According to a study in the Annals of Family Medicine, greater use of text and telephone communication with diabetes patients was associated with an increase in in-person office visits, contrary to hopes that these cheaper forms of clinical interaction would reduce office visits and save on costs.
http://annfammed.org/content/12/4/338.full
Jul222014
Alliance Healthcare Partners has invested $3.5 million in Prodigo, taking control of the hospital contracting and supply-chain consulting firm.
Jul222014
HealthEquity, which administers health savings accounts, has set terms for its IPO, raising $100 million.
Jul222014
Walgreens reports that visits to its in-store clinics continue to grow rapidly, with many patients returning to seek services in that setting.
Research published in Health Affairs, based on data from Denmark, finds that hospital occupancy rates above 85% are associated with worsening mortality, as is being admitted outside of normal business hours or on weekends. It is not clear, however, that there is a causative effect. It would seem more likely that there would be one in the case of admissions outside normal hours, but high occupancy rates seem less likely to be causative of greater mortality.
Second quarter venture funding activity was high, according to the NVCA MoneyTree results, with $13 billion invested in 1,114 deals. Biotech firms received $1.8 billion of that in 122 deals and med device companies got $649 million in 73 transactions.
http://www.nvca.org
Jul182014
Epion Health, which provides software for patient checkin, has added $4.5 million in equity investment funding.
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.