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Understand the Latest Trends

Reflect on the month gone by with our birds-eye view on what's happened in healthcare innovation, with featured deep dives on the leading stories that matter to you.

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As I read the Febraury Startup Index, I noticed that health IT companies dominated but some products and ideas stretched over more than one category. They incorporated elements of a device and digital health or biotech and diagnostics.
A tumor storage center – biotech or diagnostic? A bra to detect breast cancer – digital health or diagnostic?

This made me think about what this report will look like in a few years, maybe even 18 months. Maybe overlap and convergence will be the norm. I won’t be able to organize our articles into three separate sections. There will be just one big mass of startups that cover multiple aspects of healthcare from devices to drugs to digital apps. Here are three examples of these un-categorizable companies that include biotech, device and digital health components.

A joint implant that includes sensors that track range of motion and links to an app to monitor physical therapy
A 3D printed heart coated with anti-rejection medication and embedded with sensors to track how well the heart is functioning
An insulin pump that sends data wirelessly to an EHR, makes food recommendations in an app and sets an alarm in a smart watch to warn of low blood sugar

There are several big barriers to these imaginings becoming reality: the FDA and no interoperability among devices and data sources to name only two. Still, you can see this happening around the edges of the industry and watch this convergence gain momentum all the time.

Providers and payers can already see the advantages of such an interconnected approach to healthcare, and patients get a glimpse of that kind of system, they will make the revolution happen even faster. At that point, we won’t need separate categories for different kinds of startups – they will all fall under the heading of “how healthcare works now.”

Veronica Combs,
Editor-in-Chief, MedCityNews.com