Jonah Comstock

Business Insider reporter Blake Dodge moderates a session with Dr. Sree Chaguturu, chief medical officer at CVS/Caremark, and Marcus Osbourne, SVP at Walmart Health
By  Jonah Comstock 02:29 pm October 25, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that were instituted to help control it have re-shaped every sector, and healthcare is no exception. But it isn’t only traditional providers and payers that have discovered the virtues of virtual care and are now exploring its best use cases. New players that have been entering healthcare over the last few years – including big tech companies and big box...
Insurance card being passed across a counter
By  Jonah Comstock 02:55 pm October 1, 2021
Ostensibly about the democratization of healthcare, a panel last week at the virtual event Tech Crunch Disrupt went off the rails when Forward CEO Adrian Aoun went on the offensive, calling out fellow panelists from Carbon Health and Cityblock Health on partnering with insurers, leading to a lively debate about what role, if any, insurers should have in the future of healthcare. “When you get in...
Peloton CEO John Foley onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2018
By  Jonah Comstock 03:03 pm September 30, 2021
At a TechCrunch Disrupt virtual keynote last week, Peloton CEO John Foley and Chief Content Officer Jennifer Cotter opened up to a TechCrunch’s Brian Heater about some of the trials and tribulations the company has been through over the last year. While their replies were polished and diplomatic, they did reveal some insight into the company’s growth and evolution. On the treadmill safety recall...
Panelists at "UpNext: Managing the Message"
By  Jonah Comstock 06:10 pm August 12, 2021
When social media companies like Facebook and YouTube were founded, it’s a good bet that their founders didn’t imagine themselves to be creating public health tools. But in the face of a global pandemic, it’s become obvious that that’s exactly what they created. And as far as health leaders at these companies are concerned, that’s a good thing. “As someone who’s been in public health for about 20...
Dr. Yaa Kumah-Crystal speaks at a podium at HIMSS21.
By  Jonah Comstock 10:57 am August 10, 2021
LAS VEGAS – One major purpose of the electronic health record is to help doctors organize information about their patients so they can deliver effective diagnosis and treatment. But because of the way these systems are designed, they are often failing at that task, according to Dr. Yaa Kumah-Crystal, assistant professor of biomedical informatics and pediatric endocrinology at Vanderbilt...
Dr. Garth Graham
By  Jonah Comstock 12:33 pm August 5, 2021
Before COVID-19, it would have been easy to imagine that producing and distributing an effective vaccine would have been the biggest challenge of fighting a global pandemic. But as it’s turned out, some of the biggest challenges of the COVID-19 virus have been public health challenges – getting people to behave in ways that reduce the spread of disease and getting them to take the vaccine in...
By  Jonah Comstock 02:49 pm June 7, 2021
In today's two-hour keynote at WWDC, Apple’s annual developer conference, the company once again announced a number of updates to health and wellness features of both the iPhone and Apple Watch. In the newest iPhone operating system, Apple is adding real-time assessment of walking stability and fall risk, additional context for lab test results, new tools for tracking health trends for...
A Crossover Health location (photo courtesy Crossover Health)
By  Jonah Comstock 02:46 pm April 14, 2021
Next-gen care provider Crossover Health has quietly shuttered Sherpaa, the virtual primary care company it acquired in 2019. Sherpaa founder Jay Parkinson broke the news in a farewell blog post, in which he also revealed he has parted ways with Crossover after two years there. Sherpaa, a longtime digital health stalwart founded by Parkinson in 2012, is no more as of December 2020, following a six...
Podcast guest Varsha Rao, CEO of NurX
By  Jonah Comstock 01:19 pm March 12, 2021
NurX CEO Varsha Rao joins host Jonah Comstock and MobiHealthNews Managing Editor Laura Lovett to discuss her telehealth company's journey from a laser focus on contraception to a broader play for women's (and men's) health that includes dermatology and migraines. Along the way, we also discuss broader trends in telehealth, the challenges of femtech and NurX's foray into COVID-19 testing.  Like...
Screenshots from Apple's hearing study app
By  Jonah Comstock 01:53 pm March 3, 2021
In honor of World Hearing Day today, Apple and the University of Michigan (along with the World Health Organization) have released preliminary data from the Apple Hearing Study announced back in September 2019. "WHO estimates that there's about 450 million people around the world that have a hearing loss. That's a tremendous public health burden – there's not many other conditions that even...