Below you can find digital health industry news, including recently published articles, announcements, opinion pieces from industry thought leaders, event recaps, and profiles of featured Massachusetts digital health companies.
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Source: Telegram & Gazette
By: Susan Spencer
John Dowd of Worcester moved back home a few years ago to care for his father, who had Alzheimer’s disease, while managing his own job in field service, a position that required him to travel. He relied on a panoply of technology to make it work: internet-connected security cameras, shoes with GPS tracking insoles, door alarms, medication dispensers with alerts, Google Calendar and lots of texting among his eight siblings for the “constant rotation” of people bringing in dinners.
Learn MoreSource: LinkedIn
Blog Post from Jonathan Bush CEO and Co-founder at athenahealth.
Learn MoreSource: FierceHealthcare
By: Evan Sweeney
Opportunities exist for digital tools to ease the isolation and stress that family caregivers often experience while caring for a loved one, many of whom are open to solutions that provide easy access to information.
Learn MoreSource: Massachusetts eHealth Institute at MassTech
BOSTON – Today the Massachusetts eHealth Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MeHI) hosted an event to launch a new research report undertaken by the MassINC Polling Group focused on the attitudes of caregivers in Massachusetts toward digital health technologies, identifying challenges faced by these caregivers and ways that they could benefit practically and emotionally from future technologies. The report, “Caregivers and Digital Health: A Survey of Trends and Attitudes of Massachusetts Family Caregivers,” found that over 60 percent of those surveyed said being a caregiver disrupts their lives “a great deal” or a “fair amount,” with many feeling isolated due to the constant 24/7/365 stress of that lifestyle, and also found that digital health technologies could assist with certain challenges.
Learn MoreSource: Boston Globe
By: Scott Kirsner
[T.J.] Parker runs the Somerville startup PillPack, which eliminates the need to visit a pharmacy, delivering prescriptions by mail. Since the company was founded in 2013, it has raised about $118 million in funding, built a highly automated pharmacy in Manchester, N.H., and grown to more than 500 employees.
Along with another Boston startup, ZappRx, it hopes to eliminate the familiar headache of driving to the drugstore and standing in line, only to find that someone forgot to do something, and the crinkly white bag isn’t there waiting for you.
Learn MoreSource: WBUR
By: Rachel Zimmerman
Three digital health startups — one to help detect concussions, another to streamline emergency medicine, and a third to improve the mental health of seniors — were awarded a total of $200,000 Tuesday as part of an innovative accelerator program aimed at boosting such ventures across the state.
Source: PULSE@MassChallenge
BOSTON, JUNE 13, 2017 – MassChallenge, the most startup-friendly accelerator on the planet, tonight awarded shares of $200,000 in zero-equity prizes to three digital health startups from the inaugural PULSE @MassChallenge cohort. More than 600 of the region's engaged digital health community gathered at the Wilbur Theater to celebrate the entrepreneurs, premier a behind-the-scenes documentary of the startups' journey, and hear from leading healthcare organizations and policymakers, including Governor Charlie Baker, who keynoted the event.
Learn MoreSource: Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development
Boston – June 13, 2017 – The Baker-Polito Administration today awarded $250,000 to Digital Health Innovation Labs in the Massachusetts Digital Health Initiative, a second round of funding that will provide $170,000 to support the PULSE@MassChallenge digital health hub in Boston and $80,000 for Baystate Health’s TechSpring technology innovation center in Springfield.
Learn MoreSource: Olin College
On Saturday, June 3, residents and staff from five local senior living communities joined forces with Olin College students and professionals in aging services for the LeadingAge MA Hackfest at North Hill in Needham, Massachusetts. The goal of Hackfest is to create a “technology-driven product or service aimed at improving the lives of older adults and their families.”
Learn MoreSource: Boston Business Journal
By: Jessica Bartlett
Partners HealthCare and GE Healthcare are launching a 10-year partnership to bring artificial intelligence into every area of the hospital’s operations.
Learn More