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Thanks to dystopian books and movies, the world’s robotized future appears both fascinating and terrifying. There can be a fine line between a symbiotic human-robot coexistence in peace and a Matrix-like catastrophe, but many advances of robotics give humanity hope to thrive alongside robotic companions, caregivers, and guardians. It’s no surprise that medical software development is one of the areas accelerating robotic science implementation, with IDC’s Worldwide Healthcare IT 2017 Predictions study anticipating 50% increase in the use of robots for delivering medications, food, and supplies by 2019. In the meantime, the human side of healthcare stagnates. WHO reports that the global shortage of healthcare specialists will make more than 14 million in 2030. Introducing robotics in healthcare with wider applications can compensate the shortage in the human workforce. If applied at major pain points, robotics can improve care delivery without threatening existing workplaces. Real world examples of Robot-Human synergy in Healthcare Currently, robots can support and extend the service health specialists are providing, automating a range of repetitive tasks. Among medical robots used today, there are rehabilitation and therapy support robots, diagnosis-assisting machines and even technical administrative personnel. Friendship Ex Machina Being equipped with touch sensors, cameras, and microphones, these pals were created to alleviate loneliness, support medication adherence and ease stress from unpleasant experiences. JIBO Jibo is an adorable stationery social robot, sending a few WALL-E vibes with its sense of humor and dance moves. Yes, it broadcasts music and dances to it too, no need for either hands or legs. Jibo is an amazing partner for people who live alone and need more socialization in their lives, especially when feeling depressed. Jibo uses facial recognition, NLP algorithms, touchscreen, two speakers and an advanced animation system to identify voices, turn to them, greet the owner, simulate body language and build a unique character to match the owner’s personality. Moreover, this robot can take pictures, share interesting facts, cite news, tell the future and even locate monsters nearby, according to its developers BUDDY While Jibo feels more like an entertaining personal companion, BUDDY’s capabilities allow it to become a health and safety assistant for the whole family. BUDDY helps parents educate their kids in a gamified manner: it can tell bedtime stories as well as offer spelling and counting challenges. This feature can be especially useful for children with mental health disorders. The robot also supports scheduling, planning and reminding features to ensure that each family member will get to their appointment on time or will remember about significant life events. For older people, BUDDY offers medication reminders, fall detection and unusual inactivity detection, easy social interaction and continuous connection to their relatives via video calls and photo sharing. Moreover, the robot can protect the home by sensing smoke, flood, and temperature changes. In case of any unusual situations, it will send alerts to predefined family members and preset contacts. PARO While pet therapy’s stress-relieving qualities have been recognized by some of the largest health systems, including Mayo Clinic, not all hospitals or extended care facilities can create a suitable environment for animals to live next to patients. PARO is an FDA-approved fluffy interactive robo-seal that allows patients to get the benefits of pet therapy in clinical settings. Covered with artificial fur and being able to differentiate stroking from hitting, the baby seal emotionally reacts to each contact with a person under treatment. It learns the patient’s personality and gradually develops a character that its owner likes. PARO seals can be used for pain distraction, easing stress during a procedure and reduce the feeling of loneliness, especially in patients with dementia. Early steps in robotized diagnostics and treatment During the hospital stay, patients need to endure many procedures and undergo a certain treatment plan. Regardless of the chief complaint, giving blood and taking pills are the basic activities for inpatients. But, simple as they are, these procedures bear higher risks of human errors (such as mislabeling and misdosing), which can be reduced with the help of robotics. VEEBOT Veebot is a robotic nurse that automates venipuncture to cut the blood drawing time up to just one minute. Veebot uses infrared light, ultrasound scanning, and image analysis algorithms to recognize vein patterns and evaluate the blood flow. With its unique vein-viewing system, the robot performs with approximately 83 percent accuracy in best vein detection, which is close to an experienced human phlebotomist’s results. SCALLOP MICROBOTS Invented by researchers from the Max Planck Institute, the microbotspioneer in precise medication delivery. Shaped like scallops, microbots have rare-earth magnets embedded in their valves. This allows researchers to control their movement in the bloodstream, lymphatic system, and eyeball fluid through an external magnetic field. Scallop bots can deliver treatment practically anywhere and in a highly-targeted way to streamline the drug action and avoid a negative effect on other body systems. INGESTIBLE ORIGAMI ROBOT Created by the bright minds across MIT, the University of Sheffield, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, the ingestible origami robot can revolutionize gastroenterology by reducing the number of invasive procedures. The robot is made of dried pig intestine and put into an ice capsule that dissolves in a patient’s stomach. The robot then unfolds to its functional form and, navigated by a technician and external magnetic fields, can move around the stomach to deliver medications, patch up wounds in the stomach lining or even remove foreign bodies, such as swallowed toys or batteries. Next generation admin, nursing and delivery Caregiving is full of mundane tasks, such as helping visitors navigate the facility, transferring patients across wards, organizing specimen delivery and many more. The following robots are created to undertake routine activities, relieve nurses and administrative staff from time-consuming tasks and, eventually, trim a few overtime hours. PEPPER Pepper is a 1.2-meter-tall humanoid robot that recognizes human emotions and voice, adapting its behavior to a particular person it talks to. The robot understands 20 languages and detects whether it communicates with a woman, man or child. Primarily designed to be a daily companion for its owner, Pepper now also gets adoption in hospitals as a receptionist. The robot greets visitors at the door and helps them to navigate the hospital. Pepper either provides a visitor with directions for getting to the health specialist’s office or accompanies them to the correct department so that they don’t get lost. With a 24/7 happy smile on a robot’s face and a permanently friendly voice, Pepper takes over basic receptionist’s duties and leaves the human staff more time to concentrate on non-trivial tasks. ROBEAR Human care workers lift and carry patients around facilities up to 40 times a day, according to the ROBEAR creators. ROBEAR is an interactive body assistant that looks like a giant cartoon bear and can reduce the need for manual patient carrying. With the help of a depth-sensing camera to detect people in front of it, it uses sensors and actuators for softer and more precise movement to lift patients in and out of a bed or a wheelchair and assist them to stand up when needed. We anticipate the increasing popularity of robo-bears and similarly functioning robots for assisted-living facilities and senior housings to ensure proper and timely care for immobile patients. Moreover, such assistants can help transfer patients from ambulance carts to surgical tables and vice versa. TUG TUG is a solution for automating internal logistics, relieving nurses from carrying heavy loads, and saving hospitals major delivery costs. Being an autonomous mobile delivery robot, TUG can transport up to 1.000 lbs of weight. It doesn’t need any additional infrastructure, connecting to the hospital’s Wi-Fi and thus being able to open doors, call an elevator and ride it. This robot can be universally applied in hospitals by making on-demand or prescheduled deliveries, which are secured with biometric access and pin-code systems. In particular, TUG can be used to: deliver medications transport sterile surgical supplies remove trash and regulated medical waste hold linen deliver food or return dirty trays. Upon completing its task, the robot returns to the charging dock. TUGs can work around the clock, reducing the number of staff on nightshifts and offering more time for health specialists to provide care rather than deliver goods. Robots are coming to take care of our lives , but not too fast Our brains are destined to resist the change, so we are really slow to adopt any. Robotics in healthcare isn’t just a change—it is a revolution that will transform care delivery in a way we can’t even imagine now. It will have many evangelists, but even more opponents, especially in the beginning. Therefore, we shouldn’t expect fast and widespread adoption of robotics in healthcare. However, taking baby steps is fine too. It means that all robotic innovations will be well-aimed and justified. Today, we are close to adopting solutions that will remove a lot of routine in nursing, cut on invasive procedures, improve mental health treatment and automate goods delivery. Source : https://www.itransition.com/blog/the-era-of-robotics-in-healthcare-at-its-dawn

