ImageboxPittsburgh Life Sciences GreenhouseLeft ArrowRight ArrowClose ButtonCloseDotLocationMenuQuoteSearchFacebookgoogle PlusLinkedInTwitterYoutubeBiotech ToolsDiagnosticsHealthcare ITMedical DevicesTherapeutics
Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse
Menu
  • Entrepreneurs
    • Stories
  • Investors
  • Impact
  • Portfolio
  • Resource Hub
  • LifeX Programs
  • Home
  • About
    • What is PLSG?
    • People
  • News
  • Blog
  • Contact
Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse
  • Home
  • About
    • What is PLSG?
    • People
  • News
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Entrepreneurs
    • Stories
  • Investors
  • Impact
  • Portfolio
  • Resource Hub
  • LifeX Programs
Blog

Author: Jim Jordan

FDA issues guidance on conduct of clinical trials during the COVID-19 pandemic

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Jim Jordan

To Our Community,

The impact of COVID-19 on our personal and business lives has been, and will continue to be, significant. New guidance from the FDA specifically outlines how the virus will impact clinical trials, both those that are ongoing, as well as those yet to begin (“FDA Guidance on Conduct of Clinical Trials of Medical Products during COVID-19 Pandemic”).

The State of Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) is making resources available to help businesses through this uncertain time through its COVID-19 Resources website.

Being faced with so much unknown, this pandemic has caused disruption, stress, and fear. With the need for new vaccines and treatments, we in the life sciences are tasked with bringing the best and brightest minds together to find solutions. At the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, we are honored to be a part of this effort through our portfolio company, CytoAgents.

CytoAgents is working on an immunotherapy that is easily administered and cost effective, increasing its ability to make a positive global impact. With their oral treatment, the inflammation response that is triggered by a virus will be controlled more effectively. And unlike anti-viral medications, there is no risk of resistance or possibility of not working as the virus mutates. This is revolutionary and exciting, and it brings a sense of hope.

Please be careful, mindful of others, and adhere to the CDC guidelines.

 

Posted in Portfolio Companies, Therapeutics, Uncategorized, Words of WisdomLeave a comment

The Future of Healthcare is Connected: What you Need to Know About the IoMT

Posted on August 6, 2019 by Jim Jordan

Your thermostat has an app. So does your doorbell. Your refrigerator can show you a digital display of what’s inside, while pulling up your favorite recipes using those items. There are even dog collars with built-in GPS trackers. The Internet of Things (IoT) reaches deep into a wide span of everyday products. In fact, there’s little, if anything, that doesn’t boast an internet-enabled version. The ability to connect through the internet has even expanded to cover health and wellness. The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), as you might expect, presents a mixture of pros and cons.

What Is It?

The IoMT bridges computer technology with health IT applications and medical devices. In layman’s terms, this is your Apple Watch doubling as a heart rate monitor. It’s your mobile phone interacting with your glucose monitor. It’s the medical devices that allow your healthcare practitioner to monitor you from home. It also extends to devices that are based in clinical settings, which can span from patient monitoring systems to recordkeeping. These are just some of the examples of IoMT devices in use today.

Challenges of IoMT

As with any new technology, IoMT presents a series of challenges that we must overcome. Let’s be clear: These challenges are not insurmountable, nor do they outweigh the benefits we’ll discuss shortly. These are weakness, however, that product developers are going to have to improve before widespread medical use is realized.

To begin with, the lack of interoperability is a factor. With devices operating within proprietary structures, the ability to share information between patient and provider(s) is limited. Heart health data collected on your wearables should be able to be downloaded to the EHR system your doctor’s office uses. The post-surgical data your specialists are tracking via remote monitoring should be easily connected to your primary care physician’s records. Today, a lack of standards impedes this cross-connectivity. A move to a new set of standards that allows interoperability will improve this.

