Things & Thinks — XXXII
As we start with the third month of this year (which is turning out to be a more challenging one than the past two years…), the pace of work continues to pick up for everyone. And so in this issue, we have a quick review of some interesting research in digital health, the usual news round up and the monthly Longread, Tweet and Chart of the Month sections. Hope you like the curation.
Research Digest
Digital Health and Real-world evidence generation
Digital Medicine Society (@_dimesociety) and health innovation hub (hih), the think tank financed by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Health convened international experts from 35+ organizations to discuss use of RWE generation for digital medicine products and shared global best practices for broad acceptance of digital health applications. This viewpoint in Lancet Digital Health covers the outcomes of this discussion. The article highlights topic areas where precompetitive collaboration, research, and the development of best practices will speed broad acceptance of high-quality evidence to support digital health applications-
- Handling and understanding the implications of missing data during study design and evaluation
- Selecting, defining, validating, and establishing both clinical and non-clinical endpoints
- Identifying whether application plus standard of care versus standard of care alone is sufficient and whether washout periods are indicated
- Testing individual modules or components of digital health applications alone — when, why, and how?
- Understanding and standardising hypothesis testing around whether digital health products are complements or substitutes to existing standards of care
- Disambiguating digital application use from phone ownership in the evaluation of safety and effectiveness
- Characterising the generalisability and transportability of findings to broad populations
- Controlling for clinical professionals who play a critical role in deploying digital tools — especially in the context of research studies — and might be differentially supportive of the product in the clinical study context compared with the real world
- Generating a clear, broadly accepted conceptual framework for when certain approaches are acceptable with respect to data, study design, analytical methods, etc
WHO Policy Brief ‘Ageism in artificial intelligence for health’
The World Health Organization released a policy brief aimed at combating age-related bias in health-related artificial intelligence tools. Of particular importance were eight considerations that the brief asks to follow, that would ensure maximum benefits of AI for elderly patients/users-
- Participatory design of AI technologies by and with older people.
- Age-diverse data science teams.
- Age-inclusive data collection.
- Investments in digital infrastructure and digital literacy for older people, their healthcare providers and their caregivers.
- The establishment of older people’s right to consent to and contest AI recommendations for health.
- Governance frameworks and regulations to empower and work with older people.
- Increased research to understand new uses of AI and how to avoid bias.
- Robust ethics processes in the development and application of AI.
Digital Healthcare News
Tech in Digital Health
Teladoc Health announced this week that it was partnering with Amazon to launch voice-activated virtual care on Alexa-supported Echo devices. Amazon also expanded its in-person services in 20 new US cities, service allowing patients to access urgent or primary care via telehealth.
Verily’s Onduo virtual diabetes care management will be available to “most” of Pittsburgh-based Highmark Health’s adult membership with diagnosed Type 2 diabetes.
Foxconn Technology Group is entering medical device market through its latest partnership in Taiwan with consumer electronics supplier Taiwan Biophotonic Corp. (tBPC) and government-backed Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to develop a long-distance care monitoring platform.
Regulatory/Policy Brief
The US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a new Level II Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) code for “prescription digital behavioral therapy,” which could make it easier for commercial and Medicaid plans to cover these therapies. It will go into effect in April.
The NIST National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence released the final version of the Securing Telehealth Remote Patient Monitoring Ecosystem guidance, designed to support provider organizations with keeping telehealth and remote patient monitoring secured.
India’s National Health Authority (NHA) under its flagship scheme of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) announced the completion of 27 major integrations across government and private sector, taking a step forward towards developing a user-inclusive, integrated and interoperable digital healthcare eco-system for the country.
Artificial intelligence care coordination company Viz.ai landed an FDA 510(k) clearance for its new algorithm designed to detect cerebral aneurysms using CT scans.
The Food and Drug Administration cleared a smartphone app from Tandem Diabetes Care to program insulin delivery for its t:slim X2 insulin pump.
Dutch medtech firm Thirona has been granted Class II CE certification under the EU Medical Devices Regulation (MDR) for its eye disease screening software.
Biopharma/Devices Brief
Takeda, Novartis and Merck contributed to financing $45 million series C funding for Koneska Health,
Funding, Deals, Mergers & acquisitions
Chronic care platform seems to be the buzzword these days, several of whom are in news- Teladoc launching Chronic Care Complete, Biofourmis launching Biofourmis Care, MDLIVE launching a health-monitoring program, .
On close heel are patient engagement tools, as seen through the acquisitions of TapCloud by WellSky (undisclosed), Tryl by YPrime (undisclosed), DayToDay by Babylon,
Other news
Retail giant CVS will collaborate with Medable on a new initiative to grow clinical trial engagement at CVS’s MinuteClinics.
AliveCor rolled out a new credit-card-size personal ECG called the KardiaMobile Card, which is able to take a single-lead ECG in 30 seconds.
Longread of the Month
Not a specifically healthcare longread, but still quite relevant for healthcare innovation, this interview with Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher in the HCI group at Microsoft Research, talks beautifully about what it takes to imagine, the long nose of innovation and the aggregation of existing ideas.
We spend far too much and go far too quickly into problem-solving and don’t spend enough time problem-setting. And that’s the ultimate skill.
Tweet of the Month
This tweet speaks a lot about digital health investments, valuations and sustainability
