healthcare technology

Merck Uses Amazon Echo to Develop Voice-Enabled Solutions for Diabetic Patients

By Paul B. Kaiser on March 10, 2017

Healthcare devices have been making big strides over the last few years. And the announcement below from Merck is no exception. Merck plans on using Amazon Web Services to develop voice-enabled solutions for patients. They will be starting with Type 2 Diabetes and then venturing out to other chronic diseases. It’s good to see that Pharma is stepping outside the box to help patients use technology in a smart and intuitive way. The press release below goes into the current details of the project.

“Analysts estimate Amazon will sell more than 110 million Amazon Echo devices over the next four years, and many are already pointing to healthcare as an important item on Alexa’s eventual to-do list.”

It looks like people will soon go far beyond turning on lights or calling an Uber. As we venture deeper into healthcare, helping people better manage their diseases will create effective outcomes. Reminding people of their nutrition intake, or scheduling their insulin dosages, are all great ideas. The Merck-sponsored Alexa challenge will call on developers to push the boundaries of voice technology for people with diabetes.

Merck Press release:

Merck is working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to explore the creation and delivery of innovative digital consumer solutions for people living with chronic disease by using Amazon Lex, the same deep learning technologies that power Amazon Alexa. Merck will initially focus on diabetes, a chronic, progressive disease that currently affects 415 million people around the world.

“We have a deep heritage of tackling chronic diseases through our medicines, and we have been expanding into other ways to help, beyond the pill.” said Kimberly Park, vice president, Customer Strategy & Innovation, Global Human Health, Merck. “We are excited to leverage the AWS Cloud to find innovative ways to leverage digital solutions, such as voice-activated technology, to help support better outcomes that could make a difference in the lives of those suffering from chronic conditions like diabetes.”

“We are pleased to work with Merck to explore how Merck can use the AWS Cloud to help create new solutions within health care that can connect people with information to help improve management of their own health” said Steve Halliwell, director of health care and life sciences, AWS.

This collaboration will leverage the expertise of both organizations — Merck’s expertise in epidemiology, drug development, observational research, medication adherence and patient education programs, and Amazon’s expertise in web services, connected devices and voice interfaces.

In addition, Merck is sponsoring an open innovation challenge that calls on developers to create a skill for Alexa, the cloud-based voice service that powers the Amazon Echo, to help support people living with diabetes. The Merck sponsored challenge will be independently developed and run by Luminary Labs and members of the challenge team from Luminary Labs will be at the 2017 HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition.

This is an intense look at the future of healthcare technology from TEDx.

Google is in deep with Artificial Intelligence

By Paul B. Kaiser on October 18, 2016

DeepMind is a Google owned company dedicated to making computers that think and act like humans. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expanding and evolving at a fast pace, much do to big investments.

Google is serious about AI as can be seen by its show of big announcements in recent weeks — the improved Google Translate machine learning tricks, its voice-controlled speaker system Home, and their new smartphone line Pixel (which is equipped with the virtual Assistant). All this is evidence of their dedication to the science of artificial intelligence. But now Google has ramped up its investments in what’s known as “deep learning”. In 2012, Google had two deep-learning projects underway. Today, Google has more than 1,000 deep-learning projects in every major product category, including search, maps, translation, and self-driving cars.

Digital Trends says that deep learning refers to a kind of AI that enables software to train itself to perform tasks, like speech and image recognition. The algorithms behind this kind of AI have been around since the 1980s and 1990s, Fortune reports, but it’s only in recent years that technology companies have been able to harness its true potential thanks to the explosion of easily accessible big data. Google launched its deep-learning project Google Brain in 2011, and in 2014 it bought DeepMind, a pioneering reinforcement learning program that’s been shattering AI landmarks in gameplay this year.

“Deepmind has also invested in healthcare and now has up to 40 employees.”

The expansion of DeepMind Health comes as the company looks to do increasing amounts of work with the NHS. The company has announced three NHS partnerships so far, including an eyecare project, a kidney monitoring project and a cancer detection project. None of the projects hold any commercial value for DeepMind but the company eventually plans to start charging the NHS and others for access to its products and services.

VR, Robots, and Pharma are Hot at SXSW

By Paul B. Kaiser on March 14, 2016

It’s hot in Austin – literally. But besides being 96 degrees in Austin, there is a “Lot of Hot” going on at SXSW. Even Obama can’t bring this event down (Note to self: don’t tell the tech community that their phones are just black boxes). Still in all a big surprise interview – see interview below. The normal things like VR, robots and the connected Internet of Things is draped across SXSW, but of interest is Pharma looking to connect the brain to treat chronic diseases,

Electroceuticals

One of the most interesting topics is electroceuticals and Big Pharma. A recently coined term that broadly encompasses all bioelectronic medicine that employs electrical stimulation to affect and modify functions of the body. GSK is now planning clinical trials for implanted devices that will provide bioelectric treatments for three chronic diseases. Currently, GSK is focused on devices that will be implanted on peripheral nerves in the body; controling signals in the brain is “orders of magnitude” harder, Slaoui said. But working with peripheral nerves that lead to major organs provides plenty of opportunities to treat chronic diseases. Slaoui rattled off a list of ailments that included obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, asthma, and arthritis.