Babylon Health has become one of the breakout stars of the current class of UK tech start-ups, but several insiders have suggested that things aren't what they seem. The company, which has contracts to provide NHS services in the UK, uses, amongst its real-life medical staff, an AI chat-bot to do initial triage and basic diagnosis with patients, in an attempt to get quick results to simple cases. One current and one former member of Babylon staff have gone on record with Forbes, claiming that it misses 10-15 per cent of warning signs of serious conditions, and that a group of clinicians had gone straight to Ali Parsa, founder and CEO as recently as last Friday in an attempt to stall a planned software drop. But Babylon isn't taking things lying down and has hit back strongly at the claims that the Forbes article "used a distorted lens to magnify the views of a few anonymous individuals whilst ignoring the findings from multiple government regulators, dismissed the integrity of the hundreds of doctors who work with us and ignored the lengths we have gone to as we have shared our science with the world. "It goes on to rebuke suggestions that it was ever designed to replace the advice of a real doctor: "Our aim is to use technology to empower doctors to make more accurate decisions and to reduce waiting times for patients - after all, how safe is it to be kept waiting for medical attention? "It adds that in its own tests, the bot was bang on 80 per cent of the time, which in such a fledgeling industry, is a pretty impressive bit of neural networking magic. In the UK, Babylon offers appointments with online doctors by video call via its widely advertised GP at Hand app, as well as the initial triage by AI. NHS England said: "The DCB 0129 safety cases submitted by Babylon and GP at hand for each of the Babylon technology products used in the GP at hand service have been considered. These are the Artificial Intelligence symptom checker, the Babylon clinical portal, and the Babylon Healthcheck service. Each safety case meets the standards required by the NHS and has been completed using a robust assessment methodology to a high standard."Babylon adds: "The globe is facing a drastic shortage of doctors and for many people healthcare is simply too expensive. We are working to help improve the lives of millions of people and we are doing so whilst meeting, and often surpassing, all the required regulations. Technology can be part of the answer to these problems - our 11 peer-reviewed publications are testament to this. "Babylon's aim is to put accessible and affordable healthcare into the hands of everyone on earth and we will continue in this endeavour." Babylon is amongst a gaggle of big names who are bringing AI to healthcare. Google DeepMind, for example, works in partnership with London hospitals to monitor kidney patients remotely, to save them coming in if their vitals are normal. More recently it has started using AI for ocular screening, spotting potential problems invisible to the naked eye. The message is clear - common sense is at the heart of this whole endeavour. AI is now mature enough to work alongside the health service and holds many benefits, but if you start coughing up blood and an AI tells you it's a sprained ankle, you're probably wrong. Source : https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3068427/babylon-health-hits-back-at-claims-its-ai-isnt-up-to-the-job

More than 40 million UK patient records will be shifted onto Amazon Web Services, as part of a wider upgrade by the dominant NHS GP IT supplier. Emis Group announced on Friday that it would be replacing its Emis Web software with Emis-X. Emis Web is used by about six in 10 GP practices in the UK and holds about 40 million patient records, including the majority of GP records. The new system, which still needs to pass NHS Digital approval, would shift billions of clinical documents and other information from the company’s own servers onto AWS. The move would mark one of the biggest shifts of NHS electronic patient records, usually stored on local NHS organisation or IT supplier servers, onto one of the three major global cloud companies (Amazon, Microsoft and Google). It would also come with the introduction of more digital patient services embedded within this core IT system used by the majority of British GPs, including video consultations via a patient’s smartphone and a chatbot digital triage service. The announcement comes after health and social care secretary Matt Hancock said last month that he expected all NHS IT services and data to move onto the public cloud, where they would benefit from “the resilience and backups of some of the most cyber-aware and heavily invested companies in the world”. NHS officials have previously estimated this shift would cost £500m. It also comes as Emis, and the other major NHS GP IT supplier TPP, face growing pressure from NHS regulators to improve their software, particularly its ability to share patient data. In September, Mr Hancock told a conference audience he’d been “appalled” by NHS staff horror storiesabout primary care IT and said suppliers that did not improve would be excluded from the NHS. NHS Digital officials have previously described the current GP IT duopoly, where Emis and TPP collectively control 90 per cent of the market, as a “market failure” and a drag on innovation. A new £400m NHS GP IT framework designed to correct this failure is scheduled to go live next year. Speaking to HSJ, Emis Group chief executive Andy Thorburn rejected the suggestion there had been a market failure in the past. “Fifty-six per cent of the market has chosen to be with us. The [current] framework has four providers on it,” Mr Thorburn said. However, he said the company also welcomed the move towards more competition for GP IT services in the NHS. The new system was part of becoming a software “platform” to support shift, including supporting competing digital services. “The models of care are changing, and we need to provide a more flexible system,” he said. “We want to [be a] key provider in this market for another 30 years.” An agreement has already been reached between Emis and AWS for the shift but the company did not give a clear timeline for when it would be rolled out. Parts of the new system, such as video consultations and more advanced analytics, would be gradually added to the existing Emis Web software, with GPs unlikely to notice the switch to AWS, the company said. Patients would be able to access new services, such as digital triage, through the ”patient access” app and website. Mr Thorburn said these patient services had been under development before the growth of digital GP services, such as Babylon or Push Doctor, in the NHS. “We are not in the business of delivering GP services, so we are not competing with those people,” he said. “We wish them well.” The company said Emis-X would be hosted on AWS servers within the UK and meet NHS interoperability standards. Source : https://www.hsj.co.uk/technology-and-innovation/tens-of-millions-of-patient-records-to-move-to-amazon-cloud/7023934.article

11 healthcare startups, SME's and corporates have come together as the founding group of members for the Digital Healthcare Council - 1) eConsult - https://econsult.net/ 2) Zesty - https://www.zesty.co.uk/ 3) DrNow - http://www.drnow.com/ 4) DrEd - https://www.dred.com/uk/ 5) Ada - https://ada.com/ 6) Index Medical - https://www.doctorfox.co.uk/ 7) Lloyds Online Pharmacy - https://onlinedoctor.lloydspharmacy.com/ 8) Push Doctor - https://www.pushdoctor.co.uk/ 9) Care UK - http://www.careuk.com/ 10) Babylon Health - https://www.babylonhealth.com/ 11) Patient.info - https://patient.info/ The Council’s stated purpose is to: 1) Advocate the benefits of technology in healthcare for patients 2) Provide a vehicle to promote ‘data does good’ to the wider system 3) Collaborate to influence policy decisions from organisations such as CQC, Department of Health, NHS England and NHS Digital 4) Explore opportunities for partnership 5) Share innovation and best The Council aims are: A) to ensure there are open lines of communication with the key stakeholders, as named above B) The Council aims to advocate for the views of members and ensure these are considered by key stakeholders when making policy decisions C) The Council aims to work with key stakeholders to ensure barriers to innovation in the system are removed The council can be contacted on digitalhealth@zpb-associates.com

