AI-based drug discovery platform Atomic AI, senior lifestyle company Mighty Health, Lithuania-based Oxipit and cybersecurity firm MedCrypt also closed funding rounds. Precision Neuroscience Corporation, a brain-computer interface business based in New York, completed a $41 million Series B investment round, increasing its total funding raised to $53 million. With participation from Alumni Ventures, Draper Associates, Mubadala Capital, and re.Mind Capital, Forepont Capital Partners led the round. Steadview Capital and B Capital Group, who are already investors, also contributed. The money will be used by Precision to grow its staff and advance product development. In the upcoming months, the company intends to request FDA regulatory scrutiny. In a statement, Precision Neuroscience CEO Michael Mager stated, "We foresee a world where catastrophic neurological disorders - stroke, traumatic brain injury, dementia are ultimately treated." "Brain-computer interface technology must advance from the lab and into the clinic in order to be used in this world.

An innovation culture at Sheba Medical Center has produced efficiencies and cost savings. The Sheba Medical Center is concentrating on applying artificial intelligence to change patient safety statistics. Prof. Dr. Eyal Zimlichman, chief transformation and innovation officer of Sheba Medical Center, which is located on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, stated that there has been no improvement in patient safety during the previous 30 years. Zimlichman claimed that after viewing a report on these facts, he and his team came to two conclusions: They had "no concept how to handle" such a tremendous problem. To address patient safety, Zimlichman also the CMO of the health system since 2017 turned to digital health technologies. Zimlichman is the director of Sheba's Accelerate Redesign Collaborate (ARC) Innovation Center, one of the largest with about 2,000 beds.

The latest reductions mark the third round of job cuts at the company in less than a year. The digital weight loss business Noom acknowledged that it had completed a third round of personnel reductions in less than a year. The number of employees impacted by the most recent job layoffs was not disclosed by the corporation. Insider revealed in April that around a quarter of Noom's coaches would be let go. In the fall, it made more reductions; according to TechCrunch, roughly 500 employees or 10% of its workforce were let go. A Noom representative told MobiHealthNews that the company had gone through "amazing growth" over the previous several years and that it was aiming to keep up its momentum in the long run. Due to the challenging economic headwinds affecting firms in all industries.

The cuts affect about 15% of the health data analytics startup's workforce. The unicorn-status health data analytics business Innovaccer has laid off 245 employees, or around 15% of its workforce. The reductions mark the company's second round of layoffs in recent months, as first reported by Inc42. Innovaccer stated in September that company had let go of 90 people, or 8% of its total employment at the time. According to Innovaccer, the layoffs impact employees across all industries and geographical regions. According to founders and CEO Abhinav Shashank, "Innovaccer has always believed in empowering its customers to accelerate their transitions, leading to higher quality care for patients and populations, improved patient experiences, and better financial and operational success." Our primary focus will be on this as the industry transitions from a mostly fee-for-service paradigm.

The CyncHealth health information exchange for Nebraska and Iowa and its two partners are being recognized by HHS's Racial Equity in Postpartum Care Challenge. The Department of Health and Human Services' Racial Equity in Postpartum Care Challenge has awarded CyncHealth, Collective Medical, and Innsena for their postpartum care programme in Omaha with federal cash totaling $40,000. Even among women with college degrees, pregnancy-related deaths are three to four times as prevalent among minorities than among Caucasian women. This programme significantly lowers maternal and neonatal mortality and enhances postpartum care for Black and Indigenous parents and children with high-risk illnesses who take part in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. This initiative is the only one of the 25 winners acknowledged by HHS that makes use of health information exchange technologies to enhance individualised treatment at the local level. There are several ways to address racial equity in postpartum care:

• Increase the diversity of healthcare providers: This can help ensure that women of color have access to culturally competent care.
• Address structural barriers: This can include things like lack of transportation or child care, which can make it difficult for women of color to access care.
• Address unconscious bias: This can include training healthcare providers to recognize and address their own biases in order to provide more equitable care.
• Increase access to community-based resources: This can include things like doulas or community health workers, who can provide additional support to women of color during the postpartum period.
• Increase funding for research on postpartum health disparities: This can help us better understand the specific challenges faced by women of color and develop targeted interventions to address them.

