Med tech firms are becoming quite familiar with the world of digital health in recent years, but this has often been a pairing of strange bedfellows at best up to now. A new report by Accenture on industry adoption of digital health lays out some of the reasons for that, but some impediments come from government, such as the lag in development of regulatory policies for artificial intelligence (AI) and software as a medical device (SaMD).
The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has opened a consultation on the use of five digital health products that can be used to help children and adolescents better manage anxiety or low mood.
Predictive analytics startup Intus Care Inc. scooped up $14.1 million in a series A round led by Deerfield Management. The funds will be used to advance and scale its software platform for geriatric care.
Israeli technology startup foundry Team8 Labs Ltd. has established a new digital health arm aimed at building and scaling digital health companies. The company plans to create six to eight digital health care companies over the next five years, infusing each with $5 million to $10 million in seed money plus additional resources and services.
Endpoint solutions company Clario Inc. has published a roadmap on how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to improve the experience of patients participating in decentralized clinical trials (DCTs).
In a development that is a potential boon for wearables and other sectors of the digital health industry, the U.K.’s NICE has petitioned the National Health Service (NHS) to expand its coverage of devices that monitor patients with Parkinson’s disease. That data would be used by NICE to inform a health technology assessment that might ultimately boost sales of these devices if the data suggest a strong benefit to patients and to the U.K. health care budget.
Nuralogix Corp. has trained machine learning models to interpret blood flow patterns in facial scans to predict whether an individual has prediabetes. The model runs on a smartphone app, which could increase awareness of the risk of developing diabetes in a significant portion of the population.
Medical science has been experimenting with smart devices for several years to determine whether these products can detect circulatory system diseases, and a study presented at the 2022 meeting of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC 2022) seems to strongly suggest that the answer is a resounding yes. The eBRAVE-AF study of more than 5,500 enrollees of middle age or older demonstrated the ability of a smartphone camera and a downloadable app to at beat conventional screening for atrial fibrillation (AF), a finding that could save lives and boost the prospects of device makers in the digital health space.
Cue Health Inc. rolled out a same-day, at-home, test-to-treatment program through its Cue Health app for any patient in the U.S. with a positive result from its COVID-19 test. The service includes a virtual, on-demand visit with a health care professional to discuss the test result; a prescription for medication to treat the virus, if appropriate; and home delivery of the medication, typically within hours of the visit. Medications may also be made available for pickup at a local pharmacy.