Connected devices are inherently a cybersecurity risk. Until device makers focus on this and make mitigating the risk of data breeches a priority, IoMT adoption may be hindered. This category goes beyond the fitness tracker on your wrist. Connected devices include pacemakers, implanted defibrillators, and insulin pumps, as well as hospital-based equipment. With these devices, cybersecurity becomes a matter of patient safety. Similarly, the same issues with insecure remote access that cause some to pause over security concerns, can present challenges to HIPAA, as well.

Strengths of IoMT

The benefits of IoMT make the efforts to overcome or mitigate the above-mentioned challenges worth pursuing. Devices that track our vitals, monitor various health and wellness markers, and even remind us to stick to our prescribed medications can improve patient experiences and outcomes while simultaneously keeping costs in check. For example, the combination of an aging baby boomer generation and a shortage of healthcare providers can stress our already taxed healthcare system. IoMT devices are a natural fit for telehealth solutions that increase access by circumventing geographic barriers to care.

Goldman Sachs estimates IoMT devices will reduce healthcare costs by $300 billion. Being able to effectively remote-monitor decreases hospital admissions. Reduced cost of care is a natural byproduct of this. In addition, the function of hospital-based connected devices can be more effectively monitored, which can help reduce downtime and the costs associated with it. IoMT devices, as previously noted, can improve patient adherence, which has a positive impact on overall healthcare costs.

Further, with interoperability challenges resolved, IoMT would give providers access to more accurate data than traditional patient reporting methods in use today. Did you complete your prescribed physical therapy exercises today? Did you complete each exercise properly? IoMT devices can collect precise data to answer these questions, helping physicians track patient adherence, and amend the course of treatment as needed.

Of course, as the technology evolves, the benefits and the challenges of IoMT will evolve as well. What we do know is this: The IoMT will play a key role in the future of healthcare, and the more time, energy, and resources we devote to this category of technology, the more benefits we will achieve.

Posted in Uncategorized, Health IT, Words of WisdomLeave a comment

Meet our Companies: Therapeutics Innovators in the PLSG Portfolio

Posted on July 8, 2019 by Jim Jordan

Meet our Companies: Therapeutics Innovators in the PLSG Portfolio

Healthcare is changing at a rapid pace and technology is one impetus behind the evolution. Organizations like the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse have the privilege of supporting and nurturing the innovative companies that are propelling the industry forward into a new age. In our last blog, we took a closer look at the medical device companies we’re working with. We’d now like to introduce you to some the other companies in our portfolio. The organizations in this overview come from our Therapeutics category.

What is Therapeutics?

Simply put, therapeutics deals specifically with the treatment of disease. Several of the companies in our portfolio are currently in pre-clinical and clinical stages of product development. It’s exciting to walk with them on this journey of research, development and trialing their innovative treatments. The innovative entrepreneurs behind these companies are striving to treat a wide range of diseases and disorders.

Complexa

Complexa is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing a new a new class of drugs to treat patients with severe and life-threatening fibrosis and inflammatory diseases. The company aims to create treatments that will prevent and repair tissue injury, as well as reverse fibrosis and inflammation.

Lipella Pharmaceuticals

Chemotherapy and radiation treatments may create their own collateral damage when used to treat cancer patients. Lipella Pharmaceuticals is developing products that can provide supportive care for cancer survivors with hemorrhagic cystitis. The company also has other urinary bladder conditions products in the pipeline.

Qrono

Qrono Inc, enables medications, patient adherence, patient outcomes and faster time-to-market using an innovative technology to create long-acting injectable formulations.

Sharp Edge Labs

This therapeutics company is developing small molecule drugs for genetic disorders of protein trafficking. The technology Sharp Edge Labs enables the dissection of each step in the lifecycle of a protein in order to better understand the trafficking of the target as well as defects in trafficking caused by mutation.

Cognition Therapeutics

Cognition Therapeutics (CogRX) is developing a small molecule therapeutics targeting the toxic proteins that cause cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative diseases. Earlier this year, the company published clinical data from its Phase 1 trial of its drug Elayta in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions.