It's important to note that addressing racial equity in postpartum care is a complex and multifaceted issue and requires a comprehensive approach that addresses structural, systemic, and individual level factors.

It is important to note that there are barriers to widespread adoption of blockchain in the healthcare sector. Healthcare interoperability continues to be the Holy Grail and the ultimate objective of all companies. Given that the world's population is ageing and there is a rising lack of clinicians, there is a critical need to break down barriers and improve communication between various systems and organisations. This can help to increase efficiency, improve outcomes, and cut costs. A secure, decentralised digital ledger known as blockchain, which is most frequently connected to cryptocurrencies, is increasingly being seen as a tool to achieve interoperability or to create bridges between "data islands," or the businesses and systems where patient data may be kept (but not shared). Blockchain technology has the potential to bring several benefits to digital health innovation, including:

• Improved data security: Blockchain technology uses a distributed ledger system, which makes it difficult for hackers to tamper with or steal data. This can help protect sensitive patient information.
• Increased interoperability: Blockchain can help connect different systems and databases, making it easier to share and access patient information across different organizations.
• Better patient control of their data: Blockchain-based systems can enable patients to control and share access to their own health data, giving them more control over how their information is used.
• Enhanced clinical trial transparency: Blockchain-based systems can provide an immutable record of patient data, which can help increase transparency in clinical trial data and improve patient safety.
• Better tracking of medical supply chain: Blockchain-based systems can also be used to track medical supply chain, to ensure the authenticity, integrity and traceability of medical products.

It's important to note that blockchain is a relatively new technology and its implementation in the healthcare industry is still in the early stage. Further research and development is needed to fully realize the potential benefits of blockchain in digital health innovation.

Algorithms, datasets, machine learning, deep learning, cognitive computing, big data, and artificial intelligence: IT expressions that took over the language of 21st-century healthcare with surprising force. If medical professionals want to get ahead of the curve, they should get familiarised with the basics of AI and have an idea of what medical problems they aim to solve. So, let’s take a closer look at machine learning and deep learning in medicine.

The ante-room of artificial intelligence

Improving patient experience is a primary concern for behavioral health providers today. A positive patient experience can keep clients returning, while a frustrating or confusing experience may push them away. With so much on the line, it’s important to get it right. One of the most powerful tools in a behavioral health practice’s arsenal is a user-friendly, highly functional patient portal. These portals are often clients’ main point of connection to a practice outside of appointments.

Patient portal usability is critical to patient experience because it directly affects the ability of patients to access and manage their health information, communicate with their healthcare providers, and make informed decisions about their care. If the patient portal is difficult to navigate or use, patients may become frustrated and disengaged, which can negatively impact their overall satisfaction with their healthcare experience. Additionally, poor usability can also lead to patients making mistakes when entering or reviewing their information, which can result in errors in their medical records or treatment. Ensuring that the patient portal is user-friendly and easy to use can help improve patient engagement and satisfaction, as well as overall health outcomes.

Worldwide we are facing severe staffing shortages in healthcare, digital health solutions may be able to alleviate these shortages. Global healthcare systems are experiencing acute staff shortages, which The Guardian recently called "a ticking time bomb." According to the most recent Becker's Physician Leadership poll, the biggest problem facing healthcare organisations is a lack of qualified employees. 2 By 2030, there will be a global shortfall of 15 million healthcare workers, according to the World Health Organization (2022). 100,000 nurses, many of whom are under 35, departed the employment in the US alone between 2020 and 2021. There are numerous underlying causes of the healthcare professional shortage. The first is the demographic impact brought on by the enormous number of baby boomers who are retiring. Others are connected to medicine, such as the increase of non-communicable diseases. Digital health solutions can help combat the workforce crisis in healthcare in several ways:

