As independent and research labs quickly pivoted to build COVID-19 testing capacity, established purchasing and EHR workflows prevented providers from utilizing them
Survey says 50% of primary care doctors report no income from virtual visits in the last 4 weeks, with 13% predicting practice closure due to finances within the next month
OptumHealth acquires post-acute care management platform naviHealth for undisclosed sum; naviHealth to continue operating as a standalone entity
Mount Sinai will use $860K FCC telehealth CARES grant to develop a mobile app for patients to report on outcomes
Google is helping medical professionals find free & discounted hotel rooms with a new filter on Google Maps
Fitbit launches COVID-19 study; Attempting to use Fitbit data to detect coronavirus infection before onset of symptoms
MGMA report shows physician compensation has risen 5-9% over the last 5 years; Projecting compensation to suffer as a result of pandemic
Nautilus launches from stealth with $76M Series B; Building a technology platform to make it easy for researchers to map proteins
Stericycle predicts a surge in medical device recalls starting in Q3 as FDA Emergency Use Authorizations and enforcement-discretion end
Mindstrong raises $100M Series C; Building a digital mental health platform for text and video-based therapy, catering to patients with serious mental illnesses
Outpatient visit numbers are starting to rebound from April lows, but still 30% lower than pre-pandemic volumes; Rebound happening across all specialties, with telehealth visits declining slightly
Telehealth startup Abridge is using NLP to automatically offer transcribed visit notes to patients and providers; UPMC currently offering service to patients
CVS and Express Scripts use secretive private companies with high fees to run their drug copay maximizer programs
BARDA gives $1B to AstraZeneca to develop coronavirus vaccine from Oxford University; No trials on the vaccine are complete, and AZ is promising 1 billion doses with delivery starting in September
Hims & Hers add Spanish language primary care physicians to telehealth service; Targeting 15.1% of American Hispanics living without insurance coverage, offering $39 visits
More insurers are discounting 2020 premiums as a way of getting ahead of predicted large MLR rebates in 2021; Including for profit and non-profit plans
Cigna adds Talkspace to list of covered telehealth offerings; 14M members with employer-sponsored insurance now have access to the mental health app
Veterans Affairs to use Palantir's Gotham software, best known for law enforcement applications, to track and analyze COVID-19 outbreaks and coordinate supply chains
Apple and Google make exposure notification API available; 22 countries and multiple states that requested access will now be able to release apps that access the API
Mount Sinai Health System researchers publish study showing AI was able to detect COVID-19 in 17 of 25 lung CT scans that presented as normal
SmileDirectClub sues NBC for $2.85B, claiming inaccurate and defamatory reporting and an NBC Nightly News segment featuring customer complaints led to a $950M drop in market cap
CRISPR pioneer Mammoth Biosciences cuts commercialization deal with GlaxoSmithKline to develop and market CRISPR-based COVID-19 diagnostics
FCC has approved telehealth infrastructure grants amounting to $33M across 89 providers, but has only actually distributed funds to one provider
Examining how private equity has bought its way into American dermatology, and the deleterious effects their motivations and influence are having on healthcare
Analysis: How medical supply chains work, and how federal response to supply chain troubles in times of pandemic can be improved
Experts say Moderna hasn't released enough information to properly assess early COVID-19 vaccine trial results
iFixIt, which offers repair guides for electronics, has turned focus for the past two months to creating a free database of 13,000+ manuals and repair guides for clinical and research medical devices
Big Sky Health raises $8M Series A; Building health-focused mobile apps that help people do intermittent fasting, meditate, track alcohol consumption
Tava Health raises $3M seed; Building a mental telehealth service by directly employing therapists and offering their services to employers
Rhode Island hires Infosys to create COVID-19 contact tracing app; "CRUSH COVID RI" app uses location tracking to create a location diary for each user
Omada Health raises $57M, uses $30M of it to acquire Physera, a startup focused on virtual physical therapy
Lab test volumes are slowly recovering to normal levels, with some labs seeing higher than normal volume due to COVID-19 testing
Major employer groups ask congress to subsidize 90-100% of COBRA premiums for laid off workers, provide direct relief funds to primary care practices, and prevent mergers by practices accepting CARES Act relief funding
ChromaCode raises $10M Series C extension; Continuing work on technology to improve efficiency and throughput of PCR testing, which includes COVID-19 testing applications
Microsoft launches 'Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare': A suite of cloud tools, including a FHIR server, specifically geared for medical use
Kaiser Permanente now including subscription meditation app Calm as a free member benefit, a $70/year value; Kaiser has been using Calm clinically for two years
Ro launches high-end prescription dermatology product line; Sold through both Rory and Roman brands, and offered as subscriptions starting at $25/month
Amazon starts offering Amazon Care to Seattle-based warehouse workers; Telemedicine services were previously only available to Seattle-based Amazon office workers
Gilead donates additional 300k remdesivir doses to federal government, enough to treat 30 - 55k more patients
Experts opine on how COVID-19 could change U.S. healthcare industry, including telemedicine, employer-sponsored insurance, nursing homes, drug pricing, scope of practice
Amazon Web Services has enhanced accuracy of its Amazon Transcribe Medical speech-to-text service for COVID-19 related terms
CMS says nursing homes should stay closed to visitors until they have no new COVID-19 cases for 28 days and should test workers weekly
Verily launches COVID-19 antibody study to examine immune response; Partnering with Rite Aid for sample collection, and offering tests to anyone who previously received a swab test via Verily
MIT researchers are developing a protein-based paper test for COVID-19; Intended to allow PPE-free sample collection, be field stable, and deliver results in 10 minutes
COVID-19 has exposed how the pharmaceutical market model fails to incentivize infectious disease drugs as demand is unpredictable and generally led by the poor
A brief, non-technical explainer on how the FHIR standard works and makes it easier to get patient health data
