Jonah Comstock

By  Jonah Comstock 02:37 pm July 30, 2019
A new patent filing suggests that Microsoft, which seemed to have definitively abandoned health wearables with the shutdown of the Microsoft Band in 2016 (and the decommissioning of its corresponding software program earlier this year) may be at least thinking about getting back in the game. The patent filing, first spotted by Neowin, is for what the writers call a "multidimensional optical...
By  Jonah Comstock 10:58 am July 4, 2019
With 12 deals, the second quarter of 2019 was lighter on M&A than some, but the acquisitions that did happen were major — like UnitedHealth Group acquiring PatientsLikeMe, Allscripts snapping up ZappRx, and even a small quiet Apple acquisition (which came to light this quarter but likely occurred before then). And mergers and acquisitions weren’t the only exits happening this quarter. Much...
By  Jonah Comstock 01:38 pm July 2, 2019
At MassChallenge HealthTech's awards event last week, judges awarded the $10,000 Women in Digital Health Award, sponsored by Mitre, to Welnys, a Jersey City, New Jersey-based startup that connects employers to many different kinds of wellness vendors through a single source. "I’m a lot of things you’re not supposed to be as a founder," CEO Heather Waibel said in a brief acceptance speech. "I’m a...
By  Jonah Comstock 08:22 am June 28, 2019
One easy mistake for an organization to make is to think of innovation as a project that can be finished. Certainly healthcare systems have seen success with large-scale transformation projects with set end dates that can be said to be concluded. But the nature of innovation is that it’s ongoing, not just because technology is always advancing, but also because the needs of patients and providers...
By  Jonah Comstock 03:08 pm June 26, 2019
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the startups' total revenue generated. MassChallenge HealthTech, the mentorship-based healthtech accelerator, graduated its third class at an event in downtown Boston yesterday, as well as awarding $200,000 in prizes to startups. “Today we’re recognizing and celebrating entrepreneurship that thinks and acts outside the box, and that...
By  Jonah Comstock 02:17 pm June 24, 2019
Evidence is mounting that 2019 is going to be the year of the digital health IPO, and the latest to run up that flag is Phreesia, a digitial health company that has been quietly innovating in the patient check-in space for more than a decade. New York City-based Phreesia announced today the filing of its S-1 form with the SEC, though the number of shares being offered and their initial value are...
By  Jonah Comstock 02:15 pm June 20, 2019
Providence St. Joseph health spinout Xealth, which aims to create a prescribing infrastructure for digital health apps, has raised $3 million in new funding, an add-on that brings its previously announced Series A up to $14 million and the company’s total funding to $22.5 million. The three new investors in the round are all health systems who will be using the app with their doctors and patients...
By  Jonah Comstock 03:58 pm June 19, 2019
Digital chronic condition management company Vida Health has raised $30 million in a strategic Series C round. Contributors to the round included Florida Blue parent company GuideWell Mutual Holding Corporation, telemedicine giant Teladoc Health and Workday Ventures, the investment arm of enterprise cloud software company Workday, all of which also announced new partnerships or integrations with...
By  Jonah Comstock 03:03 pm June 13, 2019
Artificial intelligence and machine learning can help health systems in many ways, from improving backend efficiencies to monitoring patients to streamlining imaging analysis. But even when a health system has good data sets, turning those into useful and accurate algorithms is no easy feat. On a panel at the HIMSS Machine Learning & AI for Healthcare conference in Boston today, moderated by...
By  Jonah Comstock 03:51 pm June 10, 2019
Caesarea, Israel-based Itamar Medical received FDA 510(k) clearance last week for a new disposable home sleep apnea test (HSAT) called WatchPAT One. The device is smartphone-connected; patients pair the wearable to their phone before sleeping with the device, which straps around the wrist but also includes a sensor that goes over the tip of the finger and another that affixes to the chest, both...