A record number of hospital mergers and acquisitions occurred in 2014. Healthcare organizations are increasingly buying physician practices and more physicians are employed by health systems than ever before. As a result, groups of physicians and healthcare workers that previously had no communication with each other, or were even competing, now find themselves working on the same team.
With these new mergers come previously established referral patterns and relationships between physicians
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Archives for 2015
Precision BioSciences Raises $25.6M to Expand Genome Editing Platform
Genome editing-based company, Precision BioSciences announced it has closed $25.6 million Series A financing led by venBio. The Research Triangle Park, North Carolina-based company's oversubscribed round was also joined by Fidelity Biosciences, Amgen Ventures, Baxter Ventures, Osage University Partners, the Longevity Fund, and two well-known public market investors. As part of the Series A round, Robert Adelman of venBio and Ben Auspitz of Fidelity Biosciences will join Precision’s Board
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ONC Awards $300k to 6 Digital Health Projects
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has announced the winners of the inaugural ONC Market R&D Pilot Challenge. The ONC Market R&D Pilot Challenge breaks down the barriers between promising start ups and health care stakeholders by helping early-stage digital health companies connect with health care organizations that would host pilot programs. The innovative technologies developed by these companies are integral to improving consumer engagement
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Boehringer Ingelheim, Sutter Health Establish Digital Health Research Collaboration
Pharma giant Boehringer Ingelheim and Northern California-based health system Sutter Health has announced the start of a five-year research and health care innovation collaboration, which will explore and test the value of digital health solutions, mobile technologies, and insights from advanced data analytics in the delivery of health care.
The initiatives will combine Boehringer Ingelheim's research and development expertise in novel medications to address unmet therapeutic needs with
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KPMG Completes Acquisition Of Beacon Partners, Inc.
Big 4 firm KPMG LLP today announced today that it has completed the acquisition of all of the assets of Beacon Partners, Inc., a healthcare consulting firm that offers strategic management and clinical and information technology consulting services to healthcare providers. The closing follows the April 12, 2015 announcement of the transaction at the HIMSS15 conference, a leading healthcare IT industry event.
Based in Weymouth, Mass., Beacon Partners provides management consulting/advisory
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GMA Named 2015 HIMSS Ambulatory Davies Award Recipient
Grove Medical Associates of Auburn, Mass., has been named a 2015 HIMSS Ambulatory Davies Award recipient. Since 1994, the HIMSS Nicholas E.Davies Award of Excellence has recognized outstanding achievement of organizations that have utilized health information technology to substantially improve patient outcomes while achieving return on investment. The Davies Awards program promotes electronic health record-enabled improvement in patient outcomes through sharing of case studies and lessons
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The Death of Fee-for-Service in Healthcare
On April 16, 2015, President Obama signed into law H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015(MACRA), effectively sentencing Fee-for-Service (FFS) to death. The best explanation for how FFS is destroying the nation comes from Charles Munger, vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and ad-hoc health luminary, who is equating what American doctors do, to raising rattlesnakes so they can collect the bounty for dead rattlers offered by the government in an effort to combat a
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14 Centers to Use IBM Watson for Cancer Genetics
Fourteen US and Canadian cancer centers announced it will used IBM Watson to compare a patient’s tumor genetic fingerprints to databases of cancer genes and findings of scientific papers and clinical trials on cancer in a matter of minutes, BI reports. Oncology is the first specialty where matching therapy to DNA has improved patient outcomes and has inspired President Obama’s “Precision Medicine Initiative” announced in January.
Typically, drugs targeting cancer-causing mutations can takes
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Wearable Fitness Leader Fitbit Files for IPO
On Thursday, wearable fitness tracking company Fitbit Inc. announced it has filed for an initial public offering (IPO), according to SEC filing. The company is looking to raise $100 million and will trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol FIT. In March, the fitness tracking company valued itself at roughly $1.2 billion. Fitbit's platform features six wearable connected health and fitness trackers that automatically track users’ daily steps, calories burned, distance
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Gartner Names the “Coolest” Vendors for Healthcare Providers and Payers, 2015
New Gartner report highlights 2015's “coolest” innovative vendors for healthcare providers and payers.
What makes a healthcare vendor cool? Innovative solutions that solve real challenges for the healthcare C-suite and payer market, according to recent Gartner reports. Each year, Gartner carefully selects a list of “Cool Vendors” representing innovative technologies and business models.
For healthcare providers, these vendors offers provider CIOs, CMIOs and IT leaders offer innovative
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