- PatientsLikeMe partnered with Biogen on a study of the use of FitBits for MS patients to better assess mobility in between doctor visits. The 21-day study of 248 PatientsLikeMe patients found a high rate of use and perceived ease of use. Two-thirds (68%) agreed that the device would be useful to them in managing their MS, and 83% said they would continue to use it. PatientsLikeMe also inked a five-year deal with AstraZeneca.
- Partners Healthcare, the tech-forward Boston-based health system, is partnering with Samsung on mobile offerings for chronic condition management that involve remote monitoring for adherence and behavior change.
- Cleveland Clinic is getting into the B2B digital health products biz.
- Several of the initial wave of medical apps for the Apple Watch aim to improve adherence, including medication reminder apps from WebMD and Walgreens. There's also apps from virtual visits service HealthTap and, for doctors, from physician social network Doximity.
- WSJ on Apple's ResearchKit: "Academic researchers doing similar trials might need several years to enroll only a few hundred patients. Pharmaceutical companies need scores of research sites and hundreds of millions of dollars to find 20,000 patients for a major drug trial."
- US Rx drug spending jumped 13% last year, to $374 billion, thanks chiefly to the newer hep C drugs and the end of the “patent cliff (but don’t worry – there’s always another one coming!).”
- Costs becoming central to oncologist-patient discussions: “Some doctors advocate discussing the costs of cancer treatment as they would hair loss, pain or other side effects.”
- A PBM is sounding the cost alarm on Vertex CF drug Kalydeco, basically saying it looks like Sovaldi on steroids.
- Physician photo-sharing app Figure 1 is getting a lot of press. It’s been called “Instagram for doctors,” who can post, say, a picture of a mysterious rash and get other doctors’ input.
- Medical superjourno Charles Ornstein explores the argument that self-tracking could actually prove a health menace and lead to greater overutilization of health services – call it the flip side of the self-diagnosing brain cancer patient. It’s a sidelong riposte to Mark Cuban’s recent call to arms for digital hypochondriacs.
Figure 1 is an Instagram for doctors, allowing them to share medical photos. Photo Credit: Figure 1
- It's not just pharma that's having trouble shifting to a more consumer-oriented approach: “As the consumer is becoming more influential in the healthcare space, a lot of the traditional B2B players, whether that’s providers or insurers, need to have a much more consumer-facing orientation, and a technology that can help them make that transition is great."
- Something very weird just happened in Washington – both houses of Congress passed a bipartisan bill addressing longstanding gaps in the healthcare system, including a permanent solution to a perennial shortfall in Medicare physician payments (i.e., the “Doc Fix,”), while cementing the ACA-spurred move towards qualitative reimbursement.
- And finally, just for laughs, here’s a taste of the gallows-humorous code words HCPs use to talk about unpleasant experiences and patients.
