News & Updates

May 31, 2023 - By Connie Chen

Contributors: Deb Linton

Consumer & Population

Aetna launched a special diabetes management texting program for its members with vendor Silverlink. Participating members will receive educational text messages about diabetes screenings, tests, medications & more. Aetna has been the major insurer most aggressive about using patient communication tools and last month announced a new program with gaming company Mindbloom which was featured in a previous News & Updates.

HealthSaaS added Microsoft Translator capabilities to all HealthSaaS consumer facing and private labeled sites with a goal to making the platform widely accessible across languages. HealthSaaS platforms include Diabetes PHR and Pain PHR on which you can already apply this new functionality.

HealthUnlocked, a UK company, launched HealthUnlocked Tracker, an online patient-reported outcome measures system allowing patients to document their real time progress in the clinic using an iPad or mobile computer. The patients use the same system at home to track their progress online. They even got the UK Health Minister to pose for a photo at the launch.

Ambulatory Care

Statewide South Carolina telepsychiatry consulting service allowing psychiatrists to triage and assess emergency department patients remotely via live video, has reduced hospital admissions for more than 6,000 mental health patients by 33%. Telepsych Medicaid patients had median charges of $2,000 compared to $2,800 among control patients. Online mental health counseling in general is an area in which we’re seeing lots of start-up activity.

Health Information Exchange/ Analytics

Resilient Network Systems, a security and networking company, raised $5M in funding.  Resilient’s “Trust Network” will enable the transmission of sensitive health information while allowing individuals to retain control over access. You can see a demo from last Fall’s Health 2.0 and an update on their new CEO from a previous News & Updates.

General Electric and Thomson Reuters recently combined outcomes research data from the Thomson Reuters MarketScan® Research Databases with de-identified EMR data. This new data compilation will allow researchers and physicians to search for new evidence-based insights on how to improve health care delivery.