David Vinson and Joan Kennedy.
In May, Cigna’s Director of IT Strategy and Innovation Willis Gee told MobiHealthNews that the next move for the insurer would be to look for ways to integrate tracking devices, social networks, and other digital tools into a single engagement strategy. Now Cigna has unveiled a part of that strategy: an app curation platform called the GoYou Cigna Marketplace,...
Boston-based Healthrageous, which spun out of Partners Healthcare's Center for Connected Health in 2010, has closed up shop and sold off its assets. The once promising venture was based partially on the Center's SmartBeat blood pressure management program, which the provider piloted with EMC employees a few years ago to prove its efficacy.
For a short while the company was called HopSkipConnect....
Louis Burns, CEO of Intel-GE Care Innovations since the joint venture launched in early 2011 and, before that, head of Intel's Digital Health Group, will retire at the end of the year, Roseville, Calif.-based Care Innovations announced Thursday. Taking his place will be former Humana executive Sean Slovenski, who brings a background in behavior change and wellness to the three-year-old maker of...
Barriers to reimbursement for telehealth services are falling, slowly.
One of the most recent victories came in Massachusetts, where lawmakers this summer approved a general appropriations bill that included Medicaid reimbursement for remote monitoring services in patient homes. This action, passed over a veto by Gov. Deval Patrick, makes Massachusetts the 12th state to approve Medicaid payments...
Fitness equipment maker Precor launched a new developer portal for its open API, allowing interested parties -- including fitness clubs, mobile app developers, and payers -- to freely access and use data from Preva, Precor's cloud-based engagement platform. Workout data from Precor machines is the bulk of the Preva data, but it also includes lifetime metrics, goal types, goal progress, and...
Zamzee, the commercial spin-off of Redwood City, California-based HopeLab, is launching a new version of its kids' activity tracker and gamified fitness platform geared at large groups, particularly clinical settings such as pediatric weight loss clinics.
HopeLab established much of the efficacy data on Zamzee in group settings. For instance, a study published last year showed that overweight...
MyFitnessPal announced a partnership with health insurance company Cigna, which will combine MyFitnessPal’s nutrition, physical activity and weight management resource with Cigna's health coaching programs. The offering will give customers the option to connect their MyFitnessPal accounts with their personal Cigna coach to instantly share their diet and exercise activity.
Wellness tracking...
Virgin HealthMiles has added Fitbit integration to its online employee health offering. The Framingham-based Richard Branson company recently announced that it would offer its program to family members of subscribed employees for free. Now those employees and family members who use Fitbit activity trackers and weight scales will be able to connect those devices to their Virgin HealthMiles...
Virgin HealthMiles' current GoZone pedometer.
Virgin HealthMiles, a gamified employee wellness program, announced that, starting in October, it will let employees invite up to three family members to use the program for free. Between adding family members and drawing in new members because of the perk, Virgin HealthMiles expects its user base to see a big boost in the next year.
"On the scale...
This month, Medicare revealed the list of more than 2,000 hospitals losing up to 2 percent of their funding for failing to sufficiently reduce readmissions. Next year, those penalties can rise even higher.
As troubling as this can be for hospitals, it should be good news for mobile health entrepreneurs, as the wake up call may drive hospitals to explore technology like telehealth, remote patient...
