Q&A: How the PHE's end could affect telehealth, patient care

Q&A: How the PHE’s end could affect telehealth, patient care

The public health emergency declared in early 2020 was put in place to provide waivers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to ease the burden on hospitals and other providers during the pandemic. It has been extended 12 times since its implementation and is finally slated to end on May 11. Heather Meade, principal at Washington Council Ernst & Young, spoke with MobiHealthNews about how the end of the PHE could affect telemedicine companies’ funding streams and patients’ access to care.  
MobiHealthNews: What are the benefits and detriments to the PHE ending, especially for telehealth?
Meade: I mean, we need permanent policy…

Continue Reading
DrFirst Acquires Diagnotes Secure Messaging and Care Coordination Platform

DrFirst Acquires Diagnotes Secure Messaging and Care Coordination Platform

Expands Backline by DrFirst’s Capabilities for Clinical Communications in Health Systems and Beyond
Healthcare technology pioneer DrFirst today announced it has acquired select assets of Indianapolis-based Diagnotes. The acquisition will allow Backline by DrFirst to expand its capabilities to break through communication silos in healthcare at each stage of the patient care journey, promote positive patient outcomes, and enhance satisfaction for staff and patients.
Diagnotes provides a suite of team-based, patient-centered collaboration tools built specifically for the healthcare sector. The app increases clinicians’ productivity and the quality of patient care by allowing healthcare providers to communicate with colleagues in their system and affiliates in other systems. The…

Continue Reading
The Adderall Shortage

The Adderall Shortage

The current Adderall shortage is of serious concern to both patients who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and clinicians. This shortage cannot be quickly alleviated by a simple increase in the amount of medication manufactured, unless the upper limit to the amount of Adderall’s active ingredient that can be manufactured in a given year is raised by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The limit has been imposed because the active ingredient can be abused as a recreational drug. It is necessary to control the supply of any medication with abuse liability, but this must be achieved without compromising the legitimate…

Continue Reading
SA Telestroke doubles rural treatment capacity after cloud shift

SA Telestroke doubles rural treatment capacity after cloud shift

SA Health has recently turned to the cloud to provide more efficient stroke care to patients living in regional and rural areas.According to a media release, the SA Telestroke Service has been using the cloud-based telehealth platform Zeus to gather vital health information from stroke patients, including brain scans and consultation records, into a single platform. It was deployed by the Australian Stroke Alliance across 61 hospitals in regional SA and Alice Springs in the Northern Territory as part of a five-year agreement with SA Health. 
Since Zeus was launched last year, the service has received over 440 calls.
Meanwhile, SA Health is…

Continue Reading
Medtronic, Zydus Hospitals to facilitate remote stroke care using AI

Medtronic, Zydus Hospitals to facilitate remote stroke care using AI

Zydus Hospitals in Ahmedabad and Medtronic India have tied up to launch an AI-enabled hub-and-spoke network to support stroke patients in the western coastal state of Gujarat. An initiative of the pharmaceutical giant Zydus Group, the multispecialty hospital chain has locations across Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. Its Ahmedabad branch runs two hospitals – a super speciality centre and a primary hospital – with over 660 beds.
HOW IT WORKS
According to a press release, Zydus and Medtronic will leverage locally developed AI technologies to deliver timely diagnosis and treatment to stroke patients living in rural communities. With an AI capability, a team of stroke…

Continue Reading
VinBrain harnesses Stanford data to improve radiology AI

VinBrain harnesses Stanford data to improve radiology AI

Vietnamese healthcare AI developer VinBrain has started a new partnership with Stanford University to enhance AI medical imaging.Based on their latest data use agreement, Stanford will initially provide VinBrain access to about 240,000 anonymised medical images and reports to train and test the AI on its DrAid clinical decision support platform while also helping improve the accuracy of an information extracting method for structuring radiology reports called RadGraph.
WHY IT MATTERS
According to VinBrain, its latest partnership with Stanford aims to enhance efficiency in radiology reports while “tackling complexity, ambiguity, and limitations in medical image interpretation.”
Through Stanford’s support, the company will be able…

Continue Reading
Roundup: First insomnia DTx in South Korea gets regulatory nod and more briefs

Roundup: First insomnia DTx in South Korea gets regulatory nod and more briefs

South Korea clears first local insomnia DTx The South Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has given its first market approval for a digital therapeutic device for treating insomnia, according to a news report.
The mobile-based medical device-as-a-software called Somzz by Aimmed delivers a CBT programme that helps increase sleep duration.
India OKs health monitoring smartwatch CardiacSense
Xplore Health, a medical tech company in India, has received approval from the Indian Regulatory Authority for a wearable health monitoring device it carries.
The company is the distributor of the medical smartwatch product of Israeli medical device developer CardiacSense.
Based on a news report, the smartwatch enables continuous monitoring of vital…

Continue Reading
Is Interoperability Tech Worth the Investment? Experts Say Yes for 3 Reasons

Is Interoperability Tech Worth the Investment? Experts Say Yes for 3 Reasons

Editor’s note: This story is based on discussions at Abarca Forward, a conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, hosted by Abarca, a pharmacy benefit manager. MedCity News’ Editor-in-Chief Arundhati Parmar and Senior Reporter Katie Adams were invited to attend and speak at the conference. All travel and related expenses for the team were covered by Abarca. However, company officials had no input in editorial coverage. 
In order for the U.S. healthcare system to operate smoothly, various stakeholders must cooperate with one another and share data seamlessly. But this notion is far from being achieved — the industry is still seriously plagued by…

Continue Reading
Morning Headlines 2/17/23

Morning Headlines 2/17/23

February 16, 2023 Headlines No Comments Avaya Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy After Cloud Subscription Accounting Woes
Unified communications and collaboration services vendor Avaya, whose healthcare offerings include solutions for virtual care, collaboration, and patient access technology, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in six years.
Elation Health Acquires Medical Billing Company Lightning MD to Accelerate Market’s First Primary Care All-in-One Solution
Primary care EHR vendor Elation Health acquires practice-focused medical billing company Lightning MD.
Spacelabs Healthcare Expands Clinical Informatics Capabilities with Acquisition of Predictive Analytics Company PeraHealth
Spacelabs Healthcare acquires PeraHealth and its Rothman Index patient deterioration software for undisclosed…

Continue Reading