Knopp Biosciences

Knopp Biosciences seeks to discover, develop and deliver medicines to treat diseases that impose high costs on the healthcare system. Currently their research has led to an investigational compound in clinical development for immunological and hematological disorders, as well as discovery platforms directed to small molecule mediators of epilepsy and neuropathic pain.

Peptilogics

The early-stage biotechnology company Peptilogics is developing systemic anti-infective drugs called Engineered Cationic Antibiotic Peptides (eCAPs). Current pre-clinical data indicate that eCAPS may be effective in treating drug-resistant hospital-acquired infections.

These companies represent just one category of the PLSG portfolio. In addition to these innovative therapeutics companies, we also work with organizations that are shaking things up in the area of Medical Devices, Health IT, Diagnostics, and Bio Tools. You can learn more about those companies here.

Posted in Uncategorized, Portfolio Companies, TherapeuticsLeave a comment

Meet our Companies: Medical Device Innovators in the PLSG Portfolio

Posted on June 24, 2019 by Jim Jordan

This is an exciting time to be involved in life sciences. Our industry is rapidly evolving. Some of that, of course, is connected to the shift in healthcare paradigms as dictated by policy changes and new business models. Another factor, however, is the rapid pace of health technology innovation. Here, at the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, we have the privilege of seeing some of these game changers grow from an idea into a company. In fact, we have worked with nearly 500 companies and scores of entrepreneurs in all aspects of life sciences: Biotech Tools, Diagnostics, Medical Devices, Therapeutics and Health IT. Today, we invite you to meet some of the medical device companies within our portfolio.

ALung Technologies

ALung Technologies respiratory assist system, called Hemolung (RAS), is for patients with acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a $6.3B worldwide market. Clinical trials are currently underway.

Carmell Therapeutics

Carmell Therapeutics has developed plasma-based bioactive materials (PMA) that contain a concentration of natural regenerative factors that promote healing, reduce complications, and save healthcare costs. The company recently announced the publication of the results of its pre-clinical studies on its tissue healing accelerant for the treatment of cutaneous radiation injury.

Medrobotics

Medrobotics’ flagship product is the Flex® Robotic System, a robot-assisted platform that provides physicians with single-site access and visualization of hard-to-reach anatomical locations. Medrobotics co-founder Howie Choset was recently awarded the 2019 Engelberger Robotics Award for Education in part for his work on the Flex Robotic System.

Quantum OPS

Quantum OPS develops devices that facilitate the effortless, rapid, and secure positioning of a patients’ shoulder, arm, hip or knee for surgery. These devices can be used to safely support anesthetized patients in the proper position for several hours during surgery.

ViaTherm Therapeutics

ViaTherm Therapeutics is an industry leader in diathermy technology. Their therapeutic deep heating products can reduce the pain associated with injury and aging while helping to promote flexibility, mobility and assist circulation.

ChemDAQ Inc.

ChemDAQ Inc.’s toxic (sterilant) gas monitoring systems protect workers from exposure to airborne toxins. The system was originally used in hospital and medical device sterilization operations in the US. It has since expanded internationally and to other industries such as food and beverage processing, water treatment facilities and other industries that use Peracetic Acid, Hydrogen Peroxide or Ethylene Oxide.

Forest Devices

Forest Devices’ ALPHASTROKE helps first responders quickly identify whether a patient has had a stroke so they can route the patient to the proper hospital. This ability to identify and triage stroke victims in the field can reduce the time it takes to begin treatment. This is significant as early treatment can prevent up to 6,000 deaths per year.

Neuro Kinetics

Neuro Kinetics, Inc. (NKI) has developed a unique, eye-tracking technology to be used for non-invasive, neuro-otologic diagnostic testing. The company is expanding its applications to include concussions and is currently conducting clinical trials.

Circadiance

Circadiance has developed respiratory products for individuals with sleep-disordered breathing. These patients need non-invasive ventilation or require monitoring. The company has innovated a collection of comfortable, breathable, easy-care cloth respiratory products designed to improve the patient compliance rate. Circadiance’s NeoPAP CPAP is designed to treat newborns and infants with (or recovering from) respiratory distress syndrome.

