The material cost of COVID-19 has been at the center of public discourse since the early days of the pandemic. In 2020, growth in federal government spending on healthcare increased 36 percent, compared to the 5.9 percent bump in 2019. While the distribution of vaccines has allowed for a version of pre-pandemic life to resume, hospitals are still not recovered from the high rates of hospitalizations that occurred in March 2020, and the indirect costs of the pandemic continue to loom over the American population as a result of strained health systems. 

During the early days, the cost of hospitalizing a patient seemed obvious: the sheer volume of long stays, expensive ventilators, a lack of one-size-fits-all treatment solutions, and the pause of elective surgeries. Now, Covid-19 continues to wreak havoc on our health systems, but in a more covert way. With only 4% of Americans fully boosted as we move into this winter’s ‘triple-demic’ – and long covid impacting the lives of as many as 16 million people on a daily basis – it’s clear that public health officials need to do more in order to support the American population and our struggling health systems. 

The Cost of Healthcare Provider Burnout 

Across the country, healthcare providers are reporting extreme rates of burnout. It is important to underscore that healthcare providers and hospital systems were stressed prior to Covid-19, but the pandemic has exacerbated it. Employment across healthcare is down 1.3 percent, or 223,000 jobs, from pre-pandemic levels. Over 90 percent of nurses said they are considering quitting their jobs by the end of 2022 in a survey, with 72 percent of nurses stating they had already experienced burnout before March 2020. In addition, the increased stress that doctors have experienced is resulting in worse patient care – with 28% of doctors who reported burnout sharing that the quality of care they are providing has significantly declined. 

We are amid a mass healthcare provider exodus, and, according to estimates, each instance of physician turnover costs healthcare organizations at least $500,000, and each instance of staff registered nurse (RN) turnover costs $46,100. Without proper staffing, hospitals are at risk of closure and patients’ health is at risk of worsening. 

The Cost of Hospital Closures 

Before the pandemic, hospitals closed for several reasons, including insufficient staffing, lack of funding, and/or having a large uninsured patient population. Since March 2020, 21 hospitals across the United States, predominantly in rural areas, have closed. Health systems are still recovering from the significant loss of revenue from canceled appointments – according to a report from The Chartis Center for Rural Health, 82 percent of the rural hospitals surveyed said suspension of outpatient services resulted in a loss of at least $5 million per month. 

So, what happens when hospitals and health systems close? 

Rural areas experience more Covid-19-related deaths than urban communities and public health experts attribute these deaths to the rampant hospital closures, as well as a general lack of healthcare providers. It is a vicious cycle: Covid-19 strains hospital systems, healthcare professionals leave, hospitals close, and more patients will die from infectious diseases like Covid-19, the flu or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) – not to mention the other reverberating public health complications that come as a result of these closures. Vaccinations have helped these hospitals stabilize, but to keep up with covid fatigue and the ever-evolving variants we need a variety of treatments in our arsenal. 

More Covid-19 Treatments Will Bolster Struggling Health Systems  

Increasing the number of vaccinated individuals around the world, in addition to broadening access to effective non-vaccine treatments, such as antivirals and monoclonal antibody therapies, will significantly lessen the impact of the disease on individuals and lessen the burden on the healthcare system. Antiviral treatments have proven to reduce hospitalization, but diversity in treatments is essential to keep up with the ever-evolving Covid-19 variants. Dr. Andrew Pavia, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah Health, was quoted on the effectiveness of antivirals: “If there is anything we know about viruses and antiviral drugs is that eventually, we will see some sort of resistance.” For the time being, antivirals are effective – this is not a call to leverage one type of therapy over another – this is a call to help patients and our health systems survive by equipping healthcare professionals with as many treatments as possible. 

One such treatment that has proven highly effective when applied properly are neutralizing monoclonal antibody therapies. Like antivirals, monoclonal antibodies reduce hospitalization, the risk of death, and shorten the length of the infection – resulting in better patient outcomes and stronger health systems. 

