Health Startup Digest - 6/17/16

Startup Highlight: ETectETect is looking to tackle medication adherence by creating a pill capsule w   June 17 - Issue #17 Health Startup Digest Curated by R. Scott Munro, the latest news and information about startups and innovations in healthcare. Startup Highlight: ETect ETect is looking to tackle medication adherence by creating a pill capsule with an embedded wireless sensor that can track whether or not a patient has taken a pill. Many companies are trying to solve the issue of medication adherence from pill boxes to AI-video recognition to patches. I’m not sure ETect is the perfect solution, but if it integrates into the supply chain of drug manufacturers as easily as they make it seem like it will, it could be quite useful for just about every stakeholder in the health care ecosystem. As always, if you come across news, announcements, videos, or podcasts that you think the other 4,900+ subscribers would benefit from, e-mail me at scott.munro@startupdigestmail.com or tweet @R_Scott_Munro and subscribe to the digest, here. If you would like me to include a "Shout Out" let me know, and I'll throw it in the digest! Articles: Host Steve Krupa of Psilos on Becoming a VC & Why Health Care Needs to Change | Breaking Health healthegy.com This is an awesome interview of Steve Krupa, who normally hosts the Breaking Health podcast. He goes over his views on health care and technology, how he got into health venture, his thoughts on the podcast, and where he sees the industry going. I highly recommend giving it a listen. Address at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the House of Delegates | James L. Madara, MD www.ama-assn.org AMA’s President, Dr. James Madara, has some strong words for many of the new “digital therapeutics” in his annual address to the AMA. He calls many of these direct-to-consumer digital tools “snake oil” and recalls how the AMA worked to dispel the original snake oil sellers in the mid-1800s. He does think there is a bright future for technology in health care, so his words should not be taken out of context, he quotes Dr. Bob Wachter’s seminal Digital Doctor and he mentions many initiatives that the AMA is involved with to foster technological innovation in the field, including their partnership with MATTER in Chicago. A number of technologists have come after him for his snake oil comments, but you should read this in its entirety to get the full picture for Dr. Madara’s vision for the future of health care. State Initiatives to Control Medication Costs — Can Transparency Legislation Help? | NEJM www.nejm.org An interesting review of cost control for medications via transparency laws that are pending in a number of states. The theory that some legislators have is that if you compel companies to share their R&D expenses for drugs, you may be able to more clearly tie cost to the payer to cost of development. As the author points out, this is by no means a perfect system for cost control (if it even makes it through the legislative process). I like including policy reviews like this to see where legislators are trying to solve the problem of run-away costs; however, I am skeptical that transparency laws are the real solution. Clinical Interventions Addressing Nonmedical Health Determinants in Medicaid Managed Care | The Commonwealth Fund www.commonwealthfund.org It’s well understood that a large portion of our health can be traced back to social determinants. The American Journal of Managed Care did a comprehensive study on different interventions and their outcomes. Read the entire study, here, be sure to go to page 9 which is where the review of different interventions with their outcomes starts. If you want to read up on how the study was conducted, definitely feel free to go through the first 8 pages as well. The main take away I have is that comprehensive services coordination can be incredibly impactful vs. focusing on a single determinant (i.e. housing). It’s also quite interesting to read up on the different programs that institutions have implemented. Search engines can find pancreatic cancer? Times coverage needed a second opinion | HealthNewsReview.org www.healthnewsreview.org I’m sure many of you heard about the report that Bing was able to predict pancreatic cancer in patients via their search history. You can file this in your folder under “news agencies taking studies as gospel when they shouldn’t.” As the author of this article notes, “[t]he Times coverage is notable for its utter lack of skepticism and its failure to challenge any of the concepts or claims made in the story. We don't hear from any independent experts, even though the premise of the story is so extraordinary as to practically demand some outside scrutiny.” Read through the rest of this critique of the Times coverage and the Bing study, and send it over to any of your friends that were excited about the findings. Daring brain surgery gives baby with a birth defect a chance | STAT www.statnews.com This is a heart wrenching story of one family’s struggles with trying to save the life of their first born son, Bentley. It is a touching read and, as it turns out, an incredible use case for 3D printing as a means of surgical planning. The surgeon that saves the boy’s life, printed out a 3D rendering of the boy’s skull to practice his procedure and to ensure he could successfully complete what he had set out to do. This is a moving read to remind us of the positive impact technologies can have on real lives. Quote(s) of the Week: “Health care probably stands out as one of the great issues in our society from an access point of view, from a cost point of view, from an efficiency point of view, from a waste point of view. And if you think about technology as simply being able to do more with less, health care is a great place to apply those skills.” - Steve Krupa, CEO, Psilos Group “The future is not about eliminating physicians, it’s about leveraging physicians. Leveraging [physicians] by providing digital and other tools that work like they do in virtually all other industries—making our environments more supportive, providing the data we actually need in an organized, efficient way, and saving time so we can spend more of it with our patients.” - James Madara, MD, Executive Vice President & CEO, AMA This Digest is curated by: R. Scott Munro - Utility Infielder @ DocMatter www.startupdigest.com I am a classical languages nerd turned digital health geek. I spend my days researching medical device, pharmaceutical, and biotech companies + helping clinicians efficiently collaborate. I have a passion for the intersection of health and technology, and wholeheartedly believe we are at the beginning of the most exciting eras of health care. Note: I do not ask for compensation for any organization featured in the Shout Outs section, and if I have a vested interested, I will make a note of it Do you enjoy receiving this? Please share it:     Tweet     Share   Carefully curated by Health Startup Digest with Revue If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here. If you don't want these updates anymore, please unsubscribe here.