Ten years ago, one doctor in 10 kept digital records on their patients. The other 90 percent made notes on paper and stored them in manila folders on shelves and in filing cabinets. Paper records had some obvious disadvantages. They took up space, they were difficult to share with other physicians, hospitals, and insurance companies. Patients switching doctors, hospitals, or places of residence could not easily bring their records with them. In 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis, the federal government acted to remedy this situation. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act set aside $27 billion of federal funds to encourage health care providers to adopt electronic health record (EHR) systems, and more money was subsequently made available for training and assistance. All told, the federal government spent about $35 billion on bringing the U.S. health care industry into the electronic age. The program was highly successful in that it made EHRs commonplace. Today, nine in 10 doctors have adopted them. “We have made a colossal transformation in a relatively short period of time,” says Lloyd Minor, MD, Dean of Stanford Medicine. “But we have not realised the potential benefits of the data that exist in electronic health records.” Indeed, many of the benefits of EHRs have been elusive. As implemented today, EHRs have too many of the drawbacks of paper records. The promise of being able to send them easily from one office to the next has been hampered by a lack of standards and perverse incentives in the health care marketplace to hoard information. Worse, EHRs, with their cumbersome user interfaces and onerous billing requirements, have become a burden to doctors and nurses, contributing to burnout and information overload among physicians, and degrading patient care. “A clinician will make roughly 4,000 keyboard clicks during a busy 10-hour emergency-room shift,” writes Abraham Verghese, Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford Medicine, in the New York Times Magazine. Although EHRs have many problems, there are reasons to believe that they will eventually start living up to their promise. With some changes in technology, regulations, and attention to training, EHRs may soon serve as the backbone of an information revolution in health care, one that will transform health care the way digital technologies are changing banking, finance, transportation, navigation, Internet search, retail, and other industries. Regulations are being put in place that will put patients in control of their own health records and facilitate the sharing of data among health care organizations. Engineers are developing artificial intelligence technology that can “take notes” for physicians, summarize the important points from a patient’s record, and assist in medical decision making. Apple’s recent app for medical information, which gives third-party developers the ability to pull information from health records, is expected to be the first of many developments that brings health care data to patients’ fingertips. “There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic that we will be able to have both high-tech and high-touch medicine,” says Minor.This white paper is intended to provide a roadmap for this transformation. We will explore the current state of the EHR, reporting the results of a survey by Stanford Medicine and The Harris Pollof physicians and their experiences and attitudes with EHRs. Most important, we will offer some concrete suggestions for solving the problems that physicians confront today with regard to EHRs and how the medical profession can fully leverage the power of medical data over the next decade. We will distill the key ideas from a symposium of health care industry professionals, hosted by the Stanford University School of Medicine on June 4, 2018, including a vision of how EHRs could contribute positively to health care and medicine by 2028, how to exploit the best ideas from the tech industry to make it happen, and immediate and practical steps that health care professionals can take towards this vision. Click here to read the report in full ... Source : http://med.stanford.edu/content/dam/sm/ehr/documents/SM-EHR-White-Papers_v12.pdf

Dyson has filed a patent for an interesting new wearable gadget and some are predicting it will become the next big trend in health tech. Dyson is known for its powerful vacuum cleaners and, more recently, its air purification technology and apparently the company has aspirations to weave that technological prowess into a wearable device that doubles as a pair of headphones. At this point the potential product appears to be in the thought bubble stage, but the company has filed a patent for the idea in the UK, Bloomberg reported this week. The business publication confirmed the product idea, with people close to the project confirming it would be targeted consumers living in big cities, especially in Asia where air pollution is particularly bad. The patent was for a “wearable air purifier” with the potential to include headphone capabilities, according to the anonymous sources. Officially, a Dyson spokesperson said the company “never comments on technology we may or may not be developing.” A recent study by the World Health Organisation and Berkeley Earth showed that breathing in air pollution in big cities has similarly deleterious health effect to smoking cigarettes. In Kanpur, India — the most polluted city — breathing the outside air amounted to smoking about 7.8 cigarettes a day, in terms of toxins. Comparatively, Australian cities were roughly the equivalent of smoking a third of a cigarette a day. Since moving aggressively into the air purifier market, Dyson is quick to point out the health problems associated with air pollution. There are already wearable purifier products on the market that retail mostly in Asia. But quite frankly they look a little ridiculous and most Australian consumers wouldn’t be caught dead wearing such a face or neck gadget in public. This wearable purifier from company Airvida was promoted on website Groupon in the UK recently. But some are predicting big things for the wearable air purifier. Reports about the Dyson patent come just a week after London based research analyst Paul Bremmer wrote a blog post stating: “Wearable air purifiers are the next Fitbit in health tech — and Dyson will lead the way.” In his article he combined analysis of patent data and the growing scientific research and consumer awareness of the harm caused by air pollution to suggest that wearable air purifiers will become an increasingly popular gadget in the coming years. “Consumer awareness of air pollution has also been growing through 2018, with stories published on the link between air pollution and cognitive intelligence, air pollution and heart problems, air pollution and asthma, air pollution and dementia, the list could go on,” he wrote. “With more than 54.5 per cent of the world’s population living in cities, this is a problem faced on a global scale.” With companies like Dyson keen to push consumer awareness about the harms of air pollution, he thinks consumers have been “primed” to adopt such a device. “I predict that Dyson will release a wearable air purifier in the next 18-24 months, and that wearable air purification devices will be the next ‘big’ health-tech trend,” he wrote. In any case, if they do become a thing Australia won’t be the target market. Speaking to news.com.au in August when the company launched its new home air purifiers, Dyson engineer Jessica Rowley noted that bad air quality isn’t a major concern among Australians. “In China and South Korea there’s a real awareness about the air quality problem,” she said. “But in countries like Australia, there isn’t really that sort of market space where outdoor pollution is really bad.” Source : https://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/wearables/could-this-really-be-the-next-big-trend-in-health-tech/news-story/1fc8b8354171c1081b7681e50f636188

Some of the biggest and most famous tech companies are making big bets on health care. The blue chips of Silicon Valley have announced they’re interested in disrupting an industry that has bedeviled us with rising costs and inefficiencies for decades. I’d like to explore the why, what and how and leave us with a few thoughtful questions. Headlines are just part of the story Let’s peek at the headlines: Amazon is setting up a partnership with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway to create a non-profit healthcare company. Apple is planning a line of (surely sleek and minimalist) medical clinics. Google’s sibling under the umbrella company Alphabet, Verily, is looking at the Medicaid market. Uber wants to disrupt ambulances… and there are many more headlines that pop up almost daily that may be more creative than factual. It may be too early to start imagining a world where health care is truly owned by Big Tech — you order prescription drugs with your Amazon Prime account, see a nurse at the Apple Clinic, get your benefits statements from Google, and call an Uber instead of an ambulance when you need to go to the hospital. But something is happening here. The lure: big hairy problems The tech giants see a system rife with administrative inefficiencies, opaque prices, and customer dissatisfaction. In other words, a huge opportunity. Health care is incredibly backward in its use of information and consumer technologies and there are ample opportunities to improve patient care while reducing cost. Healthcare is a $3 trillion+ industry wrought with waste and middlemen. Two insurers, UnitedHealth Group and CVS Health, are among America’s largest firms by revenue, bringing in $200 billion and $185 billion respectively in 2017. That is more than any tech firm except Apple. (And an interesting note, shares in the two insurers fell by 4% on the news of the new Amazon-led health venture) They are riding a number of key industry trends More employers are self-insuring A rise in high deductible plans The explosion of administrative overhead A focus on consumerization Entering the health care market offers potential synergies with existing businesses They can start with a clean sheet of paper Ego – these are big hairy problems; the type Silicon Valley likes to solve Users/customers love them – how many people “love” their insurers The problems healthcare faces are too big, too important and much too personal to their users for them to ignore. Next generation health Imagine enabling capabilities that are common place in other industries, like price transparency, unified customer records and customer ratings of providers, ported to health care. Imagine applying