• Telemedicine: This allows healthcare providers to remotely consult with patients, reducing the need for in-person visits and freeing up time for healthcare workers.
• Electronic health records (EHRs): EHRs can help streamline the process of collecting and sharing patient information, reducing the need for additional staff to manage paper records.
• Automated appointment scheduling: Digital health solutions can automate the process of scheduling appointments, reducing the need for administrative staff.
• Virtual care: Virtual care enables patients to interact with healthcare providers remotely, via video, audio, or text, reducing the need for in-person visits and freeing up time for healthcare workers.
• AI-powered triage: AI-powered triage can assist healthcare workers in identifying patients with urgent needs, so they can be seen more quickly.
• Wearable technology: Wearable technology can help monitor patients remotely, reducing the need for in-person visits and freeing up time for healthcare workers.
• Remote patient monitoring: With remote patient monitoring, patients can be monitored remotely, reducing the need for in-person visits and freeing up time for healthcare workers.

Overall, digital health solutions can help healthcare providers better allocate their resources and reduce the need for additional staff.

With the rising demand for improving patient safety in clinical trials, the adoption of patient-centric solutions is considered the best route to enhance data accuracy and experience automated workflows. This is where eCOA comes into play. In this blog post, we will find out how electronic clinical outcome assessments are helping the clinical trials industry handle the ever-growing list of patient data and, at the same time, reduce patient burden! Electronic clinical outcome assessment (eCOA) refers to the process of leveraging technology to better capture data and enhanced Clinical Outcome Assessment (COA). Using devices like smartphones, tablets, and personal computers, eCOA allows patients and clinicians to report regular symptomatology’s directly into a cloud system.

The potent combination of NLP and AI-assisted diagnostic tools for early-stage lung cancers represents a solution for healthcare systems. Around 1.8 million people die from lung cancer each year, making it the most common type of cancer to cause mortality worldwide. The majority of patients receive a diagnosis once symptoms have developed and the disease has reached an advanced stage (Stage III or IV), which accounts for the 20 percent five-year survival rate that is currently the norm worldwide. Small lung tumours, on the other hand, have a survival rate as high as 90% when they are treated at Stage 1A. This large variation emphasises the urgent necessity for lung cancer to be identified and treated at the earliest feasible stage. The two million Americans who are diagnosed with lung cancer each year present one of the best opportunities to detect more tiny, pre-symptomatic lung malignancies early. Before implementing AI-assisted technologies for lung cancer diagnosis in your hospital, it is important to consider the following:

• Validation and accuracy: Make sure that the AI technology you are considering has been validated and found to have a high level of accuracy in detecting lung cancer. This includes comparing the AI's performance to that of experienced radiologists.
• Data privacy and security: Ensure that the AI technology you are using is compliant with all data privacy and security regulations, and that appropriate measures are in place to protect patient information.
• Integration with existing systems: Consider how the AI technology will integrate with your hospital's existing systems, such as electronic health records (EHRs) and picture archiving and communication systems (PACS).
• Training and support: Ensure that your staff will be properly trained on how to use the AI technology, and that support will be available if any issues arise.
• Human oversight: It is crucial to have human oversight for AI-assisted diagnostics, as the technology should be used as a tool to support radiologists' decision-making and not replace them.
• Explainable AI: Have a clear understanding of the AI algorithms, its internal workings, the data used for training and its limitations.
• Clinical workflow: Evaluate how the technology will fit into the existing clinical workflow and whether it will improve the patient experience and the overall diagnostic process.
• Cost-benefit analysis: Consider the costs and benefits of implementing the AI technology, including any potential cost savings or revenue increases, as well as any additional costs associated with training, support, and maintenance.

Overall, it is important to thoroughly evaluate the AI technology and its potential impact on patient care and the hospital's operations before implementing it in your hospital.

The government relations team at HIMSS offers some insights on what's next for telehealth, broadband expansion, interoperability rules and more in the year ahead. HIMSS claims it is now prepared to argue for permanent coverage of virtual care because Congress included telehealth waivers in its omnibus budget package at the end of 2022, delaying the "telehealth cliff" for two years. Its policy agenda for the coming year also includes promoting data standardisation, providing feedback on interoperability rulemaking, and collaborating with agencies and states to broaden access to telehealth. In order to get their opinions on these issues and others for 2023 and beyond, we spoke with the HIMSS government relations team. HIMSS has prioritised telehealth because it has been shown to ease the strain on healthcare professionals and increase access; nevertheless, the Congressional Budget Office has long argued that all telehealth programmes are not equal.