According to Yale Medicine, it is estimated that about three percent of the United States population, or up to 25 million individuals, is considered moderately-to-severely immunocompromised, making them more at risk for serious illness if they contract Covid-19, or other viruses. Monoclonal antibodies are a highly safe and efficacious treatment, which is extremely important for this vulnerable population, especially as a complement to vaccines for prevention. An infusion can reduce the risk of hospitalization by 80 percent or more in a high-risk person, and unlike antivirals, monoclonal antibodies target specific parts of the virus spike protein leading to fewer side effects and interactions with other drugs. 

Collaboration between the government and the biotech industry will be essential for creating a portfolio of therapies to treat a variety of patient profiles who experience a range of Covid-19-related health issues. With our healthcare systems in such a precarious state, investing resources in the development of these treatments will prepare hospitals for future variants that threaten the health of our nation. The hope is that by bulking up our Covid-19 hospital response strategy, our already volatile health system will have a chance to recover, increase individuals’ access to quality healthcare, and ensure a healthier population. 

About Eugene Y. Chan, MD 

Dr. Chan is a physician-inventor. He is currently Chairman, Co-Founder of Abpro, CEO of rHEALTH, and President, CSO of DNA Medicine Institute, a medical innovation laboratory.  He has been honored as Esquire magazine’s Best and Brightest, one of MIT Technology Review’s Top 100 Innovators, and an XPRIZE winner. His work has contributed to the birth of next-generation sequencing, health monitoring in remote environments, and therapeutics. Dr. Chan holds over 60 patents and publications, with work funded by the NIH, NASA, and USAF.  Dr. Chan received an A.B. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard College summa cum laude in 1996, received an M.D. from Harvard Medical School with honors in 2007, and trained in medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  He is one of few individuals who has been in zero gravity. 

Eleven months versus ten years. When you’re waiting for an answer to cure or prevent a disease, that difference can feel like forever. Scientists that developed the COVID vaccine in under a year represent a huge medical breakthrough compared to the standard decade-long vaccine process. The expedited research and development phase showed the world just how quickly the process could occur if given the right resources. 

The key here was better data. Data collaborations quite literally saved lives.
Researchers were able to access troves of data on past vaccinations to shorten the timeline by years, in contrast to the typical long timespan to retrieve accurate and high-quality data. In turn, the medical community provided life-saving treatments to hundreds of millions of people.  The question now is how to expand what we learned from COVID data to speed up medical innovation and revolutionize healthcare. The healthcare market is currently searching for a solution to deliver secure, live data retrieval and data exchange to researchers. 

Scientists and doctors need high-quality, robust data to inform their research and provide crucial care to patients. But healthcare suffers from slow, inefficient, and unstandardized data systems. Retrieving healthcare data is increasingly difficult.   If you have ever done a science experiment or looked at company financials, you know the importance of longitudinal data. Longitudinal medical data shows trends over time and can chart the best course of action for current or future treatments to advance care, ultimately saving patient lives. Healthcare data is one of the strongest assets available to improve care, but regulation and privacy laws are often used as an excuse to limit access. Patients suffer without answers to their health conditions and clinicians lack a longitudinal view of the patient’s journey to understand the complete picture of their health. 

At the same time, researchers lack insight and information that could improve or cure diseases. Data that are secure, real, and live could be revolutionary in the medical world. Instead, the industry seems to find solutions that sidestep the challenges to deliver an answer, even if incorrect.
Real patients are waiting for real answers, but some researchers use artificial data to search for a cure. Synthetic data is easier to obtain and share, but is not a true snapshot of real-world patients, leaving researchers with less accurate and reliable datasets. Computers create synthetic data to mimic real-world data and, as accurate as the numbers may appear, they are still fabricated. 

Another major concern with medical data is security. Patient data should be protected, but data sourced from healthcare providers can be shockingly insecure. Many institutions do not have the bandwidth to store decades of patient records on their systems. The infrastructure needed to house that amount of data is, simply put, massive. Hospitals often decide to solve the problem of data storage by outsourcing their data to third-party servers or the cloud. These systems are vulnerable to cyber-attack and simultaneously risk personal privacy, possibly allowing an illegitimate source to obtain a patient’s health data without his or her knowledge. The benefits of better healthcare data are endless, yet the industry still struggles to get it right.  Live and high-quality data lead to better care for patients. Live data gives researchers the most current information at their fingertips, showing trends that they may miss or falsely identify with older data sets. It offers a faster understanding of diseases and a faster time to medicine.  

