Mike Miliard

By  Mike Miliard 01:14 pm December 20, 2016
Nashville, Tennessee-based Saint Thomas Health has opened Saint Thomas Health On Demand, a virtual clinic offering round-the-clock access to healthcare. Part of Ascension, the nation’s largest Catholic and non-profit health system, Saint Thomas Health has built the service – which allows patients to receive high-quality care in a virtual clinic via a smartphone, tablet or computer – using a...
By  Mike Miliard 03:44 pm November 29, 2016
A new public-private partnership comprising more than 30 healthcare experts from Massachusetts will advise Governor Charlie Baker's administration on ways technology can help improve healthcare quality across the Commonwealth, reduce costs and increase job growth. The council, an outgrowth of the Massachusetts Digital Health Initiative announced earlier this year, draws on dozens of leaders from...
By  Mike Miliard 03:35 pm November 15, 2016
NewYork-Presbyterian has formed an investment fund to drive growth of fledgling digital health companies. NewYork-Presbyterian has focused on advanced technologies for enhanced care delivery for years. The venture fund follows the 2014 launch of the NYP Innovation Center to implement cutting-edge technologies for both clinicians and patients across its hospitals and clinics. Earlier this year,...
By  Mike Miliard 03:24 pm July 13, 2016
Imprivata, the Lexington, Massachusetts-based developer of health IT security tools, has agreed to be acquired by an affiliate of Thoma Bravo, a San Francisco private equity firm. The deal is valued at approximately $544 million. "We are now in a stronger position to pursue market opportunities through innovating and expanding the products and services we offer," said Omar Hussain, president and...
By  Mike Miliard 03:16 pm May 23, 2016
Too many people, on both sides of the doctor-patient relationship, still think of healthcare as a service industry, according to Danny Sands, MD, founder of the Society for Participatory Medicine. But that "carwash model" model doesn't work, said Sands, speaking Friday afternoon at Healthcare IT News' Pop Health Forum 2016. Healthcare is "not a service industry, it's a collaboration," he said. "...
By  Mike Miliard 09:40 am December 4, 2015
Many of the aging medical devices still in wide use at hospitals across the U.S. were built without much consideration for security controls. Bedside devices or implants, for instance, routinely carry potentially dangerous faults, according to Kevin Fu, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at University of Michigan. Another example? Fu pointed to one local hospital...
By  Mike Miliard 08:08 am November 23, 2015
The new MyCareLink Smart Monitor from Medtronic, just approved by the FDA, enables patients with implantable pacemakers to use their smartphones to transmit secure data from their pacemakers to their physicians. The MyCareLink app is available for free on Android and Apple platforms and works in tandem with a physician-prescribed portable device reader. When the monitor is connected to cellular...
By  Mike Miliard 01:06 pm October 21, 2014
Wearables. They’re cutting edge, catching on and, in some cases, even approaching fashionable. One in five American adults own some sort of wearable device, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. And while that number is expected to grow, they'll need a different set of qualities to make their mark in healthcare - namely "interoperable, integrated, engaging, social and outcomes-driven,” PwC authors...
By  Mike Miliard 07:58 am October 9, 2014
When it comes to Big Data and related quality, safety and physician responsibility issues, Robert Wachter, MD, has a lot to say.  Being provocative and innovative is what Wachter – widely read at his blog, Wachter's World, and followed on Twitter (@Bob_Wachter) – is good at. Associate Chair of the Department of Medicine at University California San Francisco, Wachter is pioneer of the hospitalist...
By  Mike Miliard 12:29 pm October 6, 2014
That Facebook app in your employees’ smartphones and tablets just might factor into the company’s new strategy to enter healthcare. Facebook is reportedly following in the footsteps of other Silicon Valley titans like Apple and Google in developing health discussion groups and wellness apps for its base of 1.3 billion users. A request for comment to its Menlo Park, Calif. headquarters was not...