FCC commissioners united on telemedicine. In an editorial in the Boston Globe yesterday, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai and former commissioner Newton N. Minow presented a unified front on the importance of rural telemedicine. In the article, Pai and Minow stressed the importance of high-speed internet in rural communities and interstate licensing compacts to make sure communities can fully benefit.
"While the benefits of digital health care are clear, we’ve been too slow to embrace its potential," Pai and Minow wrote. "According to a recent white paper, fewer than one in five Americans regularly benefit from telehealth services. It’s time we integrated communications technology into our health care system just as fully as we have in other parts of our lives."
DrChrono tempts Practice Fusion customers. Now that Practice Fusion has been acquired by Allscripts, it has abandoned one of its core differentiators: the EHR software will no longer be free. Now competitor DrChrono is offering a special deal to Practice Fusion customers in the hopes of courting them away. The offer includes discounted pricing, free data transfer, and even a free iPad.
TriNetX launches new analytics suite. Clinical trial data analysis company TriNetX has announced and demonstrated its next product, TriNetX Research. The analytics suite will help users to leverage real-world data for observational and outcomes research.
"There is a tremendous need to enable researchers to quickly generate clinical evidence powered by up-to-date, real-world clinical data, including genomic and oncology facts," Gadi Lachman, CEO of TriNetX, said in a statement. "By connecting researchers directly with longitudinal data and self-service, cloud-distributed analytics, they can now generate and test their hypotheses and answer complex questions at the speed of thought."
Montreal incubator supports assistive app. Montreal, Quebec-based technology incubator CENTECH has given a $10,000 award to Innodem Neurosciences, a company that has created a mobile app to help patients with neurological conditions communicate. The app uses a device's camera to track a user's eye movements, allowing otherwise noncommunicative patients to express themselves. While the technology itself is not novel, putting it on a smartphone could greatly increase access to a technology that currently requires expensive bespoke hardward.
Doctors in demand. Telemedicine company Doctor On Demand announced today it has surpasses 1 million video visits. The company expects to hit 2 million by 2019.
"Our mission is to improve the world’s health through compassionate care and innovation. We built Doctor On Demand four years ago to provide the easiest, most convenient access to some of the best care in the country,” Hill Ferguson, CEO, Doctor On Demand, said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to expand our platform capabilities and shape the future of healthcare.”
ResMed returns strong results. At the ATS 2018 International Conference, respiratory health tech company ResMed announced two studies using large real-world data samples. One study looked at the effects of remote monitoring on positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy adherence and found that 75 percent of patients who used ResMed's remote patient monitoring met CMS standards of compliance. The second study looked at ResMed's resupply program, which helped patients to sleep longer at night and improved their adherence as well.
