One tradition of Health 2.0 is that it offers a launchpad for digital health companies that are rising above the radar into public view. Referred to as LAUNCH!, it spotlights as many as 10 companies. The most interesting companies spanned physical therapy, the microbiome and fraud.
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
Here’s a summary of them.
GripAble is a remote monitoring tool for patients recovering from procedures or hospitalization affecting their upper body, particularly those affected by stroke. The company developed a Bluetooth-enabled personal rehabilitation device with a companion app. CEO and Co-founder Paul Rinne developed a series of games in which users squeeze the device and loosen their grip to play. For adults, the exercises can include gripping the device to bring a blurry photo of their loved ones into clear view. Grip strength is recorded , assessed and tracked over time through a machine learning algorithm. The goal is to help players regain the use of their hands to improve their quality of life. There are also games geared to children.
DayTwo seeks to use insights from evaluating users’ microbiome to guide their diet choices. Here’s how it works. Users receive a stool sample kit to send back to the company. DayTwo sequences their gut microbiome DNA, analyzing the composition and diversity of the gut microbiome. It gives users a personalized app grading their food choices based on their microbiome. It’s interesting because it goes beyond the typical calorie counter apps that are in abundance in app stores. The company, led by Lihi Segal, is based on five-year research project conducted by Eran Segal and Dr. Eran Elinav from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
Siren Care developed socks that are made with smart fabric to do temperature monitoring for people with diabetic neuropathy to reduce the risk of foot ulcers that can lead to amputations when these ulcers get infected. A companion app helps users track the temperature of their feet. Despite being imbued with sensors, the socks are machine washable and don’t need to be charged.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Cricket Health takes aim at chronic kidney disease, a condition affecting 26 million people. Its health literacy program uses educational videos and interaction with a network of healthcare professionals, peers and mentors to support advanced stage chronic kidney disease. The goal is not only to improve users’ understanding of their condition and provide peer support, it’s also designed to give patients a better understanding of their treatment options. Co-Founder and CEO Arvind Rajan previously worked for LinkedIn as managing director for new markets in the Asia-Pacific region for the social network.
Albeado takes an interesting approach to a variety of healthcare challenges from fraud detection to predicting drug interaction and risk prediction through the use of machine learning and anomaly detection in a predictive analytics platform called PRISM.
Photo: Bigstock
