The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that former Louisiana Rep. John Fleming is taking a new post as deputy assistant secretary for health technology.Fleming said as secretary for health technology he will work on issues and regulations tied to technology and the practice of medicine.
"It's clear there's a lot of work to do, and they're anxious to get somebody in place and...
On Tuesday, Representative Tom Price, President Trump’s pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, faced his second confirmation hearing, this time before the Senate Finance Committee (previously he had gone before the Health committee). In between questions about Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, his questionable investments, and his relationship with President Trump, Price fielded some...
Digital health hires news has been on the slow side around the holiday season, but there is at least one big piece of personnel news: Lisa Suennen, a digital health-focused investor, has joined GE Ventures as Managing Director, focused on healthcare.
Suennen invested with Psilos Group from 1998 to 2014 and for the last two years has been doing deals and consulting at her own firm, Venture...
The shift of government, the private sector and consumers of coming together to tackle the biggest problems in healthcare is starting to show, and the best indication is the innovation in digital health. But in order to do more, all parties must continue working together and providing opportunities in the form of policies, partnerships and information.
That was the takeaway from a speech by Karen...
Pear Therapeutics, a Boston and San Francisco-based developer of digital strategies to address a broad range of mental health conditions, has released results of a study showing promising engagement with its program Thrive, which uses a smartphone app along with medication to treat patients with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder.
Thrive offers 24/7 patient monitoring...
In response to a request from Congress, the US Department of Health and Human Services released its report on the agency’s current telehealth efforts.
While it wasn’t within the 180-day deadline Congress gave the department in December, the report was comprehensive in its scope of the potential promise of telemedicine, especially given the ever-expanding availability of services, as well as the...
Dr. Karen DeSalvo, head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, has resigned from her post and will now shift her attention to her duties as the Department of Health and Human Services’ acting assistant secretary for health. Dr. Vindell Washington, ONC principal deputy national coordinator, will be her successor. DeSalvo wrote on twitter she was “Thrilled to...
Susannah Fox, current Chief Technology Officer at HHS and former Pew researcher, knows it's a little odd that, as CTO, her background is in anthropology, not technology. But she thinks it's also illustrative of the role technology has to play in healthcare.
“We’re living through this time right now where technology is a Trojan Horse for change,” Fox said yesterday at HxR in Boston. “We say...
HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced today that Medicare will cover the Diabetes Prevention Program, including digital versions like Omada Health’s. This marks the first time a preventative model from a CMS Innovation Center has been expanded into the Medicare program.
“This program has been shown to reduce health care costs and help prevent diabetes, and is one that Medicare, employers and...
National coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD, announced three new developer challenges that aim to advance interoperability via the emerging FHIR standard Tuesday morning at HIMSS16
The “challenge grants” have three streams: a consumer-facing, vendor neutral app based on FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), a provider-facing app, and a discovery place where people can go to download...
