great conferences plus an opportunity to do some holiday shopping in NYC! Registration for each event is separate–see the discount code below offered by NYCHIF!

HITLAB Innovators Summit, 28-30 November, Columbia University, Lerner Hall, 114th Street (2920 Broadway)

This is a provider/pharma-focused three-day meeting, with topics ranging from implementing entrepreneurial principles in life science companies to M&A and investing trends in digital health. HITLAB is affiliated with Columbia University. It hosts the 2017 HITLAB World Cup of Voice-Activated Technology in Diabetes, presented by Novo Nordisk, the main sponsor. Click the title above for more information and registration.

MedStartr Momentum 2017 (MedMo17), 30 November – 1 December, PricewaterhouseCoopers headquarters, 300 Madison Avenue @42nd Street

MedStartr’s third annual Momentum meeting will be highlighting the young companies which will be transforming the future of healthcare. Want to get involved with the best new companies in healthcare? Join the five pitch contests, nine Momentum talks, and seven panels over two full days, all about driving innovation in healthcare from the perspectives of patients, doctors, partners, institutions, and investors. Sponsored by MedStartr and Health 2.0 NYC, this attracts a wide swath of speakers and participants from global healthcare players to startups and academia. It promises to be a lively gathering! TTA is a MedStartr and Health 2.0 NYC supporter/media sponsor since 2010; Editor Donna will be a host for this event and a MedStartr Mentor. Check the MedStartr page to find and fund some of the most interesting startup ideas in healthcare. For more information and to register, click the link in the title above or the sidebar advert at right.

NODE Health Digital Medicine Conference, 4-5 December, Microsoft Innovation Center, 11 Times Square

What will be the effective digital solutions bringing value across the healthcare continuum? Health system, payer, pharma, investors, academics, and healthcare tech executives will be discussing how to use digital health to improve outcomes, patient experience, and population health, and review the scientific evidence for digital innovation. It’s a combination of special sessions, workshops, Center of Excellence Tours, exhibitions, and poster sessions. TTA is a media partner of NODE Health 2017. Click the title above for more information and registration. (more…)

Xcertia takes another pass at app certification, but will it fly? (US)

December 6, 2015 | by | 1 Comment

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/alp-mountains-peaks-in-winter.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]An app developer and a healthcare/digital health innovation lab get into the certification game. Can they fly over the treacherous peaks this time? Social Wellth made good on their promise (or threat?) to get into the app vetting business this past week through announcing a partnership with Columbia University-based HITLAB at the HITLAB Summit this week to develop a certification organization known as Xcertia. Last year, Social Wellth acquired the remains of Happtique from GNYHA Ventures [TTA 12 Dec 14]. The Xcertia principles center around privacy, security, operability and content–as Happtique’s did. The intent is to not only develop a program to certify apps based on established standards, but also form a Signature Steering Committee to ensure they maintain “their definitive set of criteria for evaluating mobile health apps.” MedCityNews, release

Possible conflict of interest. It all sounds positive, but the head of Xcertia, David Vinson, is also the CEO of Social Wellth, which despite its nonprofit-ish name makes its living by developing consumer apps and “dashboards” for insurance companies, a task grandly called (from their press release) “the curation of digital health experiences by leveraging mobile health technologies that allow for integration and aggregation of all digital assets.” Social Wellth also makes quite a bit of hay on its website about app curation for its clients. (more…)