The more medical professionals understand about diseases and their patients, the better care they can deliver. Yet the fear of privacy violations has caused the industry to block access to data, making it difficult to understand a patient’s entire history or deliver insights. The solution to the data challenge can be found in decentralized architecture and blockchain. The technology allows a secure and fast data exchange platform to exist, showing scientists a longitudinal view of the patient’s health with strict privacy regulations.

New collaborative approaches can enable data retrieval and data exchange in the most secure way and eliminate the risk of privacy attacks. Simply put, blockchain in healthcare is bulletproof technology.  Data partnerships that offer an open data exchange with high-quality, private, secure, and compliant data will shift the power of research into the hands of scientists to actively save lives. Researchers looking for comprehensive datasets can receive them in mere hours instead of waiting months. The pandemic taught us that a shorter time for medical innovation saves lives. Medical innovation starts with data, and data has the power to spark a healthcare revolution.

About Pam Holt

Pam Holt is the U.S. General Manager at Briya, a data retrieval platform in the healthcare industry. Pam is a veteran in health care leadership, operations, and sales as well as a registered nurse.

What You Should Know:

– Israeli-based G Medical Innovation has withdrawn its plans for an initial public offering (IPO) on Tuesday, Nasdaq first reports.

– The company originally filed an IPO to raise $30 million by offering 5 million shares at a price range of $5 to $7 last month to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol GMVD.

– The recent withdrawal marks the company’s second attempt to go public in the US, previously filing in May 2019 and withdrawing the following August. The company was also previously listed on the ASX (GMV) but recently delisted its shares.

– G Medical Innovations is an early commercial-stage healthcare company developing app-based connected medical devices for vital signs monitoring. The company’s current product offerings include Prizma medical device, a clinical-grade device used to transform smartphones into medical monitoring devices, and Extended Holter Patch System, a multi-channel patient-worn biosensor that captures electrocardiogram data continuously for up to 14 days.

– The company reported $5M in revenue for the 12 months ended June 30, 2020.

What You Should Know:

– Tampa General Hospital announces a seven-year strategic partnership with Philips to innovate and improve patient experience.

– As part of the partnership, Tampa General will replace all bedside patient and vital sign monitors throughout the 1,006-bed hospital and upgrade key imaging equipment in the catheterization laboratories and interventional radiology rooms.

 Tampa General Hospital (TGH) and Philips today announced they are creating a long-term strategic partnership designed to keep Tampa General Hospital at the forefront of technological innovation. Tampa General, one of the largest hospitals in the U.S., will have early and ongoing access to the latest Philips innovations during the seven-year arrangement. This will allow the hospital to continue delivering world-class care while lowering costs.

Terms of the Agreement

Under the terms of this strategic partnership, Philips will provide the hospital with millions of dollars’ worth of new solutions such as new software packages, healthcare informatics, unique workflow solutions and high-level consulting. Tampa General will replace all bedside patient and vital sign monitors throughout the 1,006-bed hospital and upgrade key imaging equipment in the catheterization laboratories and interventional radiology rooms.

In addition, Philips also plans to deliver a standardized platform, providing doctors and clinicians with a better overall view of the patient to help make the best decisions when it comes to diagnosis and providing world-class care.

“This partnership allows us to stay on the leading edge of technology for many years to come, in a cost-effective way,” said TGH President and CEO John Couris. “Philips not only provides new solutions, but also serves as a valuable partner by helping us improve our workflows and optimization. Tampa General’s vision is to become the safest and most innovative academic health system in America, and long-term commitments like this one will help us achieve that vision.”

