Telemedicine provider American Well and Samsung Electronics are collaborating to create a new level of healthcare service in regards to consumer reach, interoperability and accessibility, but they aren’t yet disclosing what that end user experience will look like.While both companies were short on specifics, they described the partnership as one presenting a “tremendous opportunity,” that will leverage Samsung’s leadership position in consumer electronics with American Well’s enterprise telehealth service called the Exchange, which the company launched last year.
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Patient engagement company Medfusion acquired NexSched, which makes a patient-facing appointment scheduling tool. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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Teladoc became the latest telemedicine company to incorporate connected devices into its offering via an expanded partnership with FDA-cleared connected thermometer company Kinsa. The Teladoc app will automatically detect the Kinsa app on a user’s phone, and guide the user to Kinsa. Users can also import up to 10 days of temperature readings into the Teladoc platform from the Kinsa app. That data goes into the physician's view of the patient's health record.
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Healthcare IT security company Imprivata has partnered with Connected Technology Solutions to allow self-service, single patient registration at CTS check-in kiosks. Imprivata’s identifier technology is called PatientSecure and enables hospitals to use biometric palm vein scans at CTS kiosks to verify medical information, insurance validation and co-pay collection without the need for doctors or patients to manually enter the information.
“The use of biometric identification at registration kiosks is a great addition to our solutions and helps transform the entire registration and intake process, working directly with the Epic EHR,” Marc Avallone, vice president of sales and business development at CTS said in a statement. “Integrating Imprivata PatientSecure palm-vein biometrics with our kiosks has sped up the patient identification process and assures positive patient identification every time. This improves patient safety, overall registration throughput, and ultimately enhances the entire patient experience.”
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Healthcare IT company Praxify, which makes apps and software to augment EHRs and improve workflow, officially launched at HIMSS following a successful pilot with Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami. Praxify’s two products are MIRA, a mobile app designed to improve EHR usability by collecting, analyzing and displaying relevant patient data on an easy to read interface; and SIYA, a care management platform for payers, providers and patients. At Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, doctors tried out MIRA (which also features voice-activated digital assistance and adaptable templates), and reported a 30 percent uptick in their documentation and order creation speed. Praxify is also an Apple Mobility Partner and has worked with the tech giant to design the product to fit specifically for a doctor’s mobile workflow.
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Montreal-based Tactio Health, which makes mobile apps and device and app-connected platforms to enable remote monitoring, is working with wearable company Garmin to develop a telehealth program specifically focused on senior citizens. Garmin and Tactio have collaborated since 2014, and after running some pilots to identify which criteria are most important to seniors (such as a unified user experience and long battery life), the two companies have created a product that directly integrates vivofit 3 wearables with the TactioRPM patient apps. The single, unified offering allows payers, providers and pharma to conduct health and wellness monitoring programs with a single patient-facing app.
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Salesforce is now integrating Validic’s personal health data connectivity platform with its Customer Relationship Management system and Salesforce HealthCloud. The integration adds a “Health/Wellness” application into the CRM, so Salesforce can securely view Validic-provided data from over 400 personal health devices – such as those that track sleep, weight and biometrics from remote chronic condition monitoring – through displays stored natively in the Salesforce interface, allowing for care teams to manage patient populations in near real-time.
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AssistRx, maker of a cloud-based patient access workflow platform called iAssist, announced an integration with Surescripts’ Electronic Prescribing platform. Users will have access to the iAssist platform through the Surescripts network, with the multi-pronged goal of simplifying patients’ access to medication as well as improved medication adherence and outcomes.
Surescripts also announced the expansion of its National Record Locator Service, with four more major health systems taking it live this week. These last few partnerships signal Surescripts' deployment in all 50 states across 10 major metropolitan areas. The NRLS, which was launched in January, equips providers with quick, easy access to clinical records for 230 million patients and four billion nationwide patient visit locations, which includes hospitals, physician practices and community medical clinics.
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The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, the research arm of New York healthcare provider Northwell Health, announced an alliance with GE Ventures to advance bioelectronics research. The collaboration and investment from GE Ventures will focus on discovering, developing and commercializing new diagnostic and therapeutic solutions in bioelectronics medicine for a range of acute and chronic diseases and injuries, including cancer, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases.
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IBM Watson Health announced a few new partnerships: Massachusetts nonprofit healthcare provider Atrius Health will work with IBM Watson to develop a cloud-based service to improve the doctor-patient experience. Using the Watson Cognitive Insights platform, Atrius hopes to get a holistic view of the myriad influence on an individual’s health, such as social determinants, and subsequently deliver point-of care support through analytics.
The Central New York Care Collaborative also tapped IBM Watson to develop a regional population health management platform to reduce Medicaid costs (primarily by decreasing avoidable hospital visits) throughout the 2,000-plus healthcare and community-based providers in the CNYCC system.