Intelomed

Intelomed has redefined the standard of patient monitoring and informatics with their non-invasive device that dynamically assesses a patient’s cardiovascular health by analyzing pulse and pulse oximetry waveforms in response to small perturbations. The company has received FDA and European (CE Mark) approvals for their first product, CVInsight® Patient Monitoring & Informatics System.

PECA Labs

Created out of CEO Doug Bernstein’s personal experience with congenital heart defects, PECA Labs is developing a suite of products designed to improve outcomes for children born with rare congenital heart defects. For example, the company has developed a synthetic valve conduit for pediatric right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT) reconstruction and a valve shunt for the treatment of hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS).  You can read more about PECA Labs and Doug Bernstein’s story here.

Rinovum Women’s Health

Rinovum’s product, the Stork™, aids in natural fertility and conception by “supported” natural conception conducted in the privacy of a patient’s home. The product is FDA-cleared to be used without a prescription and offers a low-cost alternative to clinical treatment options.

Starr Life Sciences

Starr Life Sciences is a leader in small animal research equipment. Their products include the MouseOx Plus® pulse oximeter, the world’s first and only patented non-invasive vital signs monitor specifically designed for mice, rats and other small laboratory animals.

These companies represent just one category of the PLSG portfolio. In addition to these innovative medical device companies, we also work with innovators that are disrupting the status quo in the areas of Therapeutics, Health IT, Diagnostics, and Bio Tools. You can learn more about those companies here.

Posted in PLSG News, Medical Devices, Portfolio Companies, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The Synergy of Technology and Humans Will Improve Healthcare

Posted on June 14, 2019 by Jim Jordan

There is no question that technology is disrupting the healthcare industry. From surgical robots to artificial intelligence applications that diagnose diseases, technology is changing the way we practice medicine. Of course, with every news report about a new deep learning tool that identifies cancerous cells years before the human eye can, there’s someone wondering whether technology will render radiologists obsolete. Every time someone writes about telehealth applications or chatbots that guide patients through routine questions, someone else muses about whether these machines will replace physicians.

These questions are understandable. We’ve rapidly entered a new world of medicine, and this swift change of pace can be unsettling. Articles that espouse the capabilities of AI and other tech logically raise questions about the role of humans and machines going forward. However, those who lean into the idea that human medical practitioners will be replaced are missing the mark. Technology is a tool, not a replacement.

Rote Tasks

Disinfecting a room, moving medical equipment from one place to another, lifting bedridden patients, and medication management are all important tasks related to caring for a patient. These tasks can be time consuming and, in some cases, physically demanding. They are also tasks that could be handled by technology. Using robotic assistance for these routine responsibilities would free up medical personnel to do more of what they do best: care for the patient.

Empathy is a Human Strength

Earlier this year, a physician in California delivered devastating news to a patient and his family via a telepresence robot. The exchange sparked a nationwide discussion about the use of technology in medicine. Discussions about the importance of a good bedside manner are not new. Technology simply adds a new layer to it.

The California story is an excellent example of why technology will not eliminate human medical practitioners. Technology cannot replicate human empathy or face-to-face conversation. That’s not to say telehealth tools and other tech aren’t valuable. They absolutely are. They are a tool that can extend access to medical care and address the gaps created by physician shortages. The tech must, however, be balanced with human contact and support. We must recognize when technology is the appropriate medical tool, and when it’s not.

Just the Facts

Machine learning applications can sift through mountains of data and identify patterns.  This process allows the tech to make predictions based on the data through which it has combed. Researchers are using this technology to improve the way we diagnose diseases. These studies are encouraging. Machine learning can often produce a diagnosis faster and more accurately than its human counterpart. What it lacks, however, is the ability to look at those results within the context of a complete patient history. This is still an innately human ability that machines have not mastered and likely won’t. This doesn’t render the machine learning approach irrelevant. It simply illustrates the technology’s strength as a tool to be used by humans to improve patient care.

