On Wednesday, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar announced the appointment of former MDwise CEO James Parker to the Secretary for Health Reform and Director of the Office of Health Reform at HHS. In his new role, Parker will be responsible for leading the initiative to address the cost and availability of health insurance.In his most recent role, Parker served as CEO of MDwise, an Indiana Medicaid managed care organization with over 300,000 members and $1.4 billion in revenue.
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Novo Nordisk, Sempre Health Launch Pilot to Improve Medication Costs for Diabetic Patients
Sempre Health, a solution for behavior-based healthcare pricing has announced a pilot program with Novo Nordisk to add diabetes medications to the Sempre Health’s affordability & engagement solution. Unlike traditional coupons and vouchers, Sempre works with health plans to reward their membership’s positive choices and actions. For example, a patient may earn a lower copay if she fills her prescription on time. The two companies are seeking to engage 10,000 patients with diabetes on the
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PeerWell Launches Augmented Reality Trip and Fall Hazard Detector for Smartphones
Digital health company PeerWell just announced the launch of Trip and Fall Hazard Detector, an augmented reality (AR) extension providing real-time analysis from video stream from a smartphone’s camera that identifies and helps correct trip and fall hazards at home, one of the major setbacks for postoperative recovery, especially for those undergoing joint replacement and spine surgery.This AI-powered app extension allows patients and caregivers to scan their home using smartphone cameras,
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Mercom: Digital Health VC Funding Breaks $2.5B in Q1 2018
Digital health VC funding reached a record $2.5 billion raised in 187 deals from $1.7 billion in 192 deals in Q4 2017, according to a new report from Mercom Capital Group. The latest report finds that digital health VC funding in Q1 2018 was also up compared to Q1 2017 when nearly $1.6 billion was raised in 165 deals. Q1 2018 was only the second quarter since since 2010 in which digital health companies surpassed $2 billion in VC funding. Mercom’s comprehensive report covers healthcare IT and
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Providers Name Optimizing IT/EHR Performance as Top Challenge in 2018
With true implementation beyond a system go live, optimizing IT/EHR performance (32 percent) and overcoming IT staff shortages (31 percent) were cited almost equally as the most significant challenges in 2018, according to the sixth annual Health IT Industry Outlook Survey conducted by Stoltenberg Consulting Inc. The report reveals 40 percent of health IT leaders rated measuring improvement in patient care quality as the top business objective in 2018, followed by identifying areas of cost
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Ambra Health to Launch Cloud Medical Imaging Platform in Japan
Ambra Health, a medical data and image management SaaS company has inked a distribution agreement with Japanese medical distributors and a subsidiary company of Mitsubishi Corporation MC Healthcare to launch the Ambra Health medical imaging platform in Japan. The announcement marks MC Healthcare’s first digital health solution offered in the Japanese market. The healthcare industry in Japan is characterized by similar trends occurring in the United States, including the strong need for
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Genoox & Bionano Partner to Detect Disease-Causing Structural Variants
Genoox, a genetic data analysis company, recently partnered with Bionano Genomics to better identify the nearly 20k potentially disease-causing SVs in the human genome. By combining Genoox technology and Bionano mapping data, the new Genoox integrated platform will offer clinicians a single platform for accurate detection of genetic mutations for rare disease. Genoox and Bionano intend to co-sell and co-market the integrated platform for research and future clinical applications.Children’s
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ResApp Develops Sound-based Algorithm to Diagnose Sleep Apnea via Smartphone
ResApp Health, the Australian digital health startup that has been working on software for smartphones that can diagnose respiratory diseases from the sound signatures of coughs (US clinical trials underway), has announced a new area of development – a diagnostic test to diagnose obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) using a smartphone – simply by leaving the smartphone next to one’s bed to record sounds of the subject while sleeping – and then the algorithms provide a diagnosis (similar AI use to the
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SERMO’s FICO Score for Drugs Tops 3 Million Data Points
SERMO's FICO score for drugs; First of its kind clinical decision tool now includes 600,000 ratingsSERMO, a global social network for physicians has announced major growth in physician ratings of pharmaceutical drugs on its one-of-a-kind Drug Ratings platform. With 625,000 individual ratings across several criteria submitted exclusively by physicians as of March 2018, Drug Ratings is the largest unbiased, global database of physician feedback on drugs.Launched in May 2017, Drug Ratings is the
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healthfinch Nabs $6M for Charlie Practice Automation Platform
healthfinch, a Madison-based healthcare IT startup, has secured $6 million in funding led by Adams Street Partners to continue building and supporting its award-winning Charlie Practice Automation Platform. This funding brings the company’s total raised to over $17MM since it was founded in 2011.The Charlie Practice Automation Platform, developed by healthfinch, automates routine, repetitive clinical tasks in athenahealth, Epic, and Allscripts EMRs. Its refill management and visit planning
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