Millions of Americans live with acute and chronic pain that affects every aspect of their lives. Pain by itself is an important marker of how a patient is feeling and indicates what kind of medical intervention might be necessary. The healthcare industry needs a clinically acceptable way to objectively measure pain and since pain is a very complex mixture of biochemistry and genetics and it’s unlikely that a laboratory test that directly quantifies pain will be developed. Doctors
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How Continuous Glucose Monitoring Can Alleviate Language Barriers in Diabetes Care
As an endocrinologist with 19 years of experience in treating patients with diabetes, one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that communication is key. Patients with diabetes live with the heavy burden of making choices and taking action every single day to manage their blood glucose levels. Thankfully, advancements in technology have come incredibly far, giving way to tools like continuous glucose monitors (CGM), automated insulin delivery systems and more. But for
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Why Preventive Healthcare Hinges on Diagnostics Innovation
There is a real sense that we are on the cusp of a diagnostics revolution. This has been spurred on by the pandemic, which at once underscored the tremendous power of mass testing as it became the fundamental basis for decision-making, from our own personal health to national policy. It also revealed gaps in terms of needing to drastically scale up testing capacity and invest in new and innovative digital diagnostics tools. Innovation in diagnostics, however, is
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PE Firms Rebrand Prison Healthcare Companies, But Care Issues Continue
What You Should Know: - A new report, “Private Equity Firms Rebrand Prison Healthcare Companies, But Care Issues Continue,” by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) focuses on healthcare company Wellpath and the regulatory risks that the company continues to take in local jails and prisons. - Wellpath is owned by private equity firm H.I.G. Capital and is among the largest healthcare companies serving U.S. prisons and jails. Wellpath has had a litany of staffing and access to
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Improving Patient Access to Med Services Named Top Priority for Health Systems
What You Should Know: - Improving patient access to medical services remains a top priority for U.S. health systems as they grapple with economic uncertainty and the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has altered patient behavior, according to a new report from the Center for Connected Medicine (CCM) and KLAS Research. - To address the challenge, health systems are investing in telehealth technology, patient portals and other digital tools, updating their organizational
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Specialty Pharma’s Next Big Opportunity: It’s Time for Patient Access to Adopt an Open Protocol
In January 2020, the financial conglomerate Visa announced it was acquiring a relatively unknown startup, Plaid, for $5.3 billion. Corporate acquisitions like these are not uncommon, but someone at the United States Department of Justice took notice of this announcement. Visa had established a stranglehold on financial transactions. The Justice Department moved to stop the acquisition on grounds that Plaid posed “a threat to this monopoly: it has been developing an innovative
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How AI-Based Drug Repurposing Could Help Prevent Repetitive Behavior Disorders
Repetitive behavioral disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Tic Disorder and Tourette Syndrome have been challenging to treat because they involve considerable complexity. For example, the symptoms of one disorder can vary among individuals as does the coexistence or non-existence of other behavior disorders such as anxiety and depression. Further, the treatment of OCD, Tic Disorder and Tourette Syndrome varies depending on
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care.ai Secures $27M for AI-Powered Smart Patient Rooms
What You Should Know: care.ai, a Orlando, FL-based first and only AI-powered ambient monitoring platform in healthcare raises $27M in funding from Crescent Cove Advisors. - The company plans to use the funding to accelerate growth and scale deployments of the industry's first smart care facility platform throughout the U.S. AI-Powered Smart Patient Rooms care.ai’s Smart Care Facility Platform™ transforms healthcare settings, such as hospitals and nursing homes, into
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Using Data Analytics to Address Social Determinants of Health
Americans might run on Dunkin’ — but the healthcare industry runs on data, specifically structured and unstructured data. Easily aggregated and translated into numbers for analysis, structured data lives in databases and on spreadsheets. Unstructured data, on the other hand, is more complex. You can’t use conventional tools to process or analyze it. Yet while it’s messy and hard to organize, it’s incredibly valuable. And one type of unstructured data is human conversations, including
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AI ‘s Role in Drug Discovery: Separating the Hype from the Hope
Forecasting the influence that artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning technologies will have on the future of healthcare has created a cottage industry in the hype. From the overzealous aspirations of IBM’s Watson Health initiative to the inclusion of AI on Gartner’s 2021 Hype Cycle at the “Peak of Inflated Expectations,” so much noise has been made around AI/machine learning in healthcare that it can be difficult to appreciate the current impact of these technologies on drug discovery,
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