AARP is launching a new digital health initiative called Project Catalyst that provides developers of popular and emerging products insight into how Americans 50-plus use technology in order to identify ways to improve the devices for mature consumers. The first study will be focused on popular activity and sleep trackers performed in conjunction with UnitedHealthcare and Pfizer Inc. It will serve as the first of several technology studies that AARP will conduct with the goal of accelerating
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Archives for 2015
Livongo Health Nabs $20M to Expand Diabetes Management Program
Livongo Health, a consumer digital health company that is empowering people with chronic diseases to live better has raised $20 million in Series B funding from investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), DFJ and previous investor General Catalyst.
The capital will enable the company to further develop its chronic disease management ecosystem and accelerate the adoption of the company's digital diabetes management program, Livongo for Diabetes, among self-insured
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Consumer Health Engagement Platform Novu Raises $20M
Novu, a consumer health engagement platform that focuses on individual wellness and employee well-being through a daily lifestyle practice has raised $20M in funding from SSM Partners and Noro-Moseley Partners. The company will use the capital to further establish its leadership position and propel its technology and product roadmap to support existing and new market opportunities.
Through Novu, insurers, health care providers and employers can engage consumers to create
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MEDITECH Selects Validic To Integrate Patient-Generated Data
Validic, a leading interoperability platform for aggregating digital health data, announced an alignment with MEDITECH to integrate clinical, fitness, and wellness data to help deliver more efficient remote patient monitoring, home care, patient discharge management and wellness initiatives.
"Today's healthcare environment is value-based and outcome-driven, which means healthcare providers need to evaluate every aspect of their patients' health, not just those factors that contributed to their
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Majority of Clinicians Believe EHRs Are Not Sufficient for Care Coordination
Majority of clinicians (51%-53%) believe the EHRs are not sufficient enough for coordinating care, while 78 percent of office managers believe the EHR is sufficient, according to new survey by PerfectServe. The survey conducted by Nielsen looks at perspectives on HIPAA, organizational readiness for population health and challenges in care coordination from nearly 1,000 clinicians (including hospital and office-based physicians, nurses, specialists), case managers and practice
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Rock Health’s Halle Tecco Talks Why Gender Diversity Matters in Healthcare
Are women workers valued in the healthcare? Not enough, apparently. Rock Health’s latest report: The State of Women in Healthcare points to some sobering, and perhaps, surprising statistics about women working in today’s healthcare industry.
The report, which surveyed more than 400 women across the healthcare sector (including entrepreneurs, investors, industry executives, and healthcare professionals), revealed that women make 80 percent of the personal health decisions for their families,
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Mobile Health Apps: If You Build Them, Will They Come?
Editor's Note: Deborah Hernandez is the Director of Client Services at Communispace Health
It’s hard to find a pharma or medical device company these days that doesn’t have at least one mobile app in development. And now that, as of February 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued guidance on which apps need to be regulated and which ones don’t, it will be interesting to see if this almost exponential development trend continues.
In its guidelines, FDA outlined which
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Weight Watchers Acquires Weight-Loss Selfies Startup Weilos
Weilos, an online social platform for people to share their fitness updates to inspire others and receive support has been acquired by Weight Watchers, TechCrunch first reports has learned. The purchase price is reportedly is in the single-digit millions, according to a source.
Launched out of startup accelerator Y Combinator back in August 2013, the startup initially focused on fitness coaching pairing its users with amateur coaches with a previous weight loss history of their own. The
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Carequality Publishes Trust Principles for Secure Interoperability
Carequality has announced the publication of the Carequality Trust Principles, the policy foundation for connecting health data sharing networks throughout the U.S. Carequality, a Healtheway initiative, is a public-private collaborative supporting nationwide health IT interoperability to accomplish in healthcare what the telecommunications industry did to link cell phone networks.
The Carequality community that has come together to develop and implement the principles includes representatives
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Study: Leveraging Health IT to Improve Patient Drug Safety Through Alerts
Health IT can play an important role in ensuring the optimal use of pharmaceuticals and improving patient safety in an accountable care organization (ACO), according to a new study by the Marshfield Clinic and the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC) in the April 2015 issue of the Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy (JMCP). The study, “Best Practices: An Electronic Drug Alert Program to Improve Patient Safety in an Accountable Care Environment,” describes Marshfield
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