Staff shortages, long hours with no breaks, delays in receiving necessary supplies, and overall low morale have brought forth new core challenges that we must continue to address nationwide as we enter 2023. For society as a whole, the 2020s have been a decade of difficulties and adversity. As it was at the forefront of many of these studies, healthcare has taken the brunt of these difficulties. Over the previous three years, starting at the beginning of the Pandemic, healthcare personnel have overcome many of the challenges that were placed in their path. As we move towards 2023, we must continue to address additional national core concerns caused by staff shortages, long hours without breaks, delays in acquiring required supplies, and general low morale. We must recruit and keep competent healthcare professionals. With ongoing pressure to address personnel gaps, health systems have had to deal with extremely high demand. There are several tools that can be used to resolve the healthcare workforce crisis, including:

Recruitment and retention strategies: Organizations can implement strategies to attract and retain healthcare workers, such as offering competitive salaries and benefits, providing training and development opportunities, and creating a positive work-life balance.

• Telehealth and virtual care: Telehealth and virtual care can help to increase access to healthcare services, by allowing patients to receive care remotely. This can help to ease the burden on the healthcare workforce by reducing the need for in-person visits.
• Task shifting: Task shifting involves training non-clinical staff to perform certain tasks, such as administering medication or taking vital signs, which can help to increase the overall capacity of the healthcare workforce.
• Automation and technology: Automation and technology can help to streamline certain tasks and processes, such as scheduling appointments or managing patient records, which can help to free up the time of healthcare workers.
• Community-based healthcare: Community-based healthcare can involve partnering with non-traditional healthcare providers, such as community health workers or faith-based organizations, to provide care to underserved communities.
• Public-private partnership: Governments and private sectors can partner to provide more healthcare services, training and education opportunities, to increase the number of healthcare providers.
• International recruitment: Organizations can also recruit healthcare professionals from other countries to help meet the demand for healthcare services.

These tools can be used in combination to help resolve the healthcare workforce crisis, by increasing the overall capacity of the healthcare workforce, and improving access to care for patients.

While acknowledging that securing access to data is a shared goal, the HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association suggests ONC's interoperability framework does not consider existing controls, or certain business standards and workflows. The EHR Association suggests that workforce authentication requirements only be applied to the Qualified Health Information Network workforce, with special consideration given to participants and sub-participants who are not HIPAA-covered entities, in its comments to the ONC on the draught QHIN, Participant and Subparticipant Additional Requirements SOP. The Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement, which were created by the enlisted Sequoia project, have been proposed requirements for QHINs, participants, and sub-participants. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is accepting comments on these proposals. The EHRA advised in its letter dated January 13 that the breadth of the auditing standards and requirements for worker authentication be reduced and that it is uncertain if further requirements are necessary or beneficial. TEFCA (Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement) security protocols are important in patient record access because they establish a standardized set of security measures that must be followed by all participating organizations in order to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of patient data. This includes measures such as authentication, access control, and encryption to protect patient data from unauthorized access or disclosure. Additionally, TEFCA sets guidelines for incident management and reporting, which helps to ensure that any security breaches are identified and addressed quickly. Overall, the implementation of TEFCA security protocols helps to promote trust and confidence in the electronic exchange of patient data, which is essential for effective and efficient care coordination across healthcare organizations.