These devices would be programmed to read and modify electrical signals that pass along nerves of the body, including irregular or altered impulses that can occur in association with a broad range of diseases. The hope is that through these devices, disorders as diverse as inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis, asthma, hypertension and diabetes could be treated. We believe bioelectronic medicines could allow us to treat these with greater precision and fewer side effects than with conventional medicines.

Virtual reality is everywhere

No surprise that virtual reality (VR) has been a key part of the SXSW experience for the past few years, with the Game of Thrones VR experience and Samsung’s Gear VR both standing out in past years. This year, virtual reality is at the forefront.

Panels are on tap to discuss everything from Cinematic VR, virtual football, and VR storytelling to city planning using social VR. And the event features various branded installations such as the Samsung Gear VR Lounge and the McDonald’s Loft.

Artificial intelligence and emotive robotics

Meet your new companion. Jibo. Think of the qualities in a friend – empathy, playfulness and fun. In this talk, MIT social roboticist Cynthia Breazeal will share how Jibo, an attentive and expressive home helper, and social robots are creating space for humanized engagement with technology that makes consumers feel as if they’re interacting with someone, and not something.

Jibo is one of the most advanced robots on display at SXSW this year, offering a two-way interactive and expressive experience that is helpful and thought provoking to the user, making it feel like a human-to-human interaction.

Connected everything – IoT meets Fast Food

In the IoT competition, McDonald’s says it wants to see how it can use the new technology in its 14,000 US stores and kitchens to help it “better know and understand consumer behavior.”

“IoT has the ability to upend almost every facet of our lives, and in this session, we will hear from startups making waves in this space,” the company said.

McDonald’s will also hear pitches from 0n-demand startups, presumably so the fast-food giant can glean insights into mobile food ordering. “Recent innovations have solved many of the logistical and economical challenges to make this world of mobility possible, and we’re just at the start of this massive shift allowing for greater levels of convenience,” McDonald’s said. “In this session, we will hear from startups further ushering us into the next wave of mobility and their applications to the everyday food space.”

The connected cheeseburger is very close.

Obama @ SXSW

Watson @ SXSW

3 Things Google’s “Verily” is Solving in Healthcare

By Paul B. Kaiser on January 20, 2016

Googles new venture “Verily” has a big vision for healthcare and solving the mysteries of the world. They are taking this on in a whole new light with a whole new prescription. Imagine a chemist and an engineer and a doctor and a behavioral scientist, all working together to truly understand health and to better prevent, detect, and manage disease. Picture a world in which technology and life sciences are not distinct, but partners with a united mission.

That’s the world Google wants to create. Their multidisciplinary teams have access to advanced research tools, large scale computing power, and unique technical expertise. They are gaining partners from across the industry and many fields of research to develop new technology, launch studies, and start companies.

Verily’s mission “is to bring together technology and life sciences to uncover new truths about health and disease.”

Developing new ways to treat and manage diabetes.

But in a sign that the company is serious about making real progress, it’s not diving into diabetes research alone. It is working with French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies.

Google wanted to do more than dabble in biomedical research were growing even before Google co-founder Sergey Brin said its life sciences operation would be spun out as an independent company under Google’s reorganization into Alphabet. Google has in recent months hired prominent scientists, including immunologists, neurologist and even nanoparticle engineers to feed its life sciences ambitions.

Diabetes is a logical starting point. The life sciences unit already has developed a contact lens for measuring blood glucose levels, and it recently signed a deal with medical equipment company Dexcom to develop a cheap and convenient continuous glucose monitoring device.

Google says this focus on diabetes marks a move away from a “tech centric” approach to a “disease centric” approach.

“New technologies could make it simple for a physician to understand when a patient’s blood sugar is tracking high for days in a row,” Google says, “or could offer new ways for a patient to get real-time information and specific guidance about diet or insulin dosage.”

Google Inc.’s life sciences group has created a health-tracking wristband

This is a rugged device that could be used in clinical trials and drug tests, giving researchers or physicians minute-by-minute data on how patients are faring.

The experimental device, can measure pulse, heart rhythm and skin temperature, and also environmental information like light exposure and noise levels. It won’t be marketed as a consumer device, said Andy Conrad, head of the life sciences team at Google.

“Our intended use is for this to become a medical device that’s prescribed to patients or used for clinical trials,” Conrad said in a telephone interview.