More Precision

Robotic surgery is another excellent example of the way technology can be a tool that improves patient outcomes. Surgical robots like Medrobotics  Flex® Robotic System give physicians the ability to access anatomical locations that were previously difficult or impossible to reach minimally invasively.  Perhaps a better way to describe what’s happening in today’s surgical suites is “robot-assisted surgery.” These procedures aren’t performed by autonomous bots. There’s a trained, skilled physician manning the controls.

This is an exciting time to be involved with the life sciences industry. The examples listed above are just the tip of the health IT iceberg. As innovators like those that make up the PLSG portfolio develop new tools, healthcare continues its massive transformation to the benefit of both patients and providers.

Posted in Uncategorized, Health ITLeave a comment

Video: Telehealth: Lowering Costs and Improving Access, Particularly in Rural Settings

Posted on May 14, 2019 by Jim Jordan

Video: Telehealth: Lowering Costs and Improving Access, Particularly in Rural Settings

Posted in Uncategorized, Health IT, Words of Wisdom, ConcentrationsLeave a comment

The Next Frontier in Health Technology: Virtual Reality as a Medical Tool

Posted on April 8, 2019 by Jim Jordan

In 1974, Star Trek’s animated series introduced its audience to the holodeck, a bit of futuristic technology that would eventually appear in multiple iterations of the science fiction classic from television programs to the big screen. This recreation room was designed to create simulated, alternative versions of reality. In this simulated world, crew members could engage with their virtual environment as if it was the real world. Sound familiar?

Today, you don’t need a full deck on a spaceship to experience an alternate reality. We have virtual reality headsets and augmented reality apps that run off our mobile phones. While there’s certainly a home for these applications as an entertainment medium, we are increasingly seeing the strength of extended reality (XR) as a health and wellness tool that can improve patient outcomes.

What’s XR?

Before we can explore how this technology can improve quality of care, and thereby improve outcomes, we need to define the category. Extended reality is the umbrella term that encompasses all real and virtual combined environments. It includes:

  • Virtual Reality (VR) – full immersion in a digital environment.
  • Augmented Reality (AR) – overlays virtual objects on the real-world environment.
  • Mixed Reality (MR) – anchors virtual objects in the real world. Objects here are not just overlaid into the real world–the real world can interact with these virtual objects.

Improving Quality Through Training

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, a traditional med school curriculum combines two years of pre-clinical science training – where students learn basic medical concepts – with two additional years of clinical study. In these clinical study years, students are given hands-on experience with patients.  Extended reality technologies add a new twist to this educational model. Virtual simulations of real-life medical scenarios allow students to make medical decisions in a safe environment before they engage with actual patients. Today’s technology isn’t a replacement for real-life clinical rounds, but it can be a good supplemental component that gives students an opportunity to prepare for direct patient engagement.

Improving Quality through Surgical Walk-Throughs

Imagine if your physician could walk through your surgery before you slip into a hospital gown the day of your procedure. Facilities like Stanford Medicine are using virtual reality to change the way physicians prepare for surgery. Stanford’s Neurosurgical Simulation and Virtual Reality Center feeds conventional MRI and/or CT scans into VR technology, which allows their physicians to see the brain in 3D and walk through complex procedures via a simulated surgery. This process can help mitigate any unexpected challenges the surgery may present.

Improving Quality through Surgery Guided by Extended Reality

In 2017, a team of researchers conducted a proof-of-concept study to explore the potential benefits of using augmented reality to superimpose digital images on top of the visual field during surgical procedures. In December of that year, a surgeon used an MR headset to access patient medical data and data of the operative technique during a procedure to implant a prosthesis into an 80-year-old patient.  The surgeon was also able to share his field of vision with four additional surgeons via Skype, which would allow collaborative input during the procedure. The study’s authors concluded that, “surgical practice and education can derive significant benefits from the implementation of AR and MR tools in daily practice.”

