Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has added Tufts Medicine to its pay-for-equity financial payment model.  Blue Cross said it is the first health plan in Massachusetts — and among the first in the nation — to introduce contracts linking financial incentives to achieving measurable improvements in health equity.

There’s an increasing buzz among patients for GLP-1 weight loss drugs, such as Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy, but if patient demand continues to grow and Medicare expanded its coverage in response, it could cost the federal program between $13.6 and $26.8 billion annually.

IT, telehealth, clinical decision support, wellness tools and diagnostics all fall into the same category, says Jessica Hauflaire, COO of the Digital Therapeutics Alliance. Digital therapeutics consist of software as a direct intervention to treat, manage or prevent medical conditions.

The World Health Organization is calling for caution in using artificial intelligence-generated large language model tools (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Bard, Bert and others that imitate understanding, processing and human communication.  LLMs increasing use for health-related purposes raises concerns for patient safety, WHO said. The precipitous adoption of untested systems could lead to errors by […]

Alan Lavergne, VP of advocacy for the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of HIMSS, discusses the five Texas chapters collaborating to advance health equity with the state’s legislature, and talks about winning an award recognizing his efforts.

Data from the 2022 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) shows that the uninsured rate in the U.S. is on the decline, with about 27.6 million people of all ages (8.4%) uninsured last year – down from the 30 million (9.2%) people who were uninsured in 2021.

Bronwyn Spira cofounded Force Therapeutics 12 years ago to answer the challenge of how patients can best recover at home. The digital care management platform for musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions allows patients to actively engage in their care anytime, anywhere, through an intelligently designed system, said Spira, CEO of the company. There’s also a clinical and […]

A long-term care pharmacy company has been hit with a data breach. How bad was it? We’ll assess the damage and look at other big news in this week’s Top Stories, including the fate of CVS’ clinical trials business and the latest on a digital menopause care platform. For more news and features from Jeff […]

Collaboration is needed for innovation to get out of siloes, says Olyvia Phillips, manager of equity initiatives for tech incubator MATTER.