Clinician News - September 2020
Here's a recap of the resources for clinicians, digital health news, telemedicine innovations, and virtual care updates for September 2020.
News & Resources for Clinicians
Governor Cuomo Announces $88.6 Million in Cares Act Funding Available to Assist Child Care Providers During COVID-19 Pandemic
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced $88.6 million in federal CARES Act funding is available to assist child care providers through NY Forward grants as they adjust their programs amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The funding is in addition to $30 million made available in the spring and $48.3 million recently awarded to assist child care providers with reopening or restructuring their physical plans to meet new social distancing requirements.
Read full story on the Governor's website >
The Coronavirus Is Creating A Mental Health Crisis For Health Care Workers
Front-line care workers have been called heroes throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Many of them don’t feel like it. Instead, they feel besieged and traumatized not only by the suffering and death they’ve witnessed, but by a health care system they believe is showing it doesn’t value them, a disjointed and ineffective governmental response, and members of the public who deny the reality of all that suffering and death.
Read full story on the Huffington Post >
5 Ways to Avoid Nurse Burnout
As rewarding as it can be to save lives and give people a chance for a better quality of life, the healthcare field can be mentally and physically exhausting. It can also wear on your emotions, leaving you feeling depleted and out of it. In light of the heavy demand COVID-19 placed on those in the medical field, it no surprise that nurse burnout is expected to rise beyond the problem it has already come. Research shows that burnout contributed to lower levels of patient care, costly turnover in medical facilities, and poor mental health for nurses that are about to give up on their career. These tips can help those heading into the nursing field or those hanging in there avoid burnout.
Read full story on MedGadget >
How Doctors Can Cope With Psychological Distress During the Pandemic
A recent study published in the JAMA Network Open found that 3 times more Americans are suffering from depression during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with before. Front-line workers have not been sheltered from this challenge, as borne out by high-profile physician suicides in COVID-19 hotspots.Burnout is a common malady among physicians as a result of working long hours and dissatisfaction stemming from having less time to spend with individual patients. But with many physicians working fewer hours now, mental health challenges they are dealing with may look more like depression.
Innovations in Healthcare & Digital Health
CVS Health to offer Apple Fitness+ to Aetna commercial, CVS Caremark members
CVS Health is offering Aetna commercial and CVS Caremark members a one-year subscription to Apple Fitness+, the company announced on Sept. 15. Apple and Aetna have an ongoing relationship that began in 2016 when 90 percent of participants in their employee wellness subsidiary program reported health benefits from the Apple Watch. Last year, Aetna launched an integrated wellness program with Apple called Attain, which blends activity-driven incentives and rewards with health recommendations.
Read full story on Becker's Hospital Review >
Best Buy Health partnered with Amazon to launch a telehealth-enabled flip phone for seniors
Electronics retail giant Best Buy's health unit launched a new flip phone—dubbed LivelyFlip—that can integrate with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant and boasts telehealth features to connect seniors to on-demand providers, per Becker's Hospital Review. The phone's Amazon voice-powered tech enables seniors to make calls and send texts—in addition to the device's urgent call button, which links a user directly to 24/7 access to care teams at telehealth company GreatCall.
Read full story on Business Insider >
Sam's Club and 98point6 are partnering to offer members $1 telehealth visits
Sam's Club and virtual primary care provider 98point6 joined forces to offer Sam's Club members exclusive virtual care offerings, including $1 telehealth visits. As part of the tie-up, Sam's Club members with a Club or Plus membership can buy a quarterly subscription with an introductory fee of $20 for the first 3 months per participant, versus 98point6's typical sign-up fee of $30 per participant—in addition to offering $1 telehealth visits, with unlimited use, the subscription provides users with 24/7 access to US board-certified physicians.
Read full story on Business Insider >
Clinic Price Check has built a service to see if patients can save money by paying cash for procedures
Before launching Clinic Price Check, Joanne Rodrigues-Craig had been a stay-at-home mom with Master’s degrees in population demographics, political science, and applied mathematics from UC Berkeley and the London School of Economics. She’d written a book on demographics and politics, published work on data analysis for predictive customer insights, and, most recently, worked for Sony as a statistics manager. But when her daughter was sick with the flu and a trip to urgent care left Rodrigues-Craig with an $800 hospital bill, she found her entrepreneurial mission — figuring out why health care expenses were so high for some people who paid with insurance when the cash cost could be much lower.
Read full story on TechCrunch>
Telehealth News
Children's Hospital Los Angeles launches accelerator for pediatric digital health
While digital health for adults is a booming business, innovation in the pediatric market has lagged. Children's Hospital Los Angeles wants to change this. The hospital is leading a digital health accelerator that will link more than 30 hospitals across the U.S., U.K. and Australia with technology companies focused on increasing digital innovations for pediatric patients.
Read full story on Fierce Healthcare >
HHS Plan to Improve Rural Health Focuses on Better Broadband, Telehealth Services
Knowing it may be met with some skepticism, the Trump administration Thursday announced a sweeping plan that officials say will transform health care in rural America. Even before the coronavirus pandemic reached into the nation’s less-populated regions, rural Americans were sicker, poorer, and older than the rest of the country. Hospitals are shuttering at record rates, and health care experts have long called for changes.Read full story on KHN >
U.S. Telemedicine App Downloads Spikes During COVID-19 Pandemic
Downloads of U.S. Telemedicine apps from leading telehealth companies have reported dramatic increases in demand for their services in the US since the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to GlobalData, a leading data, and analytics company.
Read full story >Insurer Centene invests in start-up Hazel Health in $33.5 million venture funding round
Telemedicine start-up Hazel Health provides school-based virtual medical care and mental health for children in grade school. When the Covid pandemic shut down schools this spring, the company pivoted to home access. “We built what we’re now calling Hazel at Home, where you can now also have a doctor’s visit from your house from a laptop, or Chromebook, or from a cell phone,” said Josh Golomb, Hazel Health CEO.Read full story on CNBC >
Movano closes $12.5M bridge financing round to transform glucose monitoring with non-invasive wearable technology
Movano is a stealth mode San Francisco Bay Area digital health startup that transforms glucose monitoring with its non-invasive wearable technology. Today, Movano announced it has closed its bridge round at $12.5 million to expand both internal and external testing efforts. The capital will also help accelerate the process of miniaturizing Movano’s technology into a single chip that can fit inside a wearable. After announcing $10M in bridge funding in July, the company raised an additional $2.5M to progress the development of its wearable non-invasive continuous glucose monitor.Read full story >