telepresence and artificial intelligence to deal with physician shortages and improve access to care. Consumer technology companies are bringing analogous capabilities to other sectors of the economy that are long due for application to health care. Each tech company is taking its own approach, betting that its core business strengths could be leveraged to ultimately improve people’s health — or at least make health care more efficient. All five firms have secretive health-care skunk works, are hiring medical talent and are buying or backing external health-care startups. And reporters, market research firms, analysts and vendors are spending an undue amount of time speculating as to what’s really going on. Let’s take a look at each in a bit more detail… Apple Apple is leveraging its consumer products position to play in the healthcare market. Their approach is focused on hardware - using its popular iPhone and Apple Watch to turn its devices into trusted, secure channels through which medical data can flow, to help consumers better track and manage their health. Clinical Trials In 2015, Apple introduced new software, called Apple ResearchKit, for health researchers. Out of the gate, Stanford used it to develop an app to enroll volunteers in a heart study. In one day 11,000 people enrolled - more users in 24 hours than most medical studies find in a year. And the researchers were able to collect much more data than they could have otherwise. Millions of people around the world have already joined medical studies using this infrastructure. Diagnostics An app called mPower, built by Sage Bionetworks, studies Parkinson’s disease by getting iPhone users to perform tasks and measuring the tremor in their hands using the phone’s internal accelerometer. The data so far suggest that Apple’s platform may soon enable physicians to spot Parkinson’s digitally before it is symptomatic in a patient. We’ve known Apple to be developing a range of powerful health sensors since before the company introduced Apple Watch. In 2017, CNBC reported that Apple was quietly developing a non-invasive sensor to accurately determine glucose levels through the skin. Such a technology could work in conjunction with Apple's other physical monitoring systems to provide early screening. One could imagine both the phone and the watch to be powerful remote diagnostic platforms of the future. Health Records Apple is extending its reach into electronic health record technology. In January Apple announced its iPhone will include a feature called Health Records, which allow users to view, manage and share their medical records. Embedded in Apple’s Health app, the new feature will bring together medical data from participating hospitals and clinics, as well as from the iPhone itself, giving millions of Americans direct digital control of their own health information for the first time. By June more than 500 hospitals were connected to the Health Records app representing 50 health systems. This summer, Apple opened Health Records API to health IT innovators to enable them to create apps that utilize the data. Our industry responded in a very positive way, measuring their success against industry standards that we have struggled with for decades (per EHR Intelligence) 67% of surveyed health system executives said Apple Health Records will effectively empower patients to play a more active role in their own health and care management 58% said the EHR data viewer will help to improve interoperability. Primary Care In February, Apple launched a new subsidiary company tasked with providing healthcare clinics to Apple employees: AC Wellness. The idea makes sense; it can reduce running costs while leveraging the offer for future health insights. These moves mean Apple will have its own sandbox to test and deploy new products and solutions. And there’s plenty of speculation that Apple will eventually extend its new healthcare subsidiary to people outside of Apple. So let’s take inventory: software for medical research, new sensor technology that provides activity data and remote diagnostics, health records, medical clinics and a powerful soft asset – consumer trust. If information is power and the future of medicine is personal, ubiquitous and mobile, Apple should have a front row seat. By securely combining patient health data with sensor-based insight, a person will be empowered to manage and improve their health, and healthcare professionals will be able to access deep collections of related data to help improve treatment and diagnosis. Microsoft Microsoft, already a major supplier of software and cloud services, has also been ramping up its health business for several years. Between 2013 and 2017 Microsoft filed 73 patents related to healthcare, most of which focused on developing AI and patient monitoring capabilities. The company's work in healthcare has spanned cloud computing, cybersecurity and precision medicine. This year, the company announced an initiative, Healthcare NExT, to create products for medical providers and patients with the goal of accelerating healthcare innovation using artificial intelligence and cloud services. They are focused on creating strategic partnerships to develop a cross-company strategy for health care and life sciences innovation. In June they hired two industry veterans to build out the cloud initiative now formally known as Microsoft Healthcare: Jim Weinstein, the former CEO of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock health system joins as Head of Innovation and Health Equity Former Google Life Sciences (Verily) executive Joshua Mandel joins as its chief architect The NExT team is assembled to unlock the innovation potential in healthcare data. In the first strategic partnership for Healthcare NExT, Microsoft worked with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to develop digital services intended to reduce drudgery for physicians and improve patients’ experiences. One project involves a virtual assistant that would take notes on conversations between a doctor and a patient, analyze the conversation and then send a summary to the patient’s electronic medical record. The medical center is also pilot-testing an app that notifies doctors when one of their patients has filled a prescription at a U.P.M.C. pharmacy. Their combination of AI, the cloud and industry expertise foreshadows a “21st Century House Call.” Google (more accurately, its umbrella enterprise, Alphabet) Investments and IP No other company in the Silicon Valley is investing so heavily in healthcare-related companies as Alphabet’s venture arm does. Since it raised its first fund in 2009, it has backed nearly 60 health-related enterprises. Their portfolio is very diverse ranging from genetics to telemedicine. Some of the more notable investments include 23andme, Oscar Health, and Doctor on Demand. If we look at patents to give us an inside picture, from 2013 to 2017, Alphabet filed 186 related to healthcare, mostly around AI and “smart” operating rooms. In general, Alphabet's healthcare investments and acquisitions tend to be more focused on AI than those of the other tech giants. It seems like a lot of well-placed investments for Alphabet, however, that’s only one side of the story. Verily Verily, formerly Google Life Sciences, was founded in 2015. Their cornerstone is Project Baseline, a longitudinal, data-collecting initiative with 10,000 volunteers, chartered with understanding what makes people healthy. Over the course of four years, in collaboration with Stanford and Duke, researchers will collect genetic data, blood samples, medical images, and other information from the study participants by using Verily’s own unique sensors. Participants will also be asked to use sleep sensors in their beds and to undergo mental health tests. Using data analytics and machine learning, researchers hope to understand health at a deeper level. AI and DeepMind Google fought off Facebook to acquire DeepMind in 2014; by that time, it was already operating as a successful A.I. platform – a very interesting story in its own right. With regards to healthcare, it is used to mine medical records to provide better and faster health services. Google DeepMind can process hundreds of thousands of medical information within minutes. There’s a 100-person division in London working on projects with the U.K.’s National Health Service. These include a mobile app to alert doctors and nurses to changes in a patient’s condition. The first potentially fatal condition DeepMind built an alert for was acute kidney injury (AKI); the mobile app is called Streams. Another project is trying to determine whether computers can analyze various kinds of medical imagery as well as experienced doctors. In collaboration with London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital, DeepMind is trying to see if AI can read retinal scans as well as resident experts. Research into such data-harvesting and machine learning is in its early phase, but Google appears to have the patience and capital to ride it out. Their aim is to help clinicians provide better, faster and safer care. To round out their strategy, Alphabet has a many notable collaborations – J&J, GSK and Fitbit are just a few. They are also playing in Silicon Valley’s quest for longevity through a company Larry Page formed in 2013 called Calico that is armed with a $1.3B budget. In February CNBC broke the news that Verily was in talks with insurers about jointly bidding for at risk contracts. And they incubated a startup called City Block that focuses on care for low income communities. In short, Google seems to be going after the healthcare