We’ve seen it in retail: Super Target, Super WalMart.We’ve seen it in tech: smartphones, tablets.Convergence is coming to healthcare too — Medtronic teaming up with payers to find clues on what therapies work; pharmaceutical companies beginning to collaborate with payers to help develop new drugs; technical advances are prompting convergence in the medical and digital [...]

A Minnesota company that develops technology to enable healthy aging is raising more than $13 million, according to a recent regulatory filing.Healthsense makes products that allow the “passive monitoring of activity level of seniors” inside the home , in a community living space, assisted living or a skilled nursing venue, explained the company’s chief financial [...]

Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) may be the leader in the treatment of uncontrolled hypertension using electric stimulation, but now the question is for how long.The Minnesota medical device company was the first to commercialize this innovative therapy when it bought Ardian and its Symplicity Catheter Renal Denervation System in 2010 for an upfront $800 million. The product [...]

Here’s another indication that the old models of healthcare are crumbling.In a conference call to discuss fourth quarter results, Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak announced that the company is pursuing partnerships with payers worldwide to try and leverage outcomes data that can help develop cost effective therapies and manage chronic diseases.The strategy is being driven by [...]

A fecal incontinence test has won regulatory approval, announced the company that originally licensed the technology from the Mayo Clinic in 2009.Medspira, based in Minneapolis, said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved its mcompassanorectal manometry device that can evaluate how the pelvic floor of a person with constipation or fecal incontinence functions.The system [...]

Minneapolis software company Preventice announced Monday that it is partnering with Avery Dennison Medical Solutions, which is will manufacture and sell its wearable body sensor once it is cleared by the Food and Drug Administration.The company, formerly called Boost Information Systems and based near Mayo Clinic in Rochester, has filed a 510(k) application for its [...]

By now everybody and their dog knows that the Facebook IPO has made several billionaires, notwithstanding the trading glitches that frustrated many.Articles and analysis of the Facebook IPO abound, but a Forbes staff writer, Matthew Herper, has an intriguing piece on the ways we can make medicine look more like Facebook.He starts out with a [...]

Park Nicollet Health Services, a large integrated health provider in the Twin Cities was one of the beta testers of a novel new service to track customer satisfaction in real time using a text messaging service.The pilot was meant to test the value of the service, called CareWire, that was developed by Healthy Heartland, a [...]

The Medical Devices Group on LinkedIn is one of the most active groups on the site, and as a member, I often check out what’s being discussed there.The 100,000-strong group’s owner Joe Hage has in the past flexed his muscle to gain support for repealing the 2.3 percent medical device tax using the forum. It [...]

A startup that treats conditions of the spine using minimally invasive devices announced Wednesday that it has raised $25 million in its third round of financing.Zyga Technology said that new investor Versant Ventures took part in the series C round and was joined by existing investors Split Rock Partners, Domain Associates and MB Ventures. The [...]