Posts by: Nicholas Genes

Diabetes Design Demo Day Semi-Finalist: N4A Diabetes Care Center

by Nicholas Genes on May 22, 2012

Among all the semi-finalists for Sanofi’s Data Design Diabetes Demo Day, we think N4A Diabetes Care Center was the most unexpected and confusing. N4A dates back to 1960′s legislation on aging, and is a loose affiliation of state agencies around aging. N4A literally stands for Advocacy, Actions, and Answers on Aging.

As Sandra Mark Woods explained in her presentation, they’re not an app, not software, nor offering live streaming, but they are a data-driven organization and “high-touch” in diabetes management. N4A is a Title VI organization that has been providing services in communities for decades. They are involved in Meals-on-Wheels, depression counseling, transport of patients to providers, and chronic disease management services. Millions use it, they have 800 million patient records and a diabetes index with 30 million maps.

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Diabetes Design Demo Day Semi-Finalist: LiveHealth

by Nicholas Genes on May 22, 2012

Next up in our coverage of semi-finalists for Sanofi’s Data Design Diabetes Demo Day is LiveHealth.

LiveHealth CEO Chris Gay started off by showing data that demonstrates that diabetes self-management can really help compliance and health outcomes — but education necessary for proper self-management requires 15 visits in the first year alone, which is too much for many patients, especially those without reliable transport or means.

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Data Design Diabetes Demo Day Semi-Finalist: EnduringFx

by Nicholas Genes on May 22, 2012

We think the most ambitious idea among semi-finalists for Sanofi’s Data Design Diabetes Demo Day came from EnduringFX, which used to be called Activity-based Integrated Data Model (seriously? another good idea on the name change, guys!)

EnduringFX’s president and founder, Jim Stritzinger, looks a bit like a young Tim cook. He’s from South Carolina, and a lot of EnduringFX’s activity is focused so far in that state. He began his pitch noting that American obesity is driving the terrible numbers we’re seeing in diabetes, as well as CHF and arthritis … 42% of the population is projected to be obese by 2030. He showed a heat map for how much of the US South is at risk for diabetes.

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Diabetes Design Demo Day Semi-Finalist: GreenDot

by Nicholas Genes on May 22, 2012

Next up in our coverage of semi-finalists for Sanofi’s Data Design Diabetes Demo Day is GreenDot, which used to be called Diabetes 3.0 (good idea on the name change, guys!)

GreenDot was started by two UCSF endocrinologists – Jenise Wong and Aaron Neinstein. We believe they’re the only doctor-originated company in this bunch. They were frustrated, and their patients were frustrated, with the overwhelming amount of data generated by pumps and glucometers. Data in its own format, and in nonstandard layouts, is challenging for patients to interpret and difficult for doctors to compare.

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Data Design Diabetes Demo Day Semi-Finalist: iRetainRx

by Nicholas Genes on May 21, 2012

First up in our coverage of semi-finalists for Sanofi‘s Data Design Diabetes Demo Day is iRetainRx. Previous coverage here and here.

iRetainRx’s founder and CEO, David Parpart, began the pitch boldly, by saying, “We are going to save 500,000 lives this decade.” He then went on to describe how their interactive mobile system will allow caregivers, patients and pharmacists to collaborate on care plans. See, for every 100 prescriptions, only a fraction are filled, and only a fraction of those are even taken correctly. This attrition is particularly difficult with diabetes, where the regimens are complicated, the effect of the drugs can be hard to notice, and yet: noncompliance leads to huge extra social costs.

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Data Design Diabetes Demo Day Coverage

by Nicholas Genes on May 21, 2012

On Wednesday evening we had the chance to return to Blueprint Health HQ for the Sanofi-sponsored contest event called Data Design Diabetes Demo Day (brought to you DDAVP). Medgadget spoke with some of the judges last month about the challenges of diabetes care, the goals of DDDemo day, and their choices for the five semi-finalists.

Well, on Wednesday the five semi-finalists had their chance to present their plans for improving US diabetes care: Greendot, EnduringFX, LiveHealth, iRetainRx, and N4A Diabetes Care Center.

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Grand Rounds Vol. 7 No. 35

by Nicholas Genes on May 24, 2011

Welcome to Grand Rounds, the weekly recap of the best in the medical blog universe! And welcome to Medgadget, where our team of researchers, doctors and engineers cover the world of medical devices and health-related technology news.

For Grand Rounds this week, we suggested bloggers send us technology-related material, and they rose to the challenge; we received some amazing links. Of course, there was great non-techie material too. It’s all below, loosely categorized, with photos and quotes lifted from posts of note.

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The Proton Beam Arms Race

by Nicholas Genes on May 19, 2011

We have great respect for former BI-Deaconess CEO Paul Levy. We’re particularly enamored by his insistence on administrative transparency and reimbursements for evidence-based therapies. Commonsense managerial goals like this that can do a lot to improve quality and reign in healthcare costs.

But, in an open letter on his blog, he asked CMS to stop the proton beam arms race. And, as gadget lovers and fans of science fiction, that was a little tough for us to stomach.

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Grand Rounds at Medgadget Next Week

by Nicholas Genes on May 18, 2011

Grand Rounds is coming to Medgadget on Tuesday, May 24th.

Grand Rounds is a weekly summary of the best health blog posts on the Internet. Each week a different blogger takes turns hosting Grand Rounds, and summarizing the best submissions for the week.

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