A new AI-powered medical-specific chatbot developed by Google and DeepMind has shown some potential for clinical applications. Using datasets from professional medical exams, research, and consumer questions, Google Research and DeepMind have constructed a substantial language model for the medical community. The AI-powered chatbot MedPaLM combines six existing open-question answering datasets with HealthSearchQA, a free-response collection of online medical questions created by Google and DeepMind. The additional six datasets were gathered from MedQA, MedMCQA, PubMedQA, LiveQA, MedicationQA, and MMLU. Both medical experts and laypeople who are not professionals in the field of medicine may submit multiple-choice questions. Large language models (LLMs), like MedPaLM, are made to comprehend questions and produce suitable plain-language answers. They use data from huge datasets for this. MultiMedQA, an open-source benchmark for medical question-answering, is used to measure the performance of the technology. AI chatbots can be used in a variety of ways to improve patient experience, including:

• Virtual triage and symptom checking: Chatbots can assist patients in determining the severity of their symptoms and whether they need to seek medical attention.
• Appointment scheduling: Chatbots can help patients schedule appointments and provide reminders about upcoming appointments.
• Medication management: Chatbots can assist patients in managing their medication regimen, including providing information about dosage and potential side effects.
• Health education: Chatbots can provide patients with educational resources and information about their health conditions.
• Post-discharge care: Chatbots can help to support patients following their discharge from a hospital or other medical facility, by answering questions and providing guidance on recovery.
• Language Translation: Chatbots can be used to provide language support for non-English speaking patients, helping them to communicate with medical staff.
• 24/7 availability: Chatbots can provide patients with access to medical information and support 24/7, regardless of the availability of healthcare providers.

Overall, AI chatbots can help to improve patient experience by providing convenient and accessible healthcare services, reducing wait times, and increasing patient engagement and education.

This year, JPMorgan was a hot topic. That's partly due to conference energy following the Covid meeting. The fact that healthcare is more crucial than ever is part of the reason behind this. Even if the economy faced difficulties in 2022, investors remain eager to conduct business in the healthcare sector. The opportunity before us is enormous, and the stakes are raising. People who are currently experiencing infertility issues and those who want to start or grow their families want to work for businesses who recognise that having access to fertility and family-building benefits is a requirement, not simply a "nice-to-have." Many people now place a greater emphasis on having children and starting families; nevertheless, the CDC and Family Equality report that 1 in 5 women and 63 percent of men experience infertility.

Fetal Monitoring Market: Analysis and Insights New Research Study “Fetal Monitoring Market 2023 analysis by Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, and Investment Opportunities), Size, Share, and Outlook” has been added to Quince Market Insights The Global Fetal Monitoring Market research report is a professional and in-depth analysis of the current market situation with a specific focus. Quince Market Insights has added a new research study titled "Fetal Monitoring Market 2023 Analysis by Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, and Investment Opportunities)", size, share, and outlook. The market condition is professionally and in-depthly examined in the Global Fetal Monitoring Market research study with a particular focus. Due to the study's vital information on the health of the global foetal monitoring market, businesses and anyone else interested in the sector can benefit greatly from it. The report gives a fundamental overview of the industry, outlining its definition, uses, and production methods. The research includes more information on the key worldwide industry participants. In order to conduct the research on the worldwide foetal monitoring market, both primary and secondary data sources were used.

Focus on what you can control, say Alvarez and Marsal Managing Directors Peter Urbanowicz and Martin McGahan. The managing editors of Alvarez & Marsal, who counsel healthcare leaders on the best course of action, said that the financial problems hospitals started to experience at the beginning of the epidemic aren't going away any time soon. According to managing director Martin McGahan, the pandemic exposed the strains in the supply chain, challenges with staffing, and problems with creating safety nets. Hospitals may need to reconsider trying to be all things to all people in order to save costs, according to managing director Peter Urbanowicz. In the end, he said, CEOs and CFOs must decide how to strike a balance between their service offers and finite financial resources. Listen to a talk with Healthcare Finance News Executive Director and McGahan and Urbanowicz to learn more about this and novel capital investment strategies.

The company's CEO said the layoffs will help Verily refine its strategy, prioritize its product portfolio and simplify its operating model. Stephen Gillett, the new CEO of Alphabet's health sciences division Verily, informed staff members in an email on Wednesday that the company will be letting go of 15% of its workforce in order to refocus its strategy, give products more priority, and alter its operating structure. The Wall Street Journal, which first the news of the layoffs, stated that Verily had over 1,600 employees, thus more than 200 people will be impacted. Due to cancelled programmes, organisational redundancies, and taking full control of its subsidiaries, the reorganisation will have an impact on 15% of Verily's roles. Verily is a data-driven risk analysis tool. A granular and digital health platform for the management of chronic diseases Onduo. The business will stop working on developing its Verily Value Suite health system analytics platform and its remote patient monitoring projects.