Improving Quality Using Extended Reality as Treatment

A number of studies have looked at virtual reality’s value as a treatment for psychiatric disorders and pain management. Through the course of these studies, virtual reality has proven to be an effective tool, particularly, as noted in a systematic literature review published in Harvard Review of Psychiatry in 2017, “with the most strength of evidence for use in exposure therapy for patients with anxiety disorders, cue exposure therapy for patients with substance use disorders, and distraction for patients with acute pain requiring painful procedures.”

Looking to the Future

As with any medical technology, extended reality’s value lies in its application as a tool. Effective use, for example, in medical training lies in recognizing that virtual experiences don’t replace real-life patient interaction. Simulated experiences offer supplementary practice, not substitution. Applications that tap into extended reality’s strength in pre-surgical planning, pain-management, or psychiatric treatment require thorough physician training prior to use. Like any other medical tool, medical personnel must be trained on how to appropriately utilize the technology for the benefit of the patient.

Posted in Uncategorized, Health IT, Words of WisdomLeave a comment

Is Telehealth the New House Call?

Posted on March 25, 2019 by Jim Jordan

In the 1930s, it wasn’t at all uncommon for a sick patient to see their doctor from the comfort of their own home. Back then, about 40% of doctor visits took place in the patient home. By 1950, that number dropped to around 10%. Today, thanks in large part to telehealth technologies, checking in with your doctor from home is once again on the rise.

What is Telehealth?

Telehealth provides support and enhancement of healthcare through the use of digital information and communication technologies. It may include remote clinical services (often referred to as telemedicine), as well as remote patient monitoring, training for healthcare providers, and patient education.

Improved Access through Telehealth

A 2016 Commonwealth Fund study found that just over half of US adults were unable to get evening or weekend medical care without visiting the emergency department. In 2017, another survey found that residents in 15 major metropolitan areas waited nearly a month for an appointment with a new family medicine physician. That problem is likely to get worse. The Association of American Medical Colleges predicts that shortages of primary care physicians (PCP) will increase significantly by 2025. Today, an estimated 64 million Americans live in an area where the total number of primary care physicians can only meet 50% or less of the population’s needs.

Telehealth technologies can help alleviate some of these challenges by giving patients access to physicians that may be outside their usual geographic area. Patients may interact with the physician via video, talk, or text, depending on the service, and appointments can take place at any time of day, every day of the week.

Access to Specialist

Telehealth can be used for more than virtual visits to a PCP, and that’s a good thing. Access to specialists can be even more difficult to schedule, particularly in rural areas where there are roughly 40 specialists for every 10,000 Americans (compared to 134 per 10,000 in urban locales.)  An example of this in practice is PSLG portfolio company DermatologistOnCall, which provides an online care delivery platform that connects patients with online dermatologists for skin care diagnoses and treatment plans.

Reduced Cost

The average cost of an in-person doctor visit is $125. Conversely, telehealth visits average about $45. A 2016 article by the American Council on Science and Health reported that an average of $86.64 is saved every time a patient received care online at UPMC instead of visiting the ER or urgent care. Up to 40% of those patients also indicated that without the option of telehealth visits, they would have skipped care altogether.

Improved Follow-Up Care

Telehealth technologies include wearables and digital health apps that allow patients and doctors to monitor health between visits. This exchange of information can help doctors and patients coordinate long-term care and monitor progress. In addition to having a potentially positive impact on patient adherence, monitoring can also help doctors identify when treatment plans aren’t working so changes can be made.

Lack of Broadband as a Health Issue

Telehealth depends on internet access. Without affordable broadband to support reliable access to the technology, adoption of telehealth will be hampered. Unfortunately, rural communities, which are more likely to face physician shortages (both specialists and primary care), are also less likely to have access to the internet connection speeds required to support the transmission of data for telehealth services.

Policy Needs to Catch Up to Technology

As the American Hospital Association aptly suggests in their most recent fact sheet on telehealth, today’s limited Medicare coverage is impeding the expansion of telehealth services. The current statute limits access to services based on geographic locations, the types of technology that may be used, and the list of services covered.

