One of the many lessons I have learned as an Army wife is that in the military, if you’re not at least five minutes early to an appointment, you’re late. So I had to laugh when Mike Dunford, senior VP of human resources at Covidien (Dublin, Ireland and Mansfield, Massachusetts), told me that in a room full of military veterans, “by 7:40 everybody was in their chairs and ready to go” for an 8 a.m. meeting Monday. Dunford, a former Marine, is a...

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF; Princeton, New Jersey) reported that five research teams have demonstrated clear potential for improving healthcare delivery and outcomes, as well as patient engagement, through the use of personal technology. RWJF's Project HealthDesign program saw patients from around the nation use technologies such as smartphone apps, sensors, iPads and others to collect information from their daily lives and share it with their healthcare providers to see if clinical care could be enhanced.

I have been reporting medical technology news for close to six years and one thing that has consistently amazed me during that time has been the fact that simplicity often beats bells and whistles. The most recent example of this is the newly launched Kickstart Kinetic Orthosis from Cadence Biomedical (Seattle), a wearable device designed to help people with weakened muscles or disabilities regain mobility and independence. Amazingly, this new device was inspired by the anatomy of horses. It turns out a researcher from the Cleveland...