space from every possible angle. If we think about their current model, what will it look like if we could “google” our environment. Could this translate into an intelligent AI that follows us through the day to help us on whatever healthcare journey we’re tracking to – a la the movie “Her?” Amazon Amazon has been less public about its plans in health, but its typical playbook is 1/invest in large, upfront fixed costs, 2/bring standardization to messy systems, 3/add transparency and a platform to distribute goods and services. Amazon not only has a robust logistics infrastructure but has net promoter scores that health care vendors would die for. Pharmacy For the past year, the e-commerce giant has been exploring the use of its logistical prowess to start selling drugs online. They recently acquired PillPack (and its 40,000 customers) for $1 billion. It’s a marriage made in heaven with PillPack’s supply chain, licenses in 50 states and automation. It instantly gives Amazon its own online pharmacy and is another step towards integrating medical supplies and pharmaceuticals into its platform and distribution. Investors in pharma supply chain didn’t react well to the announcement; it sent six related stocks plunging a collective $14.5 billion in market valuation on the announcement as fear of Amazon’s disruption set in. There’s lots of speculation on what this foundation can lead to: Retail pharmacies with same-day delivery PBM – starting with employers and small health plans Pharma manufacturing license – allowing them to repackage and sell under its own brand. Medicare/Medicaid Management One other play that is harder to decipher starts with Amazon’s announcement in March to cut its prime membership for Medicaid recipients by over 50% and CNBC’s announcement that it’s been talking potential collaborations with AARP since 2015. Amazon is well positioned to bring products and services into people’s homes – let’s extend it to healthcare. By adding health functionality to the new Echo that sports a camera, Amazon can hope to get coverage from carriers to help manage home care. This year there was job posting for a HIPAA compliance lead for the Alexa team. They are rounding out this scenario with key executive hires from the healthcare industry with expertise in primary care for Medicare patients. TPA Amazon realizes that they could significantly lower the costs of administrative services by solving interoperability. By turning the TPA business into an API layer Amazon can dramatically reduce the cost structure of the activities performed by a TPA. They’re likely to experiment internally first, before opening the services to the rest of the market (per Jacob Alcauskas from Superconductive Health). But what does this all mean? One theory is that Amazon will become an aggregator to create Amazon Healthcare Marketplace for a wholesale disruption of American Healthcare. The platform, after consolidating suppliers, would eventually attract health care providers (doctors, clinics and hospitals), eliminating a number of intermediaries. And yet, there are hurdles These are businesses with a proven history of disrupting existing business models - Amazon upended retail shopping by offering an unprecedented level of selection, price transparency, and convenience. But how easy will it actually be? Several of them have made efforts in the past and failed. Google started a health-records initiative in 2008, but shut it down by 2011, citing poor adoption. Microsoft made similar efforts with similarly low take-up. Earlier attempts by Google and Microsoft to offer patients a home for their digital records obliged people to consider whether they trusted the two companies enough; most decided the answer was no. The tech world has a mindset of “move fast and break things”. This works less well when it comes to health care. One could argue that health care isn’t anything like other parts of the economy. It operates in a highly regulatory environment. There are complex interactions between insurers, consumers, and health providers that you really don’t see in other industries. It’s governed by a tangled mix of payers, administrators, providers, and manufacturers. Not to mention the patients, all 330 million of us, who have never proven very good at treating health care like any other commodity. It rarely works for firms, trying to pick up wholesale and move to a new industry. So the complexity, the opacity, the sheer scale — not to mention the existing $3 trillion industry and its many vested players, who aren’t going to stand idly by while the tech wunderkinds supplant them — are standing in Silicon Valley’s way. Are you ready? All this activity is certainly worth watching. Because if any industry is in dire need of disruption, it’s American health care. At this juncture, how do we feel about the tech giants coming for healthcare? For me as a health plan, I feel challenged, a consumer excited and a patient hopeful. At GuideWell we’ve responded by truly putting the patient at the center and are approaching our solutions with a view of consumerism and a center of excellence charged with inculcating the consumer experience throughout our culture. How does it make you feel? Editor’s Note: Dr. Tamara StClaire is vice president of enterprise innovation at GuideWell. She recently presented this topic as a keynote at the Becker’s Hospital Review Health IT and Revenue Cycle Management conference in Chicago. Source : http://www.guidewell.com/blog/tech-giants-are-coming-healthcare

Pfizer has appointed a chief digital officer because of the growing importance of digital technology in R&D and business process, as part of a boardroom shake-up. Last week Pfizer announced that Ian Read is to step down as CEO, with chief operating officer Albert Bourla taking the helm. Following the change of leadership, Pfizer is also revamping its executive team, with the appointment of new chief digital and technology officer Lidia Fonseca the most notable change. Pfizer said she will be in charge of creating and implementing a “strategy that accelerates and improves the company’s digital capabilities.” Currently chief information officer at Quest Diagnostics, Fonseca will join Pfizer’s executive leadership team in January. Lidia Fonseca Fonseca previously served as senior vice president at Laboratory Corporation of America, executive vice president of global operations and technology at Synarc Incorporated, and was promoted through the ranks at Philips Healthcare. Pfizer is following the example of GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis, two big pharmas that have already appointed chief digital officers to transform R&D and relationships with customers. Last year Novartis unveiled Bertrand Bodson, formerly chief digital officer for Sainsbury’s Argos, as its first ever chief digital officer. This was shortly after GSK appointed Karenann Terrell, previously chief information officer at Walmart, to become its chief digital and technology officer. Other changes at Pfizer include Mikael Dolsten, who will assume oversight of the chief medical officer’s role. Angela Hwang will become group president of Pfizer’s innovative business, responsible for the entire portfolio of innovative medicines. Freda Lewis-Hall will assume a new role as Pfizer’s chief patient officer, advocating on behalf of all patients who rely on Pfizer’s new drugs. John Young, group president, and chief business officer, will assume a new role, responsible for strategy, business development, portfolio management and valuation activities. He will also cover business analytics, global commercial operations and patient and health impact, among others. Pfizer’s Consumer Healthcare business will also report to Young. New CEO Bourla said: “We are at a pivotal moment in Pfizer’s history, with Ian Read having positioned the company with a strong portfolio of marketed products, a deep pipeline and the clear potential to accelerate our revenue growth. “Given this opportunity to realize this accelerated growth potential, we are creating an executive team that has a proven record of success, an unwavering commitment to the patients we serve, and a clear value creation initiative. I look forward to working with these outstanding leaders to achieve the full potential of our pipeline and deliver our next stage of growth.” Source : https://pharmaphorum.com/news/pfizer-appoints-chief-digital-officer-in-boardroom-shakeup/

