A provider shopping tool. A sensor system for elderly people. A price comparison site. A high-tech and high-touch approach to prenatal care. This list reads like an accelerator’s portfolio, but these companies are not part of RockHealth or HealthBox. Instead, Cambia Health Solutions is building and investing in startup companies like these. Cambia is the […]
Over $7 billion of taxpayer money went into creating the health law’s insurance marketplaces, and about 8 million people signed up. But some experts say it’s actually still too early to declare these markets a success or failure. So, what can we say about what the public is getting for its money? The marketplaces, including […]
Munck Wilson Mandala Partner Greg Howison shared his perspective on some of the legal ramifications around AI, IP, connected devices and the data they generate, in response to emailed questions.
In addition to designing a good customer experience, ZoomCare is lobbying the Oregon legislature to improve the odds of success for its neighborhood clinic business model. Founded in 2006 by Dr. Dave Sanders, ZoomCare provides a flat $140 rate for clinical visits and $89 for telecare appointments. It serves the “walking well,” and strives to […]
Bright.md is in the business of facilitating virtual doctor’s office visits, but co-founder Dr. Ray Costantini doesn’t exactly consider it a telemedicine business. “We think of ourselves as a healthcare automation company,” he explained. “We automate repetitive, algorithm-driven processes that happen in primary care so that patients can get quicker access and providers have the […]
When customer development and the Lean Startup were just a sketch on the napkin, Dino Vendetti, a VC at Bay Partners, was one of the first venture capitalists I shared my ideas with. Dino and I kept in touch as he moved up to Bend, Ore., on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional […]
Across the country from Washington D.C., where officials are trying to clean up the mess that is the federal health insurance exchange, another state is proving that it could be worse. Almost six weeks after the October 1 launch date, Oregon’s online health insurance exchange, Cover Oregon, has yet to enroll a single person. The […]
The TSX Venture Exchange has a strong history of helping early-stage health and life sciences companies raise patient capital for research and development.
As the federal government consumes humble pie over failures in the health insurance exchanges, some states that have set up their own exchanges are also struggling. Oregon has yet to enroll one single person, and it’s been reduced to pawing through paper applications to figure out eligibility. When Cover Oregon opened Oct. 1, executive director […]
The state of Oregon is trying some experiments to bring different kinds of medical professionals under the same roof. Patients can see different kind of doctors in one visit, and the hope is it will provide better patient care, eventually at less cost ...
Biotronik, an Oregon-based cardiovascular medical device company, announced it received final FDA device approval for its Ilesto DX, an implantable cardiac defibrillator. Earlier this year, it received FDA device approval for family of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator and cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators. This week’s approval is an “upgraded” device. This “smaller, thinner” new generation platform allows for a […]
If the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University can raise $500 million over the next two years, Nike co-founder and chairman Phil Knight has pledged to match it, kickstarting a 10-year, $1 billion cancer research initiative. But if the university can’t raise the money, it gets nothing from Knight. That was the […]
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.
It’s Super Bowl time for health insurance exchange marketers, as they drop millions of dollars on marketing campaigns aimed at residents without health insurance. Seventeen states have opted to do the heavy lifting for their own online exchanges, rather than punting that responsibility to federal government. Armed with federal grant money, several state exchanges have […]
Forty-year-old Jeremie Seals has had a tough life. He left home at 14, and he says, his health isn't good. He had a heart attack when he was 35, he has congestive heart failure and nerve pain in his legs “real bad.” Jeremie Seals with...
A lot of companies have championed the benefits of devices like Fitbit to help engage patients in their healthcare and track their progress in a trend that’s referred to as the quantified self. Instead of apps, Respondesign wants to improve adherence for physical therapy through an interactive remote-monitoring platform using Microsoft’s Kinect motion-sensor technology and […]
The Obama Administration gave Oregon almost $2 billion to come up with its own system to coordinate care better. The idea is to get doctors, nurses, hospitals and other caregivers to work together -- and get paid well -- to keep people healthy and to get rid of wasteful, unnecessary care. The federal dollars will go to the providers who do a good job, so first the state had to figure out what constitutes good coordinated care.
Healthcare projects in Cincinnati, OH and Springfield, OR made the list of 20 finalists in the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge. Springfield wants to make primary care available to everyone through an after-hours house call service. Cincinnati is using data analysis and care coordination to improve prenatal care and lower the rate of premature births and […]