Google offers health-monitoring smartwatch features in its Android Wear software platform for consumers, through partners such as Moto, LG Electronics Inc., Samsung and others, but most existing consumer devices aren’t rigorous enough for research, said Conrad. This is not meant to be a consumer product but a technological advance in patient researching.

Medication reminders that know when you’re eating and 4 other Google digital health patents

Google has filed a patent for a smartwatch-type device that could detect when an individual is eating and issue a reminder for patients to take their medication, MobiHealthNews reported.

The medication reminder patent is the latest filed by Verily. The device has “one or more sensors,” and it figures out when a person is eating, partly using “pre-defined activity data that are indicative of an act of a human consuming an ingestible substance.” Activity data could include the speed and length of a person’s motions and the rotations involved. For example, the actions involved in scooping up soup with a spoon could be familiar to the device, and could be enough to trigger a notification.

Commitment

Verily’s business is fairly simplistic: It develops medical devices (like its smart contact lens) and advanced software, then licenses these to pharmaceutical and medical companies which will likely sell them. But Verily is also going deeper into the medical field. It’s conducting several clinical studies and experimenting with genetic sequencing and drug discovery.

As of July 2014, members of the research team include Andrew Conrad, founder of LabCorp‘s National Genetics Institute; Vik Bajaj, an expert in nuclear magnetic resonance; Marija Pavlovic, who studies the effect of radiation on DNA; Alberto Vitari, a cancer biologist; Brian Otis, who worked on Google Venture’s glucose-sensing contact lens; and Mark DePristo, who worked on the GATK at the Broad Institute. Dr. Thomas R. Insel announced on Sept. 15, 2015, that he was resigning as the director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to join this division.

It is exciting to get a new perspective on healthcare research and disease management.

The Verily Story

Fitbit Releases Their Newest Tracker – The Blaze

By Paul B. Kaiser on January 10, 2016

Fitbit announced their newest activity tracker, the Blaze, at 2016 CES in Las Vegas. It’s another entry in a long list of smartwatches and activity trackers fighting for their place on your wrist, but those loyal to Fitbit seem very excited.

If the Blaze looks familiar, that’s because it is pretty similar to the Apple Watch. It has swappable bands, a rectangular touch-screen face, and a customizable color display. But it is not exactly the same. Here is how it matches up.

Fitbit vs Apple — Fitbit Blaze VS Apple Watch. Click to enlarge.

The Fitbit Blaze will be available for customers in March 2016 at a starting price of $199.95. Check out the Blaze video.

CES Innovation – DietSensor Scans Your Food and Determines Nutritional Value

By Paul B. Kaiser on January 6, 2016

DietSensor tells you what’s really in your food – Wins the CES Innovation Award.

As the innovative tech rolls out of CES this week, I’d like to point out some of the unique and passionate gadgets that could actually change your life. Enter the DietSensor from innovator, co-founder and CEO, Remy Bonnasse. His product has received the 2016 CES Innovation Award at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.
For those of you who count your carbs and calories, DietSensor is looking to make your life easier. The French-based startup has created a tool that scans your food and determines its nutritional value. If you are diabetic this could make your life just a little bit easier. The thought is that you can go out to eat at a restaurant or anytime your out of the house, and still keep monitor and track your meals.

“It’s the next generation of diet and nutrition apps,” said Bonnasse. “This will do all the heavy calculation for you. You don’t have to think.”

There is a compatible app that keeps track of and displays the nutritional content. DietSensor has worked with doctors and nutritionists to create customized diets.

Here’s how they say it works: The handheld scanner sends an infrared beam on the surface of the food or beverage. It then captures the reflected wavelengths that carry the signature of its composition. The DietSensor app will then interpret the data and create a meal profile that provides you with the nutritional facts, along with some general tips about how many calories, carbs, or proteins you should eat for the meal.

Wow! While the idea is interesting, it’s not totally perfect. The scanner can only read foods those with a single level such as chicken, crackers, bread, cheese, and cereal. It was unable to determine the nutrition of a candy bar. While the DietSensor app lets you manually input nutritional data in these situations, that’s no different than apps like MyFitnessPal and Lose It. So there is some work to be done, or some deals to be made.

DietSensor works with a small molecular scanner known as the SCiO. It can collects and displays user-friendly nutritional information on a wide range of food. The SCiO device, which is developed by Israeli company Consumer Physics, claims to be able read the chemical makeup of materials. It’s non-intrusive and doesn’t need to touch the object. You simply point and scan.

The DietSensor will launch in September this year, but will not be cheap. The small SCiO scanner will set you back $249, while the DietSensor app will include a monthly subscription of between $10 to $20. The total cost over a year would be just under $500. While this may be high for the average consumer, someone who has to watch their weight because of medical problems would find this invaluable. And if used with the instruction of a nutritionist, adherence to weight management may be a realistic goal for patients.

DietSensor in motion