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Morning Read: Google restructure parks health and life science portfolio in holding co, Gallup poll shows reduction in uninsured

Google sees Alphabet holding company as a better way to organize and manage its healthcare and life science products, Gallup poll shows decline in uninsured rate.

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Google has reorganized, creating a new holding company called Alphabet that will include its health and life science portfolio. Some speculate the changes could usher in more product development. For its part, Google sees the holding company as a better way to organize and manage its healthcare and life science products which stand apart from its Internet brand.

This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products contained in Alphabet instead. What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens), and Calico (focused on longevity). Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related.

Last year Google invested 36 percent of its funds in healthcare. — Forbes, Google

A new Gallup poll shows that the percentage of uninsured has fallen in the past two years from 17.3 percent to 11.7 percent. Gallup noted the states that chose to expand Medicaid and helped run the marketplaces saw the biggest changes in uninsured rates. — The Hill

LIFE SCIENCES

Samsung‘s NeuroLogica unit , GC85A ceiling digital X-ray system, snagged FDA approval for its digital radiography system.
The device includes wireless, lightweight detectors, a portable grid, and smart features that allow operators to position the entire system with one touch and work with compatible Samsung equipment.
Turing Pharmaceuticals raised $90 million from its own CEO, Martin Shkreli, and some unnamed benefactors. The company also spent $55 million for the U.S. rights to Daraprim, an FDA-approved treatment for the parasitic disease toxoplasmosis.Fierce Biotech

PAYERS-PROVIDERS

drchrono Inc., the leading Electronic Health Record (EHR) platform raises an additional $2 million in addition to being named number one in the industry.

“It’s an honor to be voted the best mobile EHR for three years in a row. We’re committed to providing doctors the best platform to run their entire practice. We launched on the iPad in April 2010 when it was first released and we are relentlessly working to build the best point of care tool in healthcare. We’re also passionate about making doctors successful as a business with our practice management, medical billing tools and services.” said Michael Nusimow, CEO & Co-founder of drchrono.

— drchrono

A study has identified gaps in best practices for cleaning hospital rooms. It points to a lack of evidence on what’s most effective at reducing hospital acquired infections. It looked at 80 studies published between 1998 and 2014 and found that comparative effectiveness studies were uncommon.

“Few studies measured patient outcomes or focused on newer technologies, and even less compared cleaning tactics against one another — important gaps to fill as the U.S. health care system works to reduce the 75,000 HAI-related deaths that occur annually.” Penn Medicine

TECH

Google Glass could be used to save the lives of poison victims, according to new research out of the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

mHealth News

POLITICS

A nurses union has given Bernie Sanders his largest endorsement to date. The 185,000 National Nurses United. The members pointed to Sanders’ pursuit of a single-payer health care system through the expansion of Medicare, his work to challenge Wall Street’s role in the economy and his stance against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. — Modern Healthcare

CVS Health Corp. will pay the government $450,000 to resolve allegations that some of its Rhode Island stores filled invalid prescriptions and maintained deficient records. The Hill

A LITTLE BIT EXTRA

How you express laughter through text or social media can say something about your age and the region you live in. Turns out use of “lol” has mostly faded away, according to Facebook research, unless you’re old… Huffington Post

 

Feature Photo: Alphabet blocks by Flickr user Peter Miller

Photo: Adam Berry/Getty Images

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