Welcome New Member: Rama Penta, West Coast Sr. Executive for Technology Prospecting at Bayer |
Rama has been in his current position since July 2019, and 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, NJ. 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 Consumer Care - R&D Technology & Strategy Realization, and in Corporate IT and Research Labs IT. Rama has joined the ABL-Health Silicon Valley Round Table (SV).
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COVID Emergency Response Hospital, Mazzetti & VivaLnk Implement Game-Changing Technology |
The Mazzetti article, "Game-Changing" COVID Technology in a Convention Center & Beyond, describes how Mazzetti CEO Walt Vernon and his staff, along with Andy Leeka, Chief Executive Director of the COVID Emergency Response Hospital, located in the L.A. Convention Center (aka LACC Relief Hospital), and Jiang Li, Ph.D., CEO of VivaLnk, have teamed to implement VivaLnk's reusable wireless monitoring patch in the emergency hospital. The patch continuously monitors patient body temperature, sending data via Bluetooth to the respective hospital nurse station for monitoring and responding accordingly. The multi-patient monitoring application alerts staff based on trends and thresholds, identifying the patient and bed. VivaLnk's technology was deployed for COVID-19 patient monitoring in China at 18