Seamless Experience for Clinicians and Patients

The transformational partnership shows Tampa General is investing in long-term innovation. Together, Philips and Tampa General have already invested more than 1,000 hours on technology replacement planning and performed over 400 clinical staff interviews to understand how to better improve the patient and staff experience. Philips is also working on a technology replacement plan which includes implementing cloud-based technologies such as Philips PerformanceBridge. This technology gives users a view to all their diagnostic equipment and ensures that TGH gets the latest in medical innovation in a cost-effective, timely way. 

“We are humbled by the heroic work the TGH team is doing during the pandemic and their dedication to constantly improving care across the board, even in these difficult times,” said Vitor Rocha, Chief Philips North America, member of the Executive Committee Royal Philips. “The relationship between TGH and Philips builds on a shared drive for innovation in healthcare – to deliver on the Quadruple Aim, break down the barriers between hospital and home and improve people’s lives. For us, the partnership is more than transactional. It means taking the time to truly understand their patients’ needs and suggest solutions that can address their workflow and service line needs today, while planning for tomorrow.”

What You Should Know:

– Israeli venture capital platform OurCrowd launches $100M Pandemic Fund to invest in companies on the front lines of COVID-19.

– The fund plans to raise $100M to invest in 15-20 companies focused on prevention & containment, treatment & healing, and community & disruption mitigation technology solutions to combat current and future pandemic.

OurCrowd, a Jerusalem, Israel-based crowdfunded-venture investment platform, today announced the launch of its Pandemic Innovation Fund. The Fund plans to raise $100 million to invest in a target of 15-20 companies in urgent technological solutions for the medical, business, educational and social needs triggered by global pandemics and other health emergencies.

Investment Thesis

As humanity unites to fight the Coronavirus Crisis, the Fund will role support those on the front lines of COVID-19 while also funding companies poised to address the secular shifts in the economy that will arise in the post-pandemic world. The Fund aims to realize long-term capital appreciation for its investors by providing investment opportunities mainly in Israeli and Israeli-related companies that enable technology for (i) pandemic prevention and containment, (ii) pandemic treatment and healing and (iii) continuity and disruption mitigation.

Pandemic Fund Investment Focus

OurCrowd’s Pandemic Innovation Fund will invest in a broad mix of critical medical and non-medical sectors:

Prevention & Containment – Early detection & sensors, Vaccines, Testing, Personal protection, etc.

Treatment & Healing – Therapeutics, Diagnostics, Remote monitoring, Telehealth, Digital health, Health record portability

Continuity & Disruption Mitigation – Remote working, Distance learning, Robotic process automation, Home exercise, Cybersecurity, etc.

The Fund will both invest in new startups and select relevant companies already included in OurCrowd’s existing portfolio.

Existing Portfolio

OurCrowd’s portfolio already has more than 20 companies actively working to mitigate the coronavirus crisis and its effects, some of which will be candidates for follow-on investment from the Pandemic Investment Fund. OurCrowd’s existing investments in technologies on the frontlines of coronavirus response include:

MigVax – Developing the MigVax-101 COVID-19 oral subunit vaccine for humans based on a proven platform developed over 4 years that was shown to be a highly effective oral vaccine against IBV (Infectious Bronchitis Virus) in poultry  

Sight Diagnostics – Compact complete blood count analyzer that provides lab-grade results with 2 drops of finger prick blood sample in under 10 minutes

SaNOtize – Approved by Health Canada for multi-center Phase II trial of its Nitric Oxide Releasing Solution (NORSTM) for the prevention and early treatment of COVID-19

TytoCare – Remote physical exams and monitoring for primary care, chronic care and COVID-19 patients, protecting medical staff and reducing the burden on health systems

MeMed – Provides diagnostic insights to distinguish between bacterial and viral infections and is working on actionable solutions to help enable early intervention, before the onset of COVID-19 symptoms, and the implementation of measures to identify infection severity and improve patient management

Techsee – Remote Visual Assistance powered by Computer Vision AI & AR used by leading brands like Vodafone and Verizon to provide uninterrupted tech support while ensuring safety of employees and customers under social distancing