Fresenius Medical Care North America (FMCNA) is adopting and supporting new Connected Health technologies that empower patients to monitor, collect, and share health and treatment data with their physicians and care providers. Mobile technology not only increases patient autonomy and engagement, it can lower costs and improve outcomes for those with chronic conditions. A significant shift in medical practice orientation has been occurring over the last few years. The shift is from focusing on treatment episodes to proactive health planning, managing patient populations, striving to both improve quality of care, and lower costs.(1) This shift is not a typical part of a physician’s training and day-to-day focus. Managing patient populations requires coordinated and proactive participation by various supporting clinical and nonclinical staff and several different types of care providers and physicians. Chronic disease such as chronic kidney disease and comorbidities including diabetes, hypertension, and congestive heart failure are top cost drivers in these populations. Entities that take up management of patient populations assume risk in trying to reduce costs and optimizing care quality and outcomes.(2) Management of risk in patient populations is accomplished by collecting and analyzing clinical and cost data to provide targeted and timely interventions. Connected Health is an emerging model of health care delivery that leverages technology to collect and analyze such data by connecting patients and providers, resulting in improved patient outcomes and reduced costs. Technology can empower patients to collect, visualize, and distribute personal health care data, including patient-reported outcomes and patient-reported experiences. Connected Health technologies improve communication among patients, providers, and caregivers through connected devices and systems. By supporting continuous and ubiquitous data collection, as well as ongoing patient and provider communication outside of the clinic or hospital setting, Connected Health improves chronic disease management and outcomes. Connected Health achieves more information-driven, efficient, and less costly patient care, particularly in patients with chronic conditions.(3),(4),(5) Its “Anytime, Anywhere” mode of care delivery brings the right information, at the right time, to the right place and the right person to maximize the efficacy of treatment.(6) Mainstream use of mobile technology such as smartphones, tablets, and other devices creates integration opportunities for biosensing wearables, such as digital blood pressure monitors and glucose sensors. Through connected technologies, these nontraditional sources of high-value personal and social data can be integrated into electronic health records (EHRs) and data warehouses to generate sophisticated analytics and care interventions. Connected Health and new technologies in health care don’t come without concerns and risks. Some well-articulated concerns include: Regulatory and privacy compliance risks Data quality and reliability Data overload Patient information security Advanced new techniques for secure communications between devices and systems, data integrity verification, user authentication, and data encryption are being developed to provide robust protections for Connected Health utilization. Connected Health in the Health Care Industry Changes in consumer behaviors, the explosive integration of technology in everyday life, and the ability to yield improved patient outcomes through better care make a compelling case for Connected Health as an emerging core component in the health care industry. Five primary drivers describe the value proposition of Connected Health’s place in the health care industry: More device and mobile app options. Devices such as Fitbits and other wearables are affordable and are now widely used. Mobile apps that can store and display data are readily available. Personally collected data can be shared with systems and providers for data integration, analysis, and health care interventions. Prevalence of consumer wearables. New technologies offer health management insights through step counters, hours slept, stress maps, heart rate, feedback around mindfulness, and even predictions of adverse health events. Emerging advanced, patient-centered analytics. These improve diagnostic accuracy through visualizations and decision support tools. Comprehensive patient care. Data is communicated and coupled with clinical interventions resulting in: Improved overall patient outcomes Better medical adherence Improved patient engagement Personalization of care, from home to any other care venue Business value. Business leaders see: Support for providers and patients using cost-effective technologies (7) Improved relationships and personalized care Connected Health at Fresenius Medical Care North America FMCNA is innovating with Connected Health to support patient autonomy and improve patient and caregiver experience. New FMCNA Connected Health technology includes: Home dialysis machines that collect and share treatment data Real-time data exchange for home therapies Electronic prescribing Virtual or telehealth visits between patients and providers Remote therapy instruction programming on the dialysis machine Remote home machine technical monitoring and support to eliminate disruptions in treatment delivery As an example, the Liberty Cycler supports daily transmission of treatment data from Fresenius Kidney Care home dialysis patients to home therapy clinicians via a modem connection. A new cycler with bi-directional connectivity will: perform near real-time in-home therapy adjustments made by a physician; deliver post-therapy real-time treatment data to home therapy clinicians; and deliver machine data to RTG Technical Support. The new cycler with Connected Health technology delivers a well-balanced, improved feature-set to enhance the peritoneal dialysis patient experience. Peripherals, such as a blood pressure monitor, weight scale, and the cycler, are Bluetooth connected using an FMCNA gateway device. The gateway links the cycler to the Fresenius Cloud at the start of treatment to fetch new cycler programming downloads. The gateway facilitates seamless collection of pre- and post-dialysis treatment vital signs. At the end of treatment, clinical data is transmitted to the home therapies staff and machine data is distributed to Technical Support. This provides a continuous improvement loop, enhancing treatment reliability and experience for home therapy patients. Connected Health's Impact on Patient Outcomes Clearly, health care focus is shifting from volume to value, and the goal is to keep populations healthy rather than just treat the disease retrospectively. In the new value-based models where the traditional approach of episode-based care is disrupted and organizations like Fresenius become accountable for total cost of care, connected technologies can positively influence patient behaviors and drive improved results while engaging and empowering patients and consumers. Remote support through Connected Health can reduce patient visits to the hospital/provider, lower health care costs, and improve timely access to medical consultations.(8),(9) Remote patient management (RPM) provides a means to overcome some of the barriers to increasing patient uptake and adherence to home modalities. RPM is a framework for monitoring patients at home via digital wireless technology, extending the interactive contact of conventional clinical settings to include the patient’s home. These technologies can improve clinical outcomes through earlier recognition and correction of problems. In diabetes management, Connected Health solutions resulted in weight loss, improved glucose levels, and lower cholesterol.(10) Patients used a pedometer and a digital weighing scale to collect data and share it with a health coach. This activity, coupled with a mobile app for logging daily activity and food intake, resulted in improvements in self-care, diet, and exercise, and reduced feelings of depression and isolation. In a Mayo Clinic study published in 2017, researchers tested a health program available online or through a mobile app that provided information about healthy lifestyles, and asked patients undergoing cardiac rehabilitation to report dietary and exercise habits. Compared with a group of patients participating in a conventional care regimen, those using the digital program lost more weight, improved lifestyle habits, and had fewer cardio-related ER visits and rehospitalizations.(11) Telemedicine solutions, such as Temple University’s COPD Co-Pilot, measures COPD disease status based on patient-reported symptoms and digitally measured pulmonary functions. As a result, treatment plans may be adjusted remotely, and, in very serious cases, the patient may be referred to urgent care.(12) Conclusion Connected Health is transforming health care through the innovative use of new technologies that empower patients to collect and manage data and that improve communication among patients, providers, and caregivers. Data aggregation, analysis, and sharing enhance patient and provider insights, as well as improve patient outcomes. The ability of Connected Health to support continuous care outside of the clinic or hospital walls and to make real-time adjustments in home care improves the experience of home therapy patients. Connected Health opportunities to impact chronic disease management will evolve as new tools for data capture and secure communication continue to emerge. FMCNA will continue to leverage new technologies to deliver high-quality patient care, which will be ever more important in the emerging value-based care delivery models. Meet Our Experts Ahmad Sharif, MD, MPH, SCPM - Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Information Officer, Fresenius Medical Care Ahmad Sharif oversees clinical IT systems for FMCNA and formerly served as chief medical information officer for a Tenet Health market. He was awarded a full scholarship to attend classes at Harvard University, holds an advanced project management certification from Stanford University, and completed his master’s degree in public health and management from the University of North Texas. Harvey Cohen - Vice President, Global Digital Solutions, Fresenius Medical Care Harvey Cohen received his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Massachusetts. He has career-spanning expertise in delivering complex global software solutions. Prior to joining FMCNA, he held software development, product service delivery, architecture, strategy, and data management roles in technology, e-commerce, and patient remote monitoring and personal emergency service industries. References Connected Health: Improving Patient Care Through New Technology by Ahmad Sharif, MD, MPH, SCPM & Harvey Cohen Jones ER, Hostetter TH. Integrated renal care: are nephrologists ready for change in renal care delivery models? Clin J Am Soc Nephrol 2015 Feb 6;10(2):335–9. Nelson K, Rafalski E, Bailey S, Marinescu R. Managing rising-risk patients in a value-based world. Conference paper, 2015 Congress on Healthcare Leadership, Chicago. