On Monday, drug maker giant Pfizer Inc. announced it would acquire Botox maker Allergan Pic for $160 billion that would create the world's largest drugmaker. The combined company will be known as Pfizer Plc and move its headquarters to Ireland led by current Pfizer CEO Ian Read. With the addition of Botox to its portfolio, Pfizer expects the deal to greatly enhance its branded products business.
The announcement marks the biggest merger in 15 years and has receive heavy criticism from Hilary
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Report: Health Insurers Fueling Digital Health Transformation
Health insurers are actively deploying new types of digital health as a lever for needed transformation in operational efficiency and transformation to more consumer-focused business models, according to a recent report from Frost & Sullivan. As health insurers pivot to new market realities, digital health will be at the center of enabling their transition to new business models dependent upon maximizing consumer engagement and containing financial risk.
While total health IT spending
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Health Crowd Pulls in $2.1M for Secure Messaging to Health Plan Members
HealthCrowd, a unified, end-to-end engagement platform for healthcare has closed $2.1M in additional seed funding led by Startup Capital Ventures, Herlitz Capital, Healthy Ventures, Band of Angels, Berkeley Angel Network, and 37 Angels. The capital will be utilized to accelerate operations to support its increasing demand for enterprise healthcare communications platform for payers.
Founded in 2011, HealthCrowd's unified communications for payers uses text messaging, interactive voice
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Importance of Secure Messaging in Patient Communication (Infographic)
Secure text messaging solutions, when designed to address the needs of the healthcare organization, its providers and staff, can be an excellent communication mechanism to streamline conversations around patient care. The expected result is shortened response times, less emails and phone tag, improved workflows and overall improved patient care.
For patients, secure text mesaging can help improve patient engagement as well as strengthen the doctor-patient relationship. The infographic
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KLAS: Advisory Board, Premier Top Firms for Value-based Care Consulting
As healthcare moves from a fee-for-service model to a value-based care (VBC) model, many providers are having to reengineer aspects of their business. "Value-Based Care. Making the Shift: Who Can Help?" is the first report published about this market segment by KLAS. The report found that Advisory Board, Conifer and Evolent scored high with providers in giving them confidence to deal with evolving alternative payment models and preparing for future risk.
Top Firms for VBC Consulting/Management
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Medable Taps Rackspace to Deliver Secure Healthcare APIs for Developers
Medable, an application and analytics platform for healthcare, is utilizing a hybrid cloud environment with Rackspace Public Cloud and Private Cloud to help deliver a secure API for health IT app developers. The Palo Alto-based digital health startup has developed an end-to-end platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution for developers to create medical-grade, HIPAA compliant apps. Device companies use the platform to deliver device data to doctors and patients for immediate care. Additionally,
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Medical Researchers Analyze Social Media to Understand Side Effects of Pain Meds
Harnessing the power of social media, medical researchers have sifted through more than two billion tweets and online posts to study the harmful side effects of narcotics medication taken for chronic pain. The research team, led by the Cedars-Sinai Center for Outcomes Research and Education, reviewed a vast collection of patient entries on Twitter and social media forums such as askapatient.com and patientslikeme.com.
The unfiltered sentiments posted on these sites revealed
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VC Firm Andreessen Horowitz Launches $200M Bio Software Fund
Menlo Park, CA based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is launching a new $200 million fund focused on funding companies software companies in the bio space led by Vijay Pande, the firm's first professor in residence from Stanford University, where he was a professor of chemistry, computer science, and structural biology.
The new software-focused bio fund will focus on investments in three emerging areas:
1. Digital health & therapeutics - digital therapeutics for chronic
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CVS Health Unveils New Digital Health Pharmacy Tools
Today, CVS Health is introducing a suite of new digital health pharmacy tools by CVS Health that will help customers manage their health with more ease and efficiency. Since the opening of the CVS Health Digital Innovation Lab in June, the company has been focused on developing digital services and personalized capabilities. The company is already seeing the impact of its digital strategy on other parts of the business in five short months.
Research Shows Digitally Engaged Patients have
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Consortium Unveils ‘Cookbook’ for Large-Scale Telehealth Deployments
A Philips-led consortium of leading companies, universities, hospitals and healthcare authorities has unveiled a 'cookbook' for large-scale deployment of coordinated care and telehealth. The cookbook is the result from a two-and-a-half year scientific evaluation of data from different connected health programs in five European regions. It provides new insights that apply across the EU on why certain telehealth programs are more successful than others.
Connected care is seen by many
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