Kryon – Robotic process automation used to transfer and verify millions of coronavirus test results with individual patient health records in a fraction of the normal time 

Intuition Robotics – ElliQ AI-powered intelligent digital companion for the elderly, helping them stay sharp, connected and engaged

Zebra Medical Vision – Zebra-Med’s AI automatically detects and quantifies suspected COVID-19 findings on standard chest CTs, both contrast and non-contrast, and is already integrated in Apollo Hospitals Group in India

Advisors to the Fund, portfolio company experts, and top speakers from around the world will participate in the OurCrowd Pandemic Innovation Conference – an online event on June 22, 2020, broadcast from Jerusalem.

Pandemic Fund Management Team

The Fund’s general partners are:

Morris Laster – Healthcare executive with over 30 years’ experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, an expert in the identification, development, management, and financing of biomedical technologies who has founded six companies that have gone public.

Morry Blumenfeld – Venture Partner and Chairman of the Medical Advisory Board at OurCrowd, with a distinguished 30+ year career in medical innovation at GE Medical Systems.

David Sokolic – OurCrowd Venture Partner, 20+ year career at startups, technology leaders, and VC funds including, Microsoft, Radvision, and Battery Ventures.

“Together we must tackle the current pandemic as well as plan for future ones, because this story is just beginning. Entrepreneurs are uniquely skilled to provide fast and effective solutions to some of our greatest challenges. Our new fund will create the bridge between the innovations we need and the far-sighted investors able to provide the resources required to improve our world,” Dr. Morris Laster, Fund Partner said.

Availability to Investors

The fund is open to both accredited private investors (minimum $50,000) and institutional investors (minimum $1,000,000) and further information about this opportunity is available at www.ourcrowd.com.

– Deloitte is now working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its new cloud-based service AWS Data Exchange to help organizations quickly and easily find, access and share data from other institutions securely.

– Deloitte and AWS Data Exchange together will help organizations and researchers uncover the value created from the vast amounts of data generated throughout the healthcare ecosystem. Most of this data has been inaccessible – and if it is accessible, it’s difficult to find and obtain.

– Deloitte and AWS Data Exchange solve this challenge by enabling new collaborative business models between healthcare stakeholders, creating a secure and scalable infrastructure for data exchange.

Deloitte today announced its work with AWS Data Exchange, a new service that makes it easier for millions of Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers to securely find, subscribe to and use third-party data in the cloud. Building on its existing relationship with AWS, Deloitte is addressing unique healthcare data challenges by providing a suite of services integrated with AWS Data Exchange that can help create an efficient, robust and secure healthcare data ecosystem and apply that to the transformation of biomedical research, clinical trials, real-world data insights, population health and reimbursement.

There has been an explosion of digital health data and more is being generated every day by patients, researchers, health systems, payers, digital health startups and many others. Most of this data, however, is inaccessible to other organizations for collaboration for myriad reasons ranging from security concerns to technology constraints to business model challenges. These challenges mean that the healthcare system is not fully benefiting from the insights from the secondary use of all this digital health data. This slows the pace of medical innovation and limits the potential to improve the lives of patients and the healthcare system.

AWS Data Exchange allows these new collaborative business models to develop between healthcare stakeholders by creating a secure, scalable infrastructure for de-identified data exchange under terms and conditions data owners can control. In addition, the AWS ecosystem of software providers and services providers means that customers of AWS Data Exchange will benefit from third-party software, AI/ML algorithms and professional services, many of which are available in AWS Marketplace.

ConvergeHEALTH Miner

ConvergeHEALTH Miner is already helping life sciences and healthcare clients derive insights from data they generate. ConvergeHEALTH Miner’s integration with AWS Data Exchange means users of Miner can now not just search and analyze data within their own organization but easily find, access and provision aggregated and de-identified data from potential collaborators outside their organization. This combination has the potential to redefine the way institutions approach research, clinical trials, pharmacovigilance, population health, and reimbursement by giving organizations access to a myriad new digital data sources in addition to their own data. Additionally, this provides a place for enabling these new data-driven business models.

