When the pandemic disrupted routine procedures and primary care across healthcare, many care delivery organizations believed patients would eventually return to in-person care as they always have once the pandemic was over and restrictions were lifted. Pent-up patient demand for non-emergency, preventative services–everything from cancer screenings to mental health support to birth control to smoking cessation–would eventually draw patients back into the healthcare system. Patients with common
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MD
Brain Health: The Next Frontier in the Fight Against Dementia
There are differing views on the value of cognitive screening of older adults in a primary care setting. Many providers point to the lack of disease-modifying treatments for Alzheimer’s Dementia and related dementias (ADRD) as a reason to not universally screen older adults for cognitive deficits. If I don’t have anything to give my patients to get better, what’s the point in revealing they might be at risk of dementia, or that they have early disease? Is dementia a ‘normal’ or ‘expected’ part
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Rippl Launches with $35M to Transform Mental Health for Seniors
What You Should Know:
- Rippl, a new mental health startup focused on caring for seniors with dementia and other neurocognitive conditions, launched today with $32M in seed round funding led by ARCH Venture Partners and General Catalyst. The round also includes investment from GV, F-Prime Capital, and Mass General Brigham Ventures.
- Rippl will use its seed funding to hire and train a team of clinicians, build technology, and open a Washington state-based clinical support center to launch
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Virtual Reality Therapy May Serve as Effective Adjunct To Anesthesia For Surgical Procedures
What You Should Know:
- The results of a clinical trial using software from XRHealth, developer and operator of virtual treatment rooms in the metaverse, published in PLOS ONE demonstrated that virtual reality therapy may serve as an effective adjunct to anesthesia for surgical procedures. The trials were conducted with XRHealth’s immersive virtual reality software.
- The results of the trial showed that the majority of patients (13/17) using the XRHealth VR technology did not need
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Physicians and Technology: A Blessing or a Curse?
Burnout is a growing situation that has been slowly undermining the productivity of physicians and their staff. And in recent years, it’s gotten worse as demands from patients, documentation, and regulatory requirements increase.
Adding to the situation are challenges related to added technology, the need to be virtual and to meet patients where they are, and the need to keep up with constantly changing information and landscape in terms of what our patients need from us.
Kirk Davis,
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RWJUH Opens Center for Innovation for Medical Research
What You Should Know:
- Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH), an RWJBarnabas Health facility, and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) launched a new model for medical research and innovation today at the grand opening of its Center for Innovation, located on the main campus of the hospital.
- The Center for Innovation is a partnership between RWJUH and Rutgers RWJMS to bring together clinicians, researchers and private industry to invent and develop new
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Teladoc Health Appoints First-Ever Chief Health Equity Officer
What You Should Know:
- Teladoc Health has named Saranya Loehrer, MD, MPH, as its first-ever chief health equity officer. Reporting to Teladoc Health chief medical officer, Dr. Vidya Raman-Tangella, Loehrer will serve as a key member of the executive leadership team, and will partner, create and drive strategies to expand
equitable access to quality care across the globe.
- In her new role at Teladoc Health, Loehrer will set the direction for the organization’s health equity
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epocrates Launches Bugs + Drugs Tool to Promote Optimal Antibiotic Prescribing
What You Should Know:
- epocrates, an athenahealth, Inc. company that delivers digital clinical decision support to healthcare professionals, today announced the release of Bugs + Drugs, a mobile tool that offers clinicians information about bacteria types and antibacterial susceptibility patterns by ZIP code.
- A free feature in the epocrates mobile app, the tool supports clinicians in choosing appropriate empiric antibiotics for each patient at the point of
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AI-Powered Pop Health and SDOH – The Good, The Bad and The Best Practices
Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a powerful tool for making population health analytics more accurate and interventions more effective. Not all AI-powered pop health tools are created equal, and while many still exhibit different types of bias that limit their ability to accurately identify issues affecting certain populations, we have learned a lot about the sources of bias in AI and how to eliminate them. AI shortcomings aside, pop health analytics have advanced to the point that we
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Rimidi and Boston Medical Release Metrics from Postpartum Hypertension RPM Program
What You Should Know:
- Rimidi, a leading clinical management platform designed to optimize clinical workflows, enhance patient experiences and achieve quality objectives, and Boston Medical Center, a private, not-for-profit academic medical center in New England, recently released metrics from an ongoing remote patient monitoring program for new moms at high-risk of postpartum hypertension.
- Of the 1,000 patients monitored, 98.7% submitted at least one blood pressure measurement,
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