Highmark-Google Partnership Highlights HLTH Announcements

This week's HLTH conference in Las Vegas featured several intriguing partnerships and digital health products. Here are the highlights.

This week's HLTH conference included several notable announcements in the connected health space. 

Pittsburgh-based Highmark Health, a care management organization spanning three states and including the Allegheny Health Network, announced a partnership with Google Cloud and League to develop a digital health platform, including a member portal and mHealth app. The new My Highmark digital front door will be designed to give members a single online access point to a wide range of services.

"While many in the health and tech industries are in early discussions to evolve the consumer health experience, Highmark Health, Google Cloud, and League are in a period of action," Karen Hanlon, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Highmark Health, said in a press release. "The blended, personalized experience within My Highmark is a milestone in our Living Health strategy to make health care less fragmented and frustrating to navigate, and simpler for members to proactively engage in their health."

Google also announced a deal with COTA, a New York-based digital health company focused on the oncology sector. Through the partnership, COTA will be developed new algorithms aimed at pulling unstructured data out of electronic health records for use in cancer research and treatment.

"Imagine a scenario where we can be alerted, in real time, to new diseases or receive signals from geographies where patients are experiencing better outcomes, or poorer outcomes, so that we can take action quickly,"Miruna Sasu, COTA's president and CEO, said in the press release. "In order for this to become our reality, we must leverage technologies to ingest healthcare data responsibly, accurately, and expeditiously. We are delighted to partner with Google Cloud to combine our respective strengths in technology and data science with the ultimate goal of improving care for patients."

Amwell, one of the giants in the telehealth space, announced a partnership with LG Electronics to tackle one of the biggest concerns in healthcare: workforce shortages. The two have developed the Carepoint TV kit and accompanying Amwell Converge digital health platform, which enables providers in busy care facilities and hospitals to remotely engage, monitor and discharge patients through their in-room TV system.

"We are facing an all-time high level of healthcare worker burnout and financial constraint spurred by the pandemic," Amwell Chief Marketing Office Susan Worthy said in the press release. "Technology innovation such as this can reduce the burden on clinicians and care teams while improving patient engagement and ultimately enabling a better care experience for all."

Dexcare, which focuses on digital health coordination services, announced a partnership with Kaiser Permanente to develop AI tools to help health systems improve capacity optimization and load-leveling services. The platform is designed to help providers tackle workforce issues, reduce stress and burnout and improve care coordination across multiple care lines, including virtual and in-person.

Other announcements made at HLTH include:

• Henry Schein Medical announced a partnership with Rimidi to integrate remote patient monitoring tools and decision support services to its SolutionsHub platform.
• Teva Pharmaceuticals and HealthSnap announced a collaboration to create a digital health platform around Teva's Digihaler system, a chronic care management system designed for patients with respiratory health concerns.
• CancerIQ announced an expansion to its platform that enables primary care providers to assess a patient's comprehensive cancer risk and recommend personalized resources and treatments, such as genetic testing, colonoscopies and lung scans. According to company officials, a trial run at three health systems saw both clinical and financial benefits.
• BrightInsight, a digital health company in the biopharma space, announced a an enterprise agreement with CSL Behring to expand the platform for the recently launched Hizentra mHealth app and other apps and services aimed at late-stage and marketed rare disease therapies.
• Included Health unveiled All-Included Care, designed as a platform to coordinate both virtual and in-person care across the entire benefits ecosystem.
• Virtual care provider MDLIVE announced the expansion of its virtual primary care platform to enhance support for chronic care management.
• General Catalyst, a venture capital firm targeting health assurance investments and collaboration, announced partnerships with 15 more health systems, including Banner Health, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Hackensack Meridian Health, MetroHealth, UC Davis Health and the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC).
• Twilio, a provider of customer engagement solutions, unveiled the Twilio Segment for Healthcare & Life Sciences, a HIPAA-eligible customer data platform designed to gather and support protected health information (PHI) across the care journey.
• Bamboo Health unveiled Real-Time Care Intelligence, a platform designed to give care providers actionable insights and care decision support tools for a patient's physical, behavioral and social health concerns.
• NovaWell, an affiliate of Horizon Healthcare Services, introduced a suite of integrated behavioral health solutions designed for health plans (including Blue Cross Blue Shield) and care providers that can integrate mental health and substance abuse treatments with other services, such as primary care.
• Hello Heart, a digital therapeutic company focused on heart health, unveiled Dot-to-Dot, an AI-enhanced platform designed to help patients connect lifestyle choices to heart health.
• Wolters Kluwer Health announced the launch of the Digital Health Architect Consumer Education Suite and EmmiGuide, designed to help payers and virtual care providers manage their members' health concerns. The company also announced a partnership with Microsoft to expand its digital health services to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.
• Vivalink has expanded its biometrics data platform to support a wide range of wearables and digital health devices in the remote monitoring space, offering providers the opportunity to integrate sensors, edge networking, and cloud services for continuous and episodic monitoring. The platform can capture data ranging from weight and sleep to respiratory rate, heart function, temperature, oxygen saturation and blood pressure.
• Sprinter Health, a digital health and diagnostics company focused on the home, has announced a partnership with Firefly Health, a virtual care-based health plan. The partnership will integrate the former's in-home clinical services with the latter's virtual primary care platform.
• PreventScripts, a digital health company that helps care providers find reimbursable digital health tools for preventive health services, announced an expansion of its platform to 12 providers who are managing patients with metabolic conditions. The platform enables care teams to identify and treat patients, including through remote patient monitoring.
• Particle Health, which offers digital health data exchange services, has unveiled Specialty Search, an expanded record locator service (RLS) capability designed to enable providers to search for condition-specific patient data at specialty sites. The company has also announced that Jasper Health, a provider of digital guiding and navigation services in the oncology space, is using Particle's FHIR-based solution to improve oncology services.