Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Frustrated With Cumbersome, Clunky Diabetes Devices, Patients Are Turning To DIY Technology
The Washington Post: DIY Diabetes Tech Gains Popularity With Patients And Parents Fed Up With Clunky Mainstream Medical Devices
One night, 18-month-old Hazel Lumpkin woke up with her diaper completely soaked with urine. Her parents, Matt and Melody Lumpkin of Pasadena, Calif., rediapered her in a larger size, hoping that would fix the issue. But Hazel continued to saturate diaper after diaper. As a childhood fan of “The Baby-Sitters Club” — a book series featuring a young girl with Type 1 diabetes — Melody recalled the connection between frequent urination and diabetes in children. (Kim, 12/14)
The Washington Post: Virtual Reality, Robots, Interactive Apps, Other New Tech Help People With Dementia And Their Caretakers
Doris Moss has always loved dancing. Now in her 80s and suffering from a form of dementia, it has become more important than ever, as hearing a good beat will spur her to get up and move around. And so her daughter, Angela Pearson, who lives with her mother in Ellenwood, Ga., and is her primary caretaker, has turned to a new technology for people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia: a touch-screen application known as SimpleC Companion, that can be set to play some of Moss’s favorite music — along with recorded reminders to drink water and take medication — at various points of the day when Pearson is away from the house. (Kalter, 12/15)
The Washington Post: Data Catch-22: How Tech Gadgets For Exercise Sometimes Do More Harm Than Good
When Bri Cawsey began running in 2008, she quickly got hooked on the sport and wanted to get faster. So she did what many runners do and bought a GPS watch that would give her real-time feedback on her pace, mileage and other metrics. First, she enjoyed the data readout. Before long, she connected her watch to an app that helped her track calories, as well. Then she added a second watch, more sophisticated than the first, and began comparing the data from the two for better accuracy. By about 2012, Cawsey found she couldn’t do anything without a tracking watch on her wrist. (Loudin, 12/14)
The Washington Post: New Prosthetic Can Help People Who Have Lost A Limb Feel Again, And May Reduce Phantom Pain
Phantom pain was all that Keven Walgamott had left of the limb he lost in an accident over a decade ago — until he tried on the LUKE Arm for the first time in 2017, and told researchers that he could “feel” again. The arm is a motorized and sensorized prosthetic that has been in development for over 15 years by a team at the University of Utah. Researchers around the world have been developing prosthetics that closely mimic the part of the human body they would replace. (Dhar, 12/14)
The Associated Press: Large Hospital System Says It Was Hit By Ransomware Attack
New Jersey’s largest hospital system said Friday that a ransomware attack last week disrupted its computer network and that it paid a ransom to stop it. Hackensack Meridian Health did not say in its statement how much it paid to regain control over its systems but said it holds insurance coverage for such emergencies. (12/13)
The Wall Street Journal: New Jersey Hospital System Hit By Cyberattack
Attacks on hospitals and health systems, who have been digitizing their operations and record-keeping, have proven to be hugely disruptive, in some cases leaving small physician groups unable to recover. Victims have been forced to cancel some elective procedures, shut down computer networks to prevent further spread of the virus and temporarily revert to using paper records. (Evans, 12/13)
Stat: 7 Startups Acquired By Apple That Are Central To Its Health Strategy
The Apple Watch continuously monitors numerous health metrics and doubles as a virtual clinical trial site. AirPods, Apple’s wireless ear buds, function as basic hearing aids, and its health record app lets users pull in data from health care providers. ...Over the past decade, Apple has nabbed roughly half a dozen startups with specialties that could prove critical for health care disruption, from speech recognition and sleep tracking to health record consolidation and hospital mapping. (Brodwin, 12/16)
