Digital health news briefs for 2/12/2018

By Jonah Comstock
03:55 pm
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Wyoming launches app for families. The Wyoming Department of Health has launched a free app, developed by Wildflower Health, to help parents track and manage the health of their children. The app includes trackers for height, weight, and vaccinations, as well as tools for expecting mothers and parents of infants. It also connects users to Wyoming Department of Health resources, such as the Wyoming Quit Tobacco Program. Users can enter a zip code to be connected to nearby in-person health resources.

“Most families have someone who essentially serves as the ‘chief health officer of the home’ and they often need to track a lot of information and details,” Dr. James Bush, Wyoming Medicaid medical director with WDH, said in a statement. “This app can help that person by making managing the health of each family member a little easier and more convenient.”

Researchers develop recyclable, self-healing artificial skin. Researchers at the University of Boulder in Colorado have developed an "e-skin" that can mimic many of the properties of human skin. The flexible material contains sensors that can detect pressure, temperature, humidity, and air flow. Researchers see potential applications in prosthetics, robotics, and medical devices.

Thyroid app maker joins Swedish accelerator. Boost Thyroid, a Berlin-based company that makes a thyroid health tracker of the same name, has joined Swedish startup accelerator Fast Track Malmö. Boost Thyroid is aimed at helping people with a thyroid condition called Hashimoto's disease, and includes medication reminders, symptom tracking, and an AI chatbot that answers users' questions about the thyroid, autoimmunity, and Hashimoto's disease.

"We are excited about this opportunity as Sweden is a proven digital health leader within the EU with a forward-thinking mindset and a collaborative community,” Boost Thyroid founder and CEO Dr. Vedrana Högqvist Tabor said in a statement. “We are looking forward to work from Malmö, to explore the Swedish health tech scene, to interact with other startups, and to continue our work on improving autoimmune health.”

Clinical Research IO wins over CRAs. In a commissioned survey, Clinical Research IO (CRIO) found that clinical research associates largely preferred the company's clinical trial software to traditional paper methods. Specifically, 67 percent agreed that the CRIO eSource platform beat paper at promoting data integrity, 63 percent said CRIO facilitated quality assurance better than paper, and 56 percent agreed that sponsors benefit if more sites use CRIO or a similar electronic platform.

“This survey is meaningful because it asks CRAs about their experience with an eSource system they actually have been using at their research sites, not a conceptual system they have to imagine using,” Raymond Nomizu, cofounder of CRIO, explained in a statement. “By making this concrete, we are providing industry proof that a properly designed eSource system can improve the conduct of the trial.”

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