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275033033_Managing_rising-risk_patients_in_a_value-based_world. Lee EK, Wang Y, Davis RA, Egan BM. Designing a low-cost adaptable and personalized remote patient monitoring system. 2017 IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine, Kansas City, MO. Nuovo, Jim (ed). Chronic disease management. New York: Springer, 2007. Pal, Susmit. How IoT is helping to address chronic disease management. Electronic Health Reporter, n.d. Accessed January 6, 2018. http://electronichealthreporter.com/iot-helping-address-chronic-disease-management/. Ibid. Li P, Xu C, Luo Y, et al. CareNet: building regulation-compliant home-based healthcare services with software-defined infrastructure. 2017 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Connected Health: Applications, Systems and Engineering Technologies, Philadelphia. Ibid. Lee et al. Designing a low-cost adaptable and personalized remote patient monitoring system. Landro, Laura. How apps can help manage chronic diseases. Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2017. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-apps-can-help-manage-chronic-diseases-1498443120. Widmer R, Allison TG, Lennon R, et al. Digital health intervention during cardiac rehabilitation: a randomized controlled trial. Am Heart J 2017 June;188:65-72. Smith HS, Criner AJ, Fehrle D, et al. Use of a smartphone/tablet-based bidirectional telemedicine disease management program facilitates early detection and treatment of COPD exacerbation symptoms. Telemed J E Health 2016 May;22(5):395-9. Source : https://newsroom.fmcna.com/whitepapers/connected-health-improving-patient-care-new-technology/

The secure messaging app market in the UK healthcare space took another positive step forwards this week as two well respected companies raised $9M between them to advance their product roadmaps and focus on the NHS as a key early adopter market. Siilo raised $5.1M led by EQT Ventures “Our main competitor is always WhatsApp,” Rao tells TechCrunch. “Obviously there are also other players trying to move in this space. TigerText is the largest in the US. In the UK we come across local players like Hospify and Forward. “A major difference we have very experienced in-house dev team… The experience of this team has helped to build a messenger that really can compete in usability with WhatsApp that is reflected in our rapid adoption and usage numbers.” “Having worked in the trenches as a surgery resident, I’ve experienced the challenges that healthcare professionals face firsthand,” adds Bruggeman. “With Siilo, we’re connecting all healthcare professionals to make them more efficient, enable them to share patient information securely and continue learning and share their knowledge. The directory of vetted healthcare professionals helps ensure they’re successful team­ players within a wider healthcare network that takes care of the same patient.” Siilo launched its app in May 2016 and has since grown to ~100,000 users, with more than 7.5 million messages currently being processed monthly and 6,000+ clinical chat groups active monthly. “We haven’t come across any other secure messenger for healthcare in Europe with these figures in the App Store/Google Play rankings and therefore believe we are the largest in Europe,” adds Rao. “We have multiple large institutions across Western-Europe where doctors are using Siilo.” On the security front, as well flagging the ISO 27001 certification the company has gained, he notes that it obtained “the highest NHS IG Toolkit level 3” — aka the now replaced system for organizations to self-assess their compliance with the UK’s National Health Service’s information governance processes, claiming “we haven’t seen [that] with any other messaging company Source : https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/05/siilo-injects-5-1m-to-try-to-transplant-whatsapp-use-in-hospitals/ Forward Health raised $3.9M led by Stride.VC Founded in 2016 by U.K. doctors Barney Gilbert and Lydia Yarlott, with serial entrepreneur Philip Mundy (who previously founded Goodlord), Forward Health is a messaging app and broader communications platform designed for healthcare professionals, particularly those working in hospitals. One overly simple way to think of it is as a “WhatsApp for doctors,” helping to wean healthcare professionals off of using the popular messaging app professionally, which is entirely unsuited for a regulated industry like healthcare. However, the bigger vision is to “connect healthcare systems around the world” by improving clinician-to-clinician (and potentially clinician-to-patient) communication and information-sharing with a platform that is built from the get-go to be secure, flexible and compliant. “Healthcare communication is incredibly fragmented,” Forward Healthcare’s Mundy tells me. “This has a direct impact on how well clinicians can do their jobs and the level of care patients receive. Currently, doctors and nurses working within the NHS have to rely on an outdated and inefficient combination of pagers, landlines, switchboards and fax machines to contact each other. This 1960s infrastructure wastes huge amounts of time and can lead to critical delays in information flow.” It is in this context that clinicians have resorted to alternative methods of communication, such as WhatsApp, which Mundy rightfully says are not fit for purpose and pose real risks. “Any communication of this kind needs to support the exchange of highly sensitive patient information, any app used needs to be NHS digital compliant, GDPR compliant and operate within the highest levels of data security,” he explains. “WhatsApp and others don’t do this, meaning individual doctors could be liable should patient data be sent to the wrong contact or thread. Additionally, an app such as Forward is designed by and for doctors, meaning it can perform in just the right way.” Source : https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/05/forward-health/ So if two of the main players have raised funds, the next question is, are the other players raising as well ? In this context, Medcrowd and MedicBleep? So far they appear not to have raised funds to the extent of Siilo and Forward, however we could well see them announce raises in the next few months ... MedicBleep - https://www.medicbleep.com Medic Bleep has been developed as a simple and secure solution to the communication challenges that healthcare professionals and wider team in the NHS face while going about their everyday work. This means that if you work in the NHS, Medic Bleep can make your life easier by cutting down on wasted communication time. We’ve made Medic Bleep super easy to use and available on 3 key platforms – web, iOS, and Android – so you can choose what works for you. If you spend the majority of your time at a desk, we suggest you go for our web version (which works in any browser). If you’re on your feet all day or constantly moving between locations then our iOS (iPhone) or Android mobile/tablet apps give you the flexibility to read and respond to messages on the move. MedCrowd - https://www.medcrowd.com medDigital was selected to join the first cohort of the DigitalHealth.London Accelerator - a world-class programme that supports SMEs to develop digital health innovations for the NHS. Through this program, medDigital developed medCrowd, a compliant messenger for health and care teams to work together more effectively and give the best care. Health and care teams are using non-compliant messaging technologies, such as WhatsApp and Facebook Groups, to share confidential health and care information on a daily basis, despite clear guidance from NHS Digital and other professional bodies that only compliant technologies must be used. Therefore, we developed medCrowd to protect confidential health and care information to the right standards. Health and care teams can now join medCrowd and work together compliantly across different organisations all over the world. Click here to read my previous blog posts covering all the major secure messaging apps in the UK - https://www.healthcare.digital/single-post/2017/10/15/WhatsApp-messaging-apps-and-the-future-of-digital-health-in-the-UK

Martec’s Law encapsulates the greatest management challenge of the 21st century: how do we manage relatively slow-changing organizations in a rapidly changing technological environment? It is a hard problem. As shown in the graph above, we know that technology changes at an exponential rate. This is the phenomenon of Moore’s Law — and, more broadly, Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns. But we also know that human organizations don’t change that quickly. Changes in behaviour and culture take time. There are only so many changes in people, processes, and technology that an organization can productively absorb at once — at least without a major disruption. So approximately speaking, organizations change at a logarithmic rate — much slower than exponential technological change. What is the answer? What can Healthcare and the NHS do? 1) Recognize that they and patients live in a world of perpetual change, they are never going to be fully caught up ever again. It’s the journey, not the destination. 2) Decide which technology changes to embrace and which to forgo, at least for the moment. Healthcare providers can only absorb a tiny fraction of changes into their existing organizations at any given point in time. Therefore, they must strategically choose the few they believe will have the greatest impact. 3) Let the others go. Trying to change too many things simultaneously leads to disaster. Instead, they should ruthlessly prioritize the subset of changes that best align with their strategy. How should Healthcare and the NHS adapt to change? Evolutionary or Revolutionary? Option 1 - Evolutionary Organisations can't slow the rate of technological change, but they can improve the rate of change in an organisation to a certain degree. Option 1 - Revolutionary Eventually, organisations must "reset" to a new technological baseline, but such transitions are extremely disruptive. What do you think? Please share your thoughts by tweeting @lloydgprice :) Source : https://chiefmartec.com/2016/11/martecs-law-great-management-challenge-21st-century/