Telehealth also requires compliance with federal and state regulations. Particularly with variances in laws between each state, providers and insurers may be limited on what services can be provided based on legal and regulatory challenges, ranging from coverage and payment to licensure, credentialing, and privileging, among other factors. If telehealth is going to become a viable, value-based care solution, federal and state hurdles must be addressed.

The Future is Now

Telehealth isn’t necessarily new. Nascent applications stretch back as early as the 1940s when radiology images were sent 24 miles between two Pennsylvania towns via a telephone line. Today’s technology, however, has brought telehealth applications into the mainstream as a viable and necessary healthcare service. While challenges remain to widespread adoption, many hurdles have already been overcome. The introduction of 5G networks and the ongoing evolution of government policy pertaining to telehealth will continue to pave the way to improved access of services.

Posted in Uncategorized, Health IT, Words of WisdomLeave a comment

Understanding Population Health and Public Health

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Jim Jordan

Understanding Population Health and Public Health

The terms “population health” and “public health” sound similar. If you’ve used them interchangeably, you’re not alone. The similarities, both in name and concept, make it easy to overlook their nuanced differences. However, in order to have a productive conversation about the evolution of modern healthcare, it’s important to understand the distinction between these terms.

How Are They Similar?

Some of the confusion involving population health vs. public health stems from the fact that both focus on the health and wellness of a group or community. These concepts look beyond individual care to identify patterns of health and illness within groups of people. By monitoring trends, both population and public health seek to identify interventions or preventive models that can promote health, improve patient outcomes, and reduce overall costs.

Population Health

Population health is concerned with the medical outcomes of individuals in a specific group with a similar characteristic. This can be defined by geographic location or by other factors such as ethnicity, chronic illness or disability, socioeconomic status, employment, and age. Of course, individuals may belong to multiple populations. When studying population health, researchers look at societal structures, attitudes, and common behaviors that might influence health outcomes with the goal of identifying patterns of determinants and, ultimately, identifying what can improve those outcomes.

Public Health

Focusing on society at large, public health puts its attention on wellness programs and initiatives designed to prevent disease or injury. Researchers in this arena look to identify steps that can be taken to create conditions in which individuals can be healthy. The focus is often on large-scale initiatives such as smoking cessation, improved air quality, vaccinations, or management of disease outbreaks.

The Role of Health IT in Population and Public Health

The era of digital health tools has made it easier to collect relevant data used to identify specific populations and the social detriments that impact them. Further, innovations like artificial intelligence can be used to sift through the data to more efficiently identify patterns, and later automate tasks that facilitate improved outcomes.

For example, PLSG portfolio company Mental Health Metrics uses statistical process management techniques to intervene in patient care before adverse events occur. A great example of the way health IT can be used for population health initiatives, this start-up provides early detection of a pending patient crisis and triggers a treatment sequence. In turn, the early intervention may translate to a more effective and less expensive approach.

Digital health tools also help collect data used to identify public health issues and then widely disseminate information related those issues. A great example of a company working within this space is another PLSG portfolio company, Health Monitoring Systems (HMS), which aggregates healthcare data from more than 600 U.S. hospital systems and 3,600 ambulatory systems in order to monitor and quickly identify emergent threats to community health. HMS’s novel weather-map-like design is the largest private repository of this data.

Both population health and public health play significant roles in upgrading healthcare systems by improving access, reducing costs, and enhancing outcomes. They are two powerful disciplines working to make meaningful changes to better meet the healthcare needs of individuals.

Posted in Uncategorized, Health IT, Words of WisdomLeave a comment

HIMSS 2019: Solutions combine cutting-edge technology with government policy

Posted on February 19, 2019 by Jim Jordan

Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in a truly transformative event. The Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society, or HIMSS, held their global Health IT conference, where more than 45,000 healthcare professionals attended.

Tech leaders and industry executives networked with government policy makers, healthcare providers, and payors to discuss the future of healthcare. As expected, the results were eye-opening, and I would like to share them with you.

