With just five and a half million people spread out over more than 100 million square miles of land — and a nationalized system pledged to provide high-quality free medical care to them all — the nation of Finland is about as perfect a testbed for connected health innovation as you can imagine. Add in a surplus of developers left over from Nokia’s mobile phone heyday, and you have a country with the means, motive and opportunity to jump into digital health with both feet.
Monthly Archives: November 2018
Report: VA turns to Apple to develop patient-facing mobile EHR
When Apple launched Apple Health Records, a feature that lets users upload their health records from participating health systems onto their phone, in the spring, it sparked conversations about consumers’ access to health records and the entrance of major tech companies into the healthcare space.
Now the Department of Veterans Affairs is in talks with the Silicon Valley tech giant about the creation of a portable EHR specifically for veterans, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the WSJ, who reviewed emails and spoke with unnamed sources about the initiative, what’s currently on the table is a new Apple software that would let the VA patients enrolled in the system transfer their records to their iPhone — a functionality that would likely be achieved via a version of Apple’s Health Records app.
Amazon’s newest machine learning product makes sense of unstructured medical text
Amazon Web Services has unveiled a new machine learning tool that looks to help healthcare industry developers process bodies of unstructured medical text.
Called Amazon Comprehend Medical, the HIPAA-eligible service is able to pull out medically-relevant information such as patient diagnoses, symptoms, medical test details, treatments and dosages, while simultaneously highlighting any protected health information.
Open Health launches PatientSphere feature for patients to monetize health data
The platform will now let users share health records with pharma companies, health systems and insurers for remuneration.
Amazon adds to its list of HIPAA-eligible machine learning tools
In yet another move into the healthcare space, Amazon Web Service (AWS) has added to its collection of HIPAA-eligible services, which now includes machine learning tools Amazon Translate, Amazon Comprehend and Amazon Transcribe.
CMS finalizes rule for remote patient monitoring reimbursement under Medicare
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has locked in a rule that will allow home health agencies to report the cost of remote patient monitoring for reimbursement under Medicare. According to the announcement, released yesterday, this rule will be implemented in 2020.
Medici acquires fellow medical communication company DocbookMD
Yesterday morning medical messaging company Medici announced that it would be acquiring fellow health communication platform DocbookMD for an undisclosed sum. As part of the deal Medici will now take control or DocbookMD’s technical assets, employees and customer contracts.
ResMed acquires EHR company MatrixCare
This morning ResMed, maker of connected respiratory devices, announced that it is set to acquire MatrixCare, a Minnesota-based EHR company, for $750 million.
MatrixCare’s EHR is targeted towards long-term post acute care services, such as skilled nursing facilities, life plan communities and senior living homes.
The deal is expected to help ResMed expand its software-as-a-service offerings, specifically in the long-term care setting.
The deal is set to close by the end of the company’s second fiscal quarter in 2019. After the acquisition, MatrixCare is expected to remain a standalone business inside of ResMed’s portfolio.