Is Theranos a $9 billion question mark?

October 16, 2015 | by

Breaking News. According to an exposé published yesterday in The Wall Street Journal*, low-cost and fast growing small sample blood testing company Theranos [TTA 28 Aug] is not ‘doing what it says it does’. Four former employees allege that Theranos’ testing system, dubbed the Edison, which processes small finger-pricked blood samples collected in ‘nanotainers’, only handles a fraction of the tests claimed–19 out of 205. In a complaint to regulators, one Theranos employee accused the company of failing to report test results that raised questions about the precision of their proprietary Edison system–and that most of the tests were being run on traditional testing machines which required dilution of the tiny samples. The article reports on serious questions which have been raised on the accuracy of the Edison testing versus conventional testing, including the integrity of finger-pricked blood and sample dilution. Gaps in results were seen last year on tests for vitamin D, two thyroid hormones and prostate cancer, though Theranos has been reporting its tests to CMS in a process that all labs go through called proficiency testing, and has one test for herpes that has been FDA cleared.

In a follow up article, Theranos reportedly is no longer collecting nanotainers except for the FDA cleared herpes test.

Theranos is currently valued at $9 billion and has raised over $400 million in VC funding.

According to the first article, British biochemist Ian Gibbons, (more…)

Integrating inexpensive lab testing, imaging to EHR–and vice versa

August 28, 2015 | by

In the Dr Eric Topol patient-driven world, personal lab testing would be walk in, keep retail hours and not even need a doctor’s order. That is the model for Theranos, a well-funded low cost blood testing company operating 43 centers in California, Arizona (no doctor order needed) and one Pennsylvania Walgreens. Their latest alliance is with EHR physician practice giant Practice Fusion, which claims about 112,000 doctors actively using its cloud-based, ad supported platform, claims to be the fastest growing US EHR with at present 100 million patient records. The Theranos reporting app, which also connects patients with doctors who can help interpret the results (MD Connect) integrates with other EHRs (though not listed) and now the results will also show in their Practice Fusion patient record. Practice Fusion is also integrating imaging center RadNet‘s results.

Since the late 2000s, Practice Fusion has historically been the game changer in cost (one of the first in the cloud) and in catering to smaller practices. They are good at managing their hype, but as Neil Versel points out, there’s been a CEO ‘change-lobsters-and-dance’, there are questions about revenue and their awaited IPO seems far away, especially given the recent market upset. Hospital EHRs Cerner, Epic and NextGen now all have lower-cost practice versions that integrate with hospital versions. An American College of Physicians (ACP) 2014 survey identified that Practice Fusion is third (and tied with others) among most used practice EHRs behind Epic and eClinical Works, though strongest in solo practices. On the polar opposite of Mr Versel’s skeptical article is this breathless Forbes piece which confuses partnerships with acquisitions. Perhaps self-made billionaire Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes may decide to buy Practice Fusion!

Apps and wearables – developments over the summer

August 26, 2015 | by

Trying at least temporarily to distract this editor’s attention from his recent unfortunate experience with Jawbone technology, here are some interesting app and wearables snippets received over the summer.

We begin with news of the first CE certified mole checking app, SkinVision which rates moles using a simple traffic light system (using a red, orange or green risk rating). The app lets users store photos in multiple folders so they can track different moles over time. It aims to detect changing moles (color, size, symmetry etc.) that are a clear sign that something is wrong and that the person should visit a doctor immediately.

This contrasts with the findings of a paper published in June examining 46 insulin calculator apps, 45 of which were found to contain material problems, resulting in the conclusion that :”The majority of insulin dose calculator apps provide no protection against, and may actively contribute to, incorrect or inappropriate dose recommendations that put current users at risk of both catastrophic overdose and more subtle harms resulting from suboptimal glucose control.”, which to say the least of matters is worrying. (more…)

NYeC Digital Health: two diverging visions of a connected future (Part 1)

December 5, 2014 | by | 2 Comments

The New York eHealth Collaborative’s fourth annual Digital Health Conference is increasingly notable for combining both local concerns (NYeC is one of the key coordinators of health IT for the state) and nationally significant content. A major focus of the individual sessions was data in all flavors: big, international, private, shared and ethically used. Another was using this data in coordinating care and empowering patients. Your Editor will focus on this as reflected in sessions she attended, along with thoughts by our two guest contributors, in Part 2 of this roundup.

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Topol-Compressed.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The NYeC Conference was unique in presenting two divergent views of ‘Future IT’ and how it will affect healthcare delivery. One is a heady, optimistic one of powerful patients taking control of their healthcare, personalized ‘democratized medicine” and innovative, genetically-powered ‘on demand medicine’. The other is a future of top-down, regulated, cost-controlled, analyzed and constrained healthcare from top to bottom, with emphasis on standardizing procedures for doctors and hospitals, plus patient compliance.

 

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Topol-tech-adoption-compressed.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]First to Dr Topol in Monday’s keynote. The good side of people ‘wired’ to their phones is that it is symptomatic, not of Short Attention Span Theatre, but of Moore’s Law–the time technology is now taking for adoption by at least 25 percent of the US population is declining by about 50 percent. That means comfort with the eight drivers he itemizes for democratizing medicine and empowering the patient: sensors, labs, imaging, physical examination, records, costs, meds and ‘Uber Doc’.

(more…)

The smartphone as great healthcare leveler: Eric Topol

August 22, 2014 | by

Eric Topol MD, cardiologist, Chief Medical Advisor for the rebooted (but so far quiet) AT&T ForHealth and Chief Academic Officer at Scripps Health, is no stranger to the ‘big statement’ and is well known as an advocate for all things mHealthy. For at least two years, he has been promoting the smartphone’s ‘equalizer’ capabilities in health not only via apps and ‘add ons’ but also as a storehouse or central repository for individual health information, including genetic screening, which can be transmitted onward to a practitioner, lab or PHR. Dr Topol’s ‘big statements’ were fully on display in his keynote at HealthLeaders’ CFO Exchange conference. A promoter of the ‘creative destruction of medicine’ (the title of his most recent book, WSJ article), he believes that everything from the office visit (virtualized) (more…)

Turning an iPhone into an endoscope

October 11, 2013 | by | 1 Comment

The interestingly named ‘Endockscope’ is a docking device which connects an iPhone 4S to an endoscope.  The Endockscope acquired images of the same resolution and acceptable color resolution. An evaluation team of twelve expert endoscopists evaluated the image quality compared to the Storz HD camera standard, and concluded that they were equivalent for flexible ureteroscopy and somewhat inferior, but still acceptable for flexible cystoscopy. Savings? $46,469–$154 compared with $46,623 for the Storz HD. The device is yet to go to human trials. FierceMobileHealthcare. iMedicalApps (abstract) The Endockscope was also commented on by Dr. Eric Topol in his Medscape article on genomic medicine, decision support tools such as IBM Watson possibly replacing doctors, a robot administering anesthesia, the Theranos fast blood testing system possibly disrupting lab testing…Topol on ‘Taboo Genetics,’ a Frugal App, and Magic Supplements