But before we talk about healthcare’s future, we need to take a step back and review the past to understand the significance of recent developments.

Shortly after the end of World War II, employers introduced the concept of health insurance as a perk to entice workers in an increasingly tight job market. Quickly, the practice took hold, and employer-sponsored, private health insurance became the norm in the United States.

The number of individuals covered by health insurance continued to grow significantly, but another issue had been thrust into the spotlight: Older and poorer Americans, without the benefit of employer-sponsored health insurance, were left out of the system. With the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, senior citizens and those in lower-income brackets were provided a lifeline, but the cost of healthcare in the United States had skyrocketed.

And while healthcare costs continued to rise at a greater pace than the U.S. GDP, there were still many people who did not have access to affordable healthcare. The introduction of COBRA and other measures in the 1980s helped to bring some Americans back into the system, but the issue still persisted. And as Baby Boomers continued to age, healthcare costs began spiraling out of control.

In 2010, the issues of healthcare access and rising costs were addressed with the passage of the Affordable Care Act. The number of uninsured Americans decreased from 44 million in 2008 to 11 million in 2011. And with more people in the insurance pool, a value-based reimbursement system, and other measures designed to rein in costs, the decades-long growth in healthcare spending had finally begun to slow.

But while the ACA has improved access to healthcare and slowed the growth rate of actual cost, it has also limited choices for many Americans who are unable to see providers who are not within their insurance networks. This lack of competition will inevitably inhibit the best value being delivered by the system.

So this is where we are today. At the HIMSS Conference, we discussed recently proposed legislation and many ideas that will help tackle some of the pressing healthcare issues we are now facing. A few of the ideas presented include:

  • A dedicated focus on improving core outcomes, including access to affordable healthcare, reduced healthcare costs, and improved quality.
  • A shift in our current healthcare model. Through newly proposed legislation, there is an effort to convert our current provider-and-payor-centered healthcare system to a patient-centered model.
  • This new consumer-centered model will allow patients to have access and electronic portability of their medical records across the care continuum.
  • Providing this interoperability will lead to consistency across health IT systems, better communication among healthcare providers, and greater patient control over healthcare data.
  • Interoperability will also allow the capture of social determinants of health (lifestyle factors), which are now recognized as being equally as important as genetic information. This will give health providers a more complete picture of a patient’s health status, leading to better, more cost effective diagnostic and therapeutic decisions.
  • Leveraging cutting-edge technology to enhance outcomes. This will lead to greater healthcare access, more patient involvement in their own care, and the alleviation of our growing shortage of healthcare providers.

After speaking with healthcare, technology, and government leaders, one conclusion has become crystal clear: Healthcare problems cannot be solved in silos. The only way we can address our pressing challenges is by developing a holistic solution that combines cutting-edge technology with government policy. Only when these two forces work together will we be able to make meaningful changes in our healthcare system. It will require a combined effort of lawmakers, health IT companies, healthcare providers, payors, and patients to adopt new practices and new mindsets, and tackle our challenges once and for all.

I believe that the HIMSS Conference was a powerful step in the right direction, and I remain excited about the future of healthcare.

Posted in Uncategorized, Business Development, Health IT, Words of WisdomLeave a comment

Posts navigation

Older posts

Categories

  • Concentrations
  • Medical Devices
  • Diagnostics
  • Portfolio Companies
  • Therapeutics
  • Biotechnology Tools
  • Capital Investment Programs
  • Investment Growth Programs
  • PLSG Reminder
  • Under 40 Underserved Advisory Board
  • Uncategorized
  • PLSG News
  • Business Development
  • Health IT
  • Venture Capital Perspective
  • Words of Wisdom

Archives

Tags

  • Nanomedicine
  • Community
  • Development
  • Life Sciences
  • Entrepreneur

Contact

PO Box 42363
Pittsburgh, PA 15203

  • P: 412.201.7370
  • Email: info@plsg.com

Connect

© 2023 Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse. All rights reserved.

Website by Imagebox