Armed with a mouse and computer screen instead of a scalpel and operating theater, cardiologist Benjamin Meder carefully places the electrodes of a pacemaker in a beating, digital heart. Using this “digital twin” that mimics the electrical and physical properties of the cells in patient 7497’s heart, Meder runs simulations to see if the pacemaker can keep the congestive heart failure sufferer alive — before he has inserted a knife. The digital heart twin developed by Siemens Healthineers is one example of how medical device makers are using artificial intelligence (AI) to help doctors make more precise diagnoses as medicine enters an increasingly personalized age. The challenge for Siemens Healthineers and rivals such as Philips and GE Healthcare is to keep an edge over tech giants from Alphabet’s Google to Alibaba that hope to use big data to grab a slice of health care spending. With health care budgets under increasing pressure, AI tools such as the digital heart twin could save tens of thousands of dollars by predicting outcomes and avoiding unnecessary surgery. A shortage of doctors in countries such as China is also spurring demand for new AI tools to analyze medical images and the race is on to commercialize products that could shake up health care systems around the world. While AI has been used in medical technology for decades, the availability of vast amounts data, lower computing costs and more sophisticated algorithms mean revenues from AI tools are expected to soar to $6.7 billion by 2021 from $811 million in 2015, according to a study by the research firm Frost & Sullivan. The size of the global medical imaging analytics software market is also expected to jump to $4.3 billion by 2025 from $2.4 billion in 2016, said the data portal Statista. “What started as an evolution is accelerating towards more of a revolution,” said Thomas Rudolph who leads McKinsey & Co.’s pharma and medical technology practice in Germany. Crowded field For Siemens Healthineers and its traditional rivals, making the transition from being mainly hardware companies to medical software pioneers is seen as crucial in a field becoming increasingly crowded with new entrants. Google has developed a raft of AI tools, including algorithms that can analyze medical images to diagnose eye disease or sift through digital records to predict the likelihood of death. Alibaba hopes to use its cloud and data systems to tackle a shortage of medical specialists in China. It is working on AI-assisted diagnosis tools to help analyze images such as CT scans and MRIs. Siemens Healthineers, which was spun off from German parent Siemens in March, has outpaced the market in recent quarters with sales of medical imaging equipment thanks to a slew of new products. But analysts say the German firm, the Dutch company Philips and GE Healthcare, a subsidiary of General Electric, will all come under pressure to prove they can save health care systems money as spending becomes more linked to patient outcomes and as hospitals rely on bulk purchasing to push for discounts. Siemens Healthineers has a long history in the industry. It made the first industrially manufactured X-ray machines in 1896 and is now the world’s biggest maker of medical imaging equipment. Now Chief Executive Bernd Montag’s ambition is to transform it into the “GPS of health care” — a company that harnesses its data to sell intelligent services as well as letting smaller tech firms develop apps feeding off its database. As it adapts, Siemens Healthineers has invested heavily in IT. It employs some 2,900 software engineers and has over 600 patents and patent applications in machine learning. It is not alone. Philips says about 60 percent of its research and development (R&D) staff and spending is focused on software and data science. The company said it employs thousands of software engineers, without being specific. Medical revolution Experts say the success of AI in medical technology will hinge on access to reliable data, not only to create models for diagnosis but also to predict how effective treatments will be for a specific patient in the days and years to come. “Imagine that in the future, we have a patient with all their organ functions, all their cellular functions, and we are able to simulate this complexity,” said Meder, a cardiologist at Heidelberg University Hospital in Germany who is testing Siemens Healthineers’ digital heart software. “We would be able to predict weeks or months in advance which patients will get ill, how a particular patient will react to a certain therapy, which patients will benefit the most. That could revolutionize medicine.” To this end, Siemens Healthineers has built up a vast database of more than 250 million annotated images, reports and operational data on which to train its new algorithms. In the example of the digital twin, the AI system was trained to weave together data about the electrical and physical properties and the structure of a heart into a 3D image. One of the main challenges was hiding the complexity and creating an interface that is easy to use, said Tommaso Mansi, a senior R&D director at Siemens Healthineers who developed the software. To test the technology, Meder’s team created 100 digital heart twins of patients being treated for heart failure in a six-year trial. The computer makes predictions based on the digital twin and they are then compared with actual outcomes. His team hopes to finish evaluating the predictions by the end of 2018. If the results are promising, the system will be tested in a larger, multicenter trial as the next step to getting the software approved by regulators for commercial use. Siemens Healthineers declined to say when the technology might eventually be used by clinics or give details on how its digital heart, or models of other organs it is developing such as the lungs and liver, could be monetized. In data we trust Both GE and Philips are also working on versions of digital heart twins while nontraditional players have been active too. Drawing on its experience of making digital twins to test bridges and machinery, French software firm Dassault Systemes launched the first commercial “Living Heart” model in May 2015, though it is only currently available for research. Philips sells AI-enabled heart models that can, for example, turn 2D ultrasound images into data that helps doctors diagnose problems, or automatically analyze scans to help surgeons plan operations. Its vision, like Siemens Healthineers, is to add more complexity to its existing heart models by pulling together scans, ECGs and medical records to create a model that can predict how a heart will respond to therapy in real life. For now, such software is still in the early stages of development and companies will have to work with regulators to thrash out how predictive models can be approved before doctors are willing to trust a diagnosis generated by a machine. Access to high-quality data with enough variation will be crucial, as will be the ability to interpret that data and turn it into something medical professionals can use, say experts. In particular, models will have to be trained on rare cases as they get closer to perfection, said Vivek Bhatt, chief technology officer at GE Healthcare’s clinical care solutions division. “It’s going to be extremely critical to have an ongoing process for getting more data, getting the right kind of data and getting data with those unique cases,” he said. The established medical technology players say their long-running relationships with hospitals and research institutes and vast networks of installed machines will give them an edge over new tech entrants. Siemens Healthineers, GE Healthcare and Philips say their databases are fed with a mixture of publicly available data, data from clinical trials or from collaborations with hospitals — as well as some data from customers. All the data is made anonymous and only used with patients’ consent, they say. Still, some campaigners and academics worry about patients’ data being used primarily by companies as a commercial tool. Boris Bogdan, managing director at Accenture’s life science practice in Switzerland, believes the ownership of data is a gray zone that could lead to a patient backlash if companies start making fortunes from it. “When Facebook started nobody really cared who owned the information,” he said. “Now that people understand that Facebook earns tremendous money with their data, questions like data privacy, data usage and data monetization are becoming more visible.” Source : https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/09/02/world/science-health-world/medical-technology-firms-gets-personal-digital-twins/#.W4uqj62ZOV4