Over the span of two days last week, Voalte, Audax Health and Google made mobile health hires. Over the span of a month, there have been seven total hiring announcements. While Voalte's new hire has a background in health, some, like Audax's addition of Zynga Chief Operating Officer (COO) David Ko was brought on to grow the company in a new way. MobiHealthNews has compiled a list of all the recent hires.
Voalte hires former Johns Hopkins IT Executive Kenda West as its COO. West also held positions at MedStar Health, Peninsula Regional Medical Center and McKesson. Voalte provides nurses with voice, alert and text capabilities on a hospital-wide system. While the service is primarily used on iPod touch devises, it also works on iPhones and iPads. A few months before West's appointment, Voalte promoted its founder Trey Lauderdale to president.
Audax Health added former Zynga COO, David Ko, to its executive board. Prior to his stint at Zynga, Ko was at Yahoo for 10 years. At Audax Health, Ko will be involved with "strategy, business development and mobile operations, particularly as the company increases the capabilities of its flagship platform, Zensey," according to the press release. Social engagement platform maker Audax has three products, their flagship product Zensey, a health assessment tool and Battle by the Bay. A few weeks prior to the hire, Audax raised $20 million in a round led by Florida Blue.
Toumaz Limited has appointed Founder and former CEO of Synergy Health Dr Richard Steeves as non-executive Chairman. Richard has replaced former executive Chairman and Toumaz founder Chris Toumazou, who will remain on the Board as a non-executive director. Toumaz Limited develops low power wireless semiconductor technology that can be used in wireless technologies for hospitals or at home. Steeves will be specifically involved with SensiumVitals, Toumaz's disposable wireless vital signs monitoring system which finished a pilot study in April.
Exco InTouch appointed Founder and Chairman of MyMeds&Me Steve Powell as a non-executive director. Before founding his company, Powell worked at Phase Forward. Tim Davis, chief executive of Exco InTouch, said in a press release he was, "impressed with the way [Powell] guided Phase Forward – and much of the rest of our industry – through the move to electronic data capture."
Google hired Chairman and former CEO of Genentech Arthur Levinson, as CEO of its new health and well-being company, Calico. On the new company Google CEO Larry Page said: “Illness and aging affect all our families. With some longer term, moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotechnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives." Google's last health venture, Google Health, was canned in 2011 after two years out of beta. Levinson will remain Chairman of Genentech, director of Hoffmann-La Roche, and Chairman of Apple.
WellDoc announced a new board of directors: Dr. David Levy, a former PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) global healthcare leader, Terry Lierman, the chief of staff to house minority whip Steny Hoyer, Donald Almeida, former vice chairman of PwC, and Michael Greenebaum, founder of Greenebaum Enterprises. The team was brought on to help the company further commercialize its recently launched BlueStar product.
PatientPoint hired former AT&T CMIO Dr. Geeta Nayyar as its CMIO. At PatientPoint, Nayyar aims to focus on patient engagement and “meeting the patient where they are.” PatientPoint, acquired last year by Healthy Advice Networks, offers a care coordination platform on which patients and healthcare providers can communicate.
