Things & Thinks XXVII
4 min readOct 7, 2021
For this month edition of Things & Thinks, I have collated three recent digital health publications in a research digest and these summaries are followed by the usual digital health news round-up. To end the newsletter, I follow it up with ‘Monthly Pick Series’ with Chart, Tweet and Longread of the Month.
Happy Reading!
Research Digest
- A study on workplace wellness programs did not detect any substantial changes in employment outcomes, health care spending, or health outcomes. What we did see at both 18 months and 3 years were improvements in health behaviors. For example, the wellness program increased the share of employees who reported actively managing their weight by about 18% and getting regular exercise by 16%. However, those changes in self-reported health behaviors did not translate to lower blood pressure or weight.
- CureApp published results of a well-designed study for its digital therapeutic app, that provides personalized treatment guidelines to users based on various user generated data and patterns. At the end of the 12 week study, they found improvement in many aspects of the desired endpoints including reduction in 24-h ambulatory SBP, body weight, BMI, salt intake and others. What was interesting was that the mobile app engagement was significantly higher, as compared to what I have seen in other such studies. This can mean that the product teams did an exceptional job in designing the app for user engagement, or it can mean that the selected population turned out to be more engageable.
- The good folks at Digital Medicine Society published important findings from a systematic review on status of academic research on clinically relevant digital measures. The three most underrepresented areas of research into digital clinical measures were ethics, security, and data rights and governance. Movement and activity trackers were the most commonly studied sensor type, and physiological (mechanical) sensors were the least frequently studied.
Digital Healthcare news-
- Tech in Digital Health: Apple iPhone’s latest software update, iOS 15, launched Sept. 20 and will allow users to share their Health app data with their physicians. Six EHR companies are participating in the launch, including Cerner, Allscripts, Meditech and DrChrono. Truveta, a deidentified data platform founded by 14 health systems, is partnering with Microsoft to scale the platform globally and help it reach new clients. Houston Methodist and Amazon Web Services are collaborating to bring voice assistants into hospital settings.
- Regulatory/Policy Brief: Paige.AI received US FDA approval for its Paige Prostate software through its De-Novo premarket review pathway. US FDA also announced set up of a new Office of Digital Transformation (ODT), bringing together information technology (IT), data management and cybersecurity functions. NHS Digital launches Data Uses Register to improve transparency by enabling insights to see which organisations access data, the purposes for which they are permitted to use it and the expected benefits. The U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is overhauling its regulations applying to software and artificial intelligence as a medical device. India launched its digital health mission, aiming to create digital health infrastructure to provide universal health coverage with unique health identification numbers for all citizens.
- Pharma giant Merck & Co acquired Acceleron Pharma for $11.5 billion.
- Philips and Teladoc Health will combine their virtual care offerings to conduct remote patient monitoring across health facilities with limited clinical resources for hospitals and health systems in Australia and New Zealand.
- Genetic testing company Invitae acquired Ciitizen, a digital health record company for $325M
- Indian online pharmacy PharmEasy acquired Aknamed, a cloud-based hospital supply chain management startup.
- Total funding for digital health companies by Q3 2021 was $21.3 billion, surpassing the full-year total of 2020 ($14.6 B).
📊Healthcare Chart of the Month:
This graph from a recent JAMA article is remarkable, showing the constant decline in US expenditure on inpatient services as % of total healthcare expenditure and more remarkable increase in home health and outpatient expenses.
🔗Healthcare Tweet of the Month:
📘Healthcare Longread of the Month:
We have all felt wonder, curiosity and inspiration about the launch of mRNA vaccines. This article in Nature- The tangled history of mRNA vaccines- is a perfect read to understand the challenges, scientific mettle and just the sheer complexities of this ‘overnight success story’.