AWS Data Exchange API Integration with Deloitte ConvergeHEALTH

The integration of the AWS Data Exchange API in Deloitte ConvergeHEALTH represents a great example of the sum being greater than the parts. As life sciences and healthcare organizations use more and more data to perform smarter research, improve patient outcomes and improve our collective well-being, Deloitte is helping these organizations establish their strategies around the patient-permissible exchange of aggregated or anonymized healthcare data, while also helping data publishers with the engineering tasks needed to package their data for publication. AWS Data Exchange then provides a secure and cloud-native channel to exchange data at scale, with cloud-based solutions such as ConvergeHEALTH’s Miner supporting the analytical needs for data analysts, academic researchers and data scientists in the medical community.

Deloitte and AWS Data Exchange will help organizations and researchers uncover the tremendous value created from the vast amounts of data generated throughout the healthcare ecosystem. From advancing patient care to discovering new medicines, real-world data can help guide the future of health. Deloitte’s Life Sciences & Healthcare (LSHC) practice — including ConvergeHEALTH — does this through a suite of services that enable life sciences and healthcare organizations to easily find the right healthcare data and create meaningful scale.

·  Deloitte’s Analytics & Cognitive practice helps healthcare organizations extract, cleanse, abstract, de-identify and transform their electronic medical record, lab, registry, and other data into formats for insights for their own use as well as new collaborative models with other organizations using AWS Data Exchange.

·  Deloitte’s LSHC practice brings deep industry expertise from across the healthcare ecosystem to help establish new collaborative business models between patient advocacy groups, academic research organizations, health systems, health plans and life sciences organizations. 

·Deloitte’s ConvergeHEALTH Miner and OpenCloud platforms create a powerful and secure managed cloud service for multiorganization collaboration including novel multicenter research collaborations, clinical trial design, and outcomes-based contracting.

“The explosion of digital healthcare data and advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) hold the promise to answer some of healthcare’s most important questions — what’s working for whom, why and at what cost,” said Brett Davis, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, and general manager, ConvergeHEALTH by Deloitte. “However, this data is locked in siloes across many organizations within the health ecosystem. The industry needs new business models that break down these silos to connect healthcare stakeholders, reduce inefficiencies and accelerate the translation of research to practice and improve patient outcomes. AWS Data Exchange provides the technology and infrastructure to support these new business models.”

Today at the 2019 Medical Innovation Summit, Cleveland Clinic today announced the Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2020. The 17^th  annual Medical Innovation Summit is organized by Cleveland Clinic Innovations, the development, and commercialization arm of Cleveland Clinic. Led by Michael Roizen, M.D., Emeritus Chief Wellness Officer at Cleveland Clinic, the list of up-and-coming technologies was selected by a panel of Cleveland Clinic physicians and scientists.

Here a look at the top 10 medical innovations for 2020 with the power to transform healthcare in the next year:

1. Dual-Acting Osteoporosis Drug

Osteoporosis is a condition in which bones become weak and brittle, effectively increasing their risk of breaking. With osteoporosis, the loss of bone occurs silently and progressively – often without symptoms until the first fracture. Providing more bone-strengthening power, the recent FDA approval of a new dual-acting drug (romosozumab) is giving patients with osteoporosis more control in preventing additional fractures.

2. Expanded Use of Minimally Invasive Mitral Valve Surgery

The mitral valve allows blood flow from the heart’s left atrium to the left ventricle. But in about 1 in 10 individuals over the age of 75, the mitral valve is defective causing the action of regurgitation. Expanding the approval of a minimally invasive valve repair device to a population of patients who have failed to get symptom relief from other therapies provides an important new treatment option.

3. Inaugural Treatment for Transthyretin Amyloid Cardiomyopathy

A disheartening cardiovascular disorder, ATTR-CM is a progressive, underdiagnosed, potentially fatal disease in which amyloid protein fibrils deposit in, and stiffen, the walls of the heart’s left ventricle. But a new agent to prevent misfolding of the deposited protein is showing a significantly reduced risk of death. Following Fast-Track and Breakthrough designations in 2017 and 2018, 2019 marked the FDA approval of tafamidis, the first-ever medication for the treatment of this increasingly recognized condition.

