During the winter of 1944, the Nazis blocked food supplies to the western Netherlands, creating a period of widespread famine and devastation. The impact of starvation on expectant mothers produced one of the first known epigenetic “experiments” — changes resulting from external rather than natural genetic influences — which suggested that the body’s physiological responses to hardship could be inherited. The underlying mechanism, however, remained a mystery.
Healthcare technology is hot stuff, with startups and investors from Silicon Valley to the Charles River chasing after the next paradigm-shifting blockbuster innovation. Each passing quarter sees an ever-increasing tally of eager rounds of funding.
In the first three quarters of 2013, health IT venture capital leapt steadily from $493 million to $623 million to $737 million, according to Mercom Capital Group. By Q1 2014, it was up to $858 million.
For years the standard operating procedure for the medical device world has been: Bring good tech to patients and be rewarded by the market. Healthcare reform and particularly the consolidation of doctor practices is making this model obsolete. Now the challenge is more along the lines of “Justify your existence.”
Device companies have to revamp the traditional business model to show how their products save money and help patients in the long term.
You probably have heard about hospitals adopting electronic health records for patients. But what about mental health institutions or substance-abust facilities? Qualifacts, a provider of cloud-based electronic health record software, is expanding in this direction, thanks to recapitalization it announced today.
Qualifacts provides an online service called CareLogic Enterprise, which enables behavioral health institutions to manage operation, clinical, and financial workflows such as patient intake, authorization, and billing.
Healthcare providers have become more and more interested in addressing the problem of high risk patients returning to hospital.
Patients who have had heart surgery or who suffer from hypertension are very expensive to care for, and much of the expense stems from the patients’ failure to take their medications and follow doctors’ orders at home.
Redwood City, Calif.-based Proteus Digital Health makes a system that reports to caregivers whether or not a patient has taken their meds, as well as a number of other biometric stats.
Migraines aren’t just awful headaches. They are a neurological condition that often come with cluster of syndromes before and after pain starts. These are called prodromes, which can warn some sufferers when a headache is coming, and postdromes, or “migraine hangovers” that can leave patients feeling exhausted.
Among technologists, mobile health is thriving. Since the start of 2013, more than $750 million in venture capital has been invested in companies that do everything from turn your smartphone into a blood pressure gauge to snapping medical–quality images of the inner ear. Apple, Qualcomm, Microsoft, and other corporate giants are creating mobile health products and investing in startups.
The idea is straightforward: the increasing number of smartphones means that small, inexpensive sensors, low-energy Bluetooth, and analytic software make it possible for patients and doctors to capture all kinds of data to improve care. Patients can play a more active role in their own health. Doctors and nurses can make house calls without ever leaving the office.
As medical data goes digital, patients gain power.
In April, a San Francisco–area startup called BaseHealth announced health-management software that integrates diet, exercise, genetic tests, and medical records, then calculates a patient’s risk for more than 40 diseases—including type 2 diabetes, lung cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease—and suggests ways to lower the risk of developing them.