Colleen Lindholz, who leads 22,000 care practitioners, has bold thoughts about pharmacy-specific tools incorporated into EHRs, population health platforms for care coordination, pharmacist burnout and more. The president of Kroger Health, Colleen Lindholz, oversees a staff of 22,000 medical professionals that provide treatment to over 13 million patients nationwide. She played a crucial role in organising Kroger's reaction to the COVID-19 epidemic, particularly in promoting vaccine access and overcoming vaccine reluctance. More than 4.7 million COVID vaccines had been given out by Kroger as of this writing. To raise immunisation rates, the organisation started $1 million giveaways and a year of free consumables. Kroger received the American Pharmacists Association Immunization Champion Award in 2022 in honour of the high rates of COVID-19 vaccination in their local areas. Healthcare IT News met down with Lindholz for an interview since she is in a unique position to discuss the condition of healthcare today.

Seattle company was recently awarded a grant of $50,000 from Village Capital’s ADAPT accelerator program. Enabled Healthcare, a Seattle-based firm, focuses on using telemedicine, vitals monitoring, and care coordination to keep patients with complicated requirements who are covered by Medicare and Medicaid well and at home. In a recent interview with Healthcare Innovation, founder and CEO Bethany Doran, M.D., M.P.H., discussed how her startup was chosen as one of four to receive a $50,000 peer-selected, equity-free grant from Village Capital's ADAPT programme, which is funded by the Metlife Foundation. The goal of the new accelerator programme ADAPT: Social Innovation for a More Resilient Future in the United States, launched this year, is to foster innovation and the creation of solutions for significant problems relating to climate change, healthcare and wellness, and economic mobility. To be a part of this new accelerator programme, over 130 startups from 28 states applied.

A healthcare infosec expert talks why CISOs and CIOs should prioritize unified endpoint management, what a UEM strategy looks like and much more. Through the epidemic, remote healthcare has undoubtedly gained popularity. A single endpoint management solution, according to several healthcare information security professionals, has consequently risen to the top of the priority list for provider companies engaged in telehealth. Security breaches can thrive in isolated healthcare institutions. These can be extremely dangerous, especially if private patient data is revealed. Tablets and smartphones have also evolved into tools for enabling better and quicker patient care as a result of the digital transformation of healthcare. According to Apu Pavithran, CEO and creator of Hexnode, a provider of a unified endpoint management (UEM) platform housed by Mitsogo, this results in a greater reliance on technology and an associated IT overload.

The layoffs make up about 6% of the virtual care giant's non-clinician workforce. About 300 employees, or about 6% of Teladoc Health's non-clinician personnel, will be let go. A bigger reorganisation strategy to cut operating expenses includes the job layoffs. Teldadoc stated it was also lowering its office space footprint in several markets in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. CEO Jason Gorevic wrote a letter to the company's employees announcing job cuts due to the company's 2020 merger with Livongo. He added that the industry titan in virtual care is concentrating on profitable revenue development that is sustainable. "The choice to scale back our personnel puts our organisation on a better road to profitability and demands that we all concentrate on our commercial business responsibilities,".

A study published in JAMA Network Open found that oncology care via telehealth was associated with time, travel and cost savings among cancer patients. According to a study published in JAMA Network Open, oncology patients who used telehealth services saw time and travel cost savings, which decreased the financial burden of cancer treatment. The Moffitt Cancer Center's economic review calculated patient cost reductions via telemedicine, including travel expenses and potential productivity losses from medical visits. Between April 2020 and June 2021, 25,496 telehealth visits involving 11,688 Floridian patients between the ages of 18 and 65 were examined by researchers. The predicted mean total cost reduction for 4,525 new or existing visits and 20,971 follow-up visits varied from $147.40 at $0.56 per mile to $186.10 at $0.82 per mile. Savings for new or returning customers ranged from $176.60 at $0.56.