4. Therapy for Peanut Allergies

It’s a terrifying reality for 2.5 percent of parents – the possibility that at any moment, their child might be unable to breathe due to an allergic reaction. Though emergency epinephrine has reduced the severity and risk of accidental exposure, these innovations are not enough to quell the ever-present anxiety. But the development of a new oral immunotherapy medication to gradually build a tolerance to peanut exposure holds the opportunity to lend protection against attack.

5. Closed-Loop Spinal Cord Stimulation

Chronic pain is a terribly frustrating condition and a large reason for the prescription of opioid medication. Spinal cord stimulation is a popular treatment for chronic pain through which an implantable device provides an electrical stimulus to the spinal cord. But unsatisfactory outcomes due to subtherapeutic or overstimulation events are common. Closed-loop stimulation is allowing for better communication between the device and the spinal cord providing more optimal stimulation and relief of pain.

6. Biologics in Orthopaedic Repair

After orthopedic surgery, the body can take anywhere from months to years to recover. But biologics – cells, blood components, growth factors, and other natural substances – have the power to replace or harness the body’s own power and promote healing. These elements are finding their way into orthopedic care, allowing for the possibility of expedited improved outcomes.

7. Antibiotic Envelope for Cardiac Implantable Device Infection Prevention

Worldwide, roughly 1.5 million patients receive an implantable cardiac electronic device every year. In these patients, infection remains a major, potentially life-threatening complication. Antibiotic-embedded envelopes are now made to encase these cardiac devices, effectively preventing infection.

8. Bempedoic Acid as Cholesterol-Lowering Statin Compliment

High cholesterol is a major concern for nearly 40 percent of adults in the U.S. Left untreated, the condition could lead to serious health problems like heart attack and stroke. Though typically managed with statins, some individuals experience unacceptable muscle pain with statins. Bempedoic acid provides an alternative approach to lowering of LDL-cholesterol while avoiding these side effects.

9. PARP Inhibitors for Maintenance Therapy in Ovarian Cancer

PARP, or poly-ADP ribose polymerase, inhibitors block repair of damaged DNA in tumor cells which increases cell death, especially in tumors with deficient repair mechanisms.  One of the most recent important advances in ovarian cancer treatment, PARP inhibitors, have improved progression-free survival and is now being approved for first-line maintenance therapy in advanced-stage disease. Several additional large-scale trials are underway with PARP inhibitors set to make great strides in improving outcomes in cancer therapy.

10. Drugs for Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction

Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) – also known as diastolic heart failure – is the condition in which the ventricular heart muscles contract normally, but do not relax as they should. With preserved ejection fraction, the heart is unable to properly fill with blood – leaving less available to be pumped out to the body. Currently, recommendations for this treatment are directed at accompanying conditions and mere symptom relief. But SGLT2 inhibitors, a class of medications used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes, are now being explored in HFpEF – alluding to a potential new treatment option.

– Mayo Clinic selects Google Cloud to be their cornerstone of its digital transformation in a 10-year strategic partnership agreement.

– Google Cloud will secure and store Mayo Clinic’s data while working with Mayo Clinic to apply AI and other cloud computing technologies to solve complex healthcare problems.

– Mayo Clinic will leverage Google Cloud to conduct medical research, developing and deploying new machine learning models designed to improve treatment precision and clinical outcomes of diseases.

– Google will open a new office in Rochester where its engineers with work with Mayo Clinic researchers, physicians, data scientists, and IT staff.

Mayo Clinic, today announced it has selected Google Cloud to be the cornerstone of its digital transformation efforts as part of a 10-year strategic partnership. Mayo Clinic will leverage Google Cloud’s advanced cloud computing, data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to redefine healthcare delivery, bringing together global providers and consumers to make healthcare better.

