WELCOME NEW MEMBER!

Rama Penta is the West Coast Senior Manager of Technology Prospecting at Bayer, since July 2019. He has been with Bayer since 2014, including as Digital Health (G4A) Business Development Senior Manager, in San Francisco, and as Consumer Health – Global Technology Product Innovation Senior Manager, in Whippany, New Jersey. Rama is a proven R&D and product innovation technologist with 20 years of pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare experience. He is driven to find novel ways to make lives better – specifically to make wellness more accessible, resulting in the addition of years to life (increasing lifespans), and adding life to years (increasing healthspans). Rama does this, first, by identifying novel lifesaving and life-enhancing digital health solutions and digital therapeutics (products + services + business models), fulfilling unmet health and wellness needs. Secondly, by getting these products into people’s hands better, faster, cheaper – by optimizing underlying business processes (from ideation to commercialization), which serendipitously improves the bottom line. Prior to Bayer, Rama worked for Merck, in New Jersey, for 14+ years, holding positions in Consumer Care – R&D Technology & Strategy Realization, and in Corporate IT and Research Labs IT. Rama has joined the Silicon Valley Round Table.

WELCOME NEW MEMBER!

Robin Raff is Founder, CEO and Chief Strategist of Pulse Healthcare Marketing, Inc., a rapidly growing healthcare marketing firm where she has launched and grown multiple new healthcare brands using data-driven multi-channel strategies. Robin works with her clients to develop impactful marketing strategy and then oversees her team’s flawless execution of creative, media, and data analytics. Robin has 30+ years of marketing experience on both the ad agency and client side working on many world-class brands. Her ability to successfully launch new brands, products, and services is built on a foundation of data analysis combined with deep customer and market insights. Current clients include Providence Health & Services, Stay Smartcare, Medimaps, Community Psychiatry, and Bindex. Previously, Robin was Director of Medicare Marketing at Kaiser Permanente for five years, where she led the $40 million national data-driven multi-media Medicare campaigns across their seven regions. Other healthcare clients served by Robin’s expertise over the years include Blue Shield of California, UnitedHealthcare, Oticon Hearing, GE Financial Assurance LTC, California Department of Health Services, HeartMath, Essilor, Resolution Health (acquired by Wellpoint), Group Health, and DestinationRx.com. Robin has re-joined the Bay Area Round Table.

UPCOMING ABL HEALTHCARE ROUND TABLES

• • • • • 5/06 – Orange County Round Table
        • 5/12 – Silicon Valley Round Table
        • 5/13 – San Francisco Round Table
        • 5/15 – Los Angeles Round Table
        • 5/21 – East Bay/Oakland Round Table

Click on Specific Headlines to Read Specific Articles

HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY NEWS & TRENDS

• • CMS, HHS & COVID-19

    • • • • CMS Issues New Round of Waivers and Rule Changes in Response to COVID-19
          • CMS Suspends Advance Payment Program
          • CMS Permits Independent Freestanding EDs to Participate in Medicare & Medicaid
          • HHS Publishes Additional Terms & Conditions for Provider Relief Fund & FFCRA Payments

    CALIFORNIA & COVID-19

    • • • • California Green Lights Hospitals to Resume Scheduled Surgeries That Are “Essential”
          • As California’s Lawmakers Reconvene, Not Everyone Agrees On COVID-Only Agenda
          • California Doesn’t Disclose Coronavirus Deaths at Nursing Homes
          • California Lifts Ban on Plastic Bags Amid Virus Concerns

    PREPARING FOR A NEW NORMAL

    • • King & Spalding Provides Tools for Resuming & Continuing Work in “New Normal”
      • See Which States Are Reopening and Which Are Still Shut Down
      • Can API Vendors Solve Healthcare’s Data Woes?

(MOSTLY) NOT ABOUT COVID-19

• • California to Widen Pipeline of Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
  • Supreme Court Rules HHS Must Pay $12 Billion to Insurers
  • FDA-Cleared AI-Based Medical Triage Tool Now Free for Customers to Help Busy Radiology Dx Departments
  • Digital Health Firm Analyzes Aggregated Data from Scales, Smartwatches & Sleep Monitoring Devices Regarding Users’ Health Behavior While Locked-Down
  • NEA-Backed Personal Genome Diagnostics Gets FDA Clearance for Cancer Diagnostic

Mimi Grant’s Blog:

What’s It Gonna Take for the U.S. to Reopen for Business?

Testing for COVID-19 remains one of the biggest obstacles in reopening the U.S. economy and returning to a pre-COVID life or at least a “new normal.” Our country’s COVID-19 expert, Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN April 28 that the country needs about 3 million tests per week. (That was the day after government officials announced the U.S. should have the capacity to test 2 million people per week by the end of May, while according to The Hill, in the prior two weeks an average less than 1.5 million tests per week had been conducted.)

Dr. Fauci went on to tell CNN he hopes that by the end of May or beginning of June, everyone who needs a COVID-19 test will be able to receive one. But, that doesn’t mean that everyone will get one.

Let’s do the math: according to the UN, the U.S. has a population over 331 million. So far, according to Worldometers.info, as of May 4th, 7,462,597 people in the U.S. had been tested for COVID – or 2.3% of the population. We have about four more weeks till the end of May. So even if we accelerate testing to 3 million tests a week, and get 12 million more people tested, with roughly 30 million tested, we’ll still have 300 million more tests to go. At 3 million tests a week, it will take us nearly two years to get everyone tested.

So, based on those stats, we better get used to sheltering in place, as we await a vaccine. BUT, what could change that painful trajectory? More tests!

So, how many tests do we really need to reopen?

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF MIMI’S BLOG.

Photo Credit & Caption: An antibody test for COVID-19 is now available through QuestDirect, which is Quest Diagnostics’ consumer-initiated testing business. (Pixabay) (Fiercehealthcare.com, 4/28/20)

Mimi Grant’s Vlog:

Labs (and Tesla) Help California to Reopen

Many anxious Californians want to know what’s it gonna take to reopen – besides more tests! Mimi highlights CA.gov’s “Resilience Roadmap” – plus the latest from Elon Musk, on behalf of his 14,000 workers. CLICK HERE to watch Mimi’s 4:19-minute vlog.