Digital Health bits | October 30th 2019
Amazon makes its second digital health acquisition with Health Navigator
Amazon has quietly made another digital health acquisition, buying digital health startup Health Navigator for an undisclosed amount. CNBC first reported the news.
Founded in 2014, La Grange, Illinois-based Health Navigator offers digital health clinical content in the form of APIs that can be used by EHRs, telemedicine providers, health chatbots and medical call centers.
Amazon will reportedly wrap Health Navigator into its Amazon Care offering which launched for Amazon employees just last month. Amazon Care will include telemedicine, online chat with a nurse, medication delivery and app-enabled house calls to the employee's office or home.
Health Navigator appears to have been largely if not completely bootstrapped, with no fundraising reported in the press or to the SEC.
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Sony's upcoming health platform is an easy-to-implement wearable for remote monitoring companies
Sony is planning to launch a B2B device platform early next year that will help digital health companies incorporate a straightforward wearable sensor into their existing remote monitoring services.
The mSafety platform doesn’t look to focus on the apps, color displays or other features that drive tech-savvy users to Apple Watches, Fitbits or other leading consumer smartwatches, Anders Stromberg, head of the wearable platform department in Sony’s European Network Communications group, told MobiHealthNews.
Rather, it wants to deliver an accessible user interface, a secure backend and as few headaches as possible for clients looking to maintain their devices over the long term.
“We’ve been talking to a number of remote monitoring companies and mobile health companies about if they are looking into this kind of make-or-buy decision for adding a wearable into their proposition,” Stromberg said. “We’ve found in a number of companies [that] they definitely don’t want to spend money on developing their own wearable. And they find existing smartwatch solutions being too dependent on … having a mobile phone together with a smartwatch.”
#DigitalHealth #Wereables
Google's Pixel 4 will include a radar sensor — here's why that could matter for health
Google recently announced that its Pixel 4 phone will be the first mobile phone with a radar sensor. It's the first public rollout of the company’s Project Soli, an experimental, radar-based gesture tracker co-developed with Infineon.
The announcement was not around health, except for a quick reference to “personal wellness” as part of Google’s future plans for the technology. However, there’s more reason to think health applications could be around the corner.
The technology has applications in physical therapy, sterile controls for surgeons and noninvasive health monitoring, among other things.
Last year researchers from the University of Waterloo have described a proof-of-concept system that uses Google’s Soli to track concentrations of glucoses within a solution. With further investigation and adjustment, this prototype technology could potentially be implemented for diabetes patients as a novel noninvasive approach to managing blood glucose levels.
That’s not to say that out of the box a Pixel 4 will be able to noninvasively monitor blood glucose. But it does demonstrate the potential of the underlying technology.
#DigitalHealth #Pixel4
Redox Survey Reveals Gen X Leads All in Digital Health Adoption
American consumers are moving toward making mobile health applications a part of their regular routines to manage chronic conditions or daily health and fitness, according to a 2019 online survey conducted by Redox.
– New Redox survey about the adoption of digital health apps finds one-third of the respondents said they use or are open to using mobile apps to manage a condition or their fitness routines.
– Gen Xers (35- to 54-year-olds) are at the forefront of patients clamoring to take control and manage their health with mobile apps.
– Baby boomers, those aged 55 and over, were the most concerned about privacy and security.
– The results from this survey show consumers are open to the idea of using mobile apps for health purposes, and they recognize the value in connecting with their health providers to develop a holistic view of care.
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Digital nutritional support system goes live in Scottish care homes
More than 100 care homes in Scotland are to benefit from a digital nutritional support system developed by NHS Tayside in partnership with Inhealthcare.
The pathway is designed to improve the health and wellbeing of residents and reduce the inappropriate prescribing of oral nutritional supplements.
Inhealthcare worked with dietitians at NHS Tayside to develop the nutritional support pathway, which went live in October 2019.
Whenever there is cause for concern, care home staff use the service to refer residents to dietitians via a digital questionnaire.
Dietitians review the responses and if the patient is accepted into their caseload then care home staff are provided with advice on food and where appropriate, oral nutritional supplements.
A schedule for regular monitoring is established until the resident’s nutrition is stabilised.
Care home staff enter monitoring data into the digital platform and this includes weight, body mass index, food and drink intake, appetite and number of supplements consumed.
This data creates a patient dashboard that then creates alerts if readings fall out of range, allowing dietitians to respond to those most in need.
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Patients increasingly trusting of remote care technology, says new report
Confidence in remote care technology is gaining traction in the United States, with a survey finding 56 percent of Americans currently monitor their health with at least one digital data collection tool.
The study of 3,000 people, conducted by cloud-connected device and health IT software provider ResMed, found six in 10 respondents have diagnosed themselves after browsing symptoms on the internet – that number climbs to just over three-quarters (76 percent) among Millennials.
Perhaps surprisingly, the report indicates that digital tools have in fact deepened people’s connection with their physicians: more than half of those surveyed agreeing that technology has improved their relationship with their primary care provider.
Survey respondents also indicated they would like to be able to communicate with their PCP more often, and they see an increased opportunity to accomplish this, with 68 percent wanting technology to play a larger role in sharing real-time medical information with their doctor.
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Note: Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer
Corporate Banker and Financier in Letter Of Credit Unit & Trade Finance DEPT at ALUBAF International Bank - Tunis
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