Accelerating The Pace of Healthcare Innovation Through Digital Technologies

With the help of Google Cloud, Mayo Clinic will transform the way it advances virtual care with AI-enabled digital diagnostics. Mayo also will leverage Google technology to boost its ability to conduct medical research. Through this partnership, Mayo Clinic will be able to develop and deploy new machine learning models designed to improve treatment precision and clinical outcomes of diseases.

Mayo Clinic to Secure & Store Patient Data in Google Cloud

Google Cloud will secure and store Mayo Clinic’s data while working with Mayo Clinic to apply AI and other cloud computing technologies to solve complex health care problems. However, Mayo Clinic will continue to control access and use of its patient data by using Google’s cloud technologies. Mayo Clinic will specifically authorize the use of data in projects to create new health care insights and solutions in conjunction with partners, including Google. Mayo Clinic will manage access to all data using rigorous long-standing institutional controls.

Google to Open New Office in Rochester

As part of the partnership, Google also will open a new office in Rochester, where its engineers will work side by side with Mayo Clinic researchers, physicians, information technology staff and data scientists, to apply advanced computing techniques to healthcare problems.

“We’re proud to partner with the Mayo Clinic in its mission to bring the best health care to every patient,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai. “Health care is one of the most important fields that technology will help transform over the next decade, and it’s a major area of investment for Google. By pairing the Mayo Clinic’s world-class clinical expertise with our capabilities in AI and cloud computing, we have an extraordinary opportunity to develop services that will significantly improve lives.”

What This Partnership Means for Patients

“Data-driven medical innovation is growing exponentially, and our partnership with Google will help us lead the digital transformation in health care,” says Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., president and CEO of Mayo Clinic. “It will empower us to solve some of the most complex medical problems; better anticipate the needs of people we serve; and meet them when, where and how they need us. We will share our knowledge and expertise globally while caring for people locally and always do it with a human touch.”

Wellframe, a Boston, MA-based mobile-enabled care management solution has been awarded a patent for a mobile-enabled method to monitor and improve patient compliance with care programs.  Wellframe’s mobile-enabled care solution extends the reach and effectiveness of a clinical team by delivering a customized, interactive, daily health checklist to patients on their smartphone or tablet, collecting valuable, day-to-day-health information, and enabling high-touch, sustained, and supportive relationships between patients and their care team through secure mobile messaging. The Wellframe mobile solution also supports a new concierge service to help patients get their benefits questions answered, navigate the healthcare system, and pursue their health goals—all through a single, direct communication channel.

“Our vision in developing this technology was grounded in finding a new way to put patients back at the center of the health system. We are able to deliver a personalized, adaptive care experience to each patient. We can enable each clinician to practice at the top of their license and spend more time caring for patients rather than chasing down patients on the phone. We believe that this is how care should be delivered, and we are pleased that our health plan and provider partners have realized the benefits of the Wellframe approach described in this technology patent,” said Trishan Panch, Wellframe’s Chief Medical Innovation Officer.

Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said that “electronic health records are a critical piece to the future of medical innovation” during the first oversight hearing on the 21st Century Cures Act.   Today, the committee held the first oversight hearing on the 21st Century Cures Act, which became law in December 2016 and was called “the most important legislation” of the year by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“Last December, we passed the 21st Century Cures Act, legislation we hope will help virtually every American family by taking advantage of breathtaking advances in biomedical research,” Alexander said. “As we worked on Cures, we learned that in order for most areas of the bill to succeed, it was essential that electronic health records systems work properly.”

“For example, the precision medicine initiative aims to assemble one million genomes to help doctors tailor treatment to patients. But most of that information the head of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, is trying to collect, will flow through electronic health records. And the more we looked into these systems, the more we realized our nation’s system of electronic health care records was in a ditch. The goal of the health IT provisions in Cures was to make it easier for patients to access their health records and for doctors and hospitals to get the information they need to treat patients,” added Alexander. “The law set clear deadlines for the administration to meet and I would like to hear how implementation of these provisions is going. For example, are doctors spending less time on administrative tasks and more time with patients?”

The committee will have additional implementation hearings in December on the sections dealing with the research, development, and approval of innovative treatments, cures, and medical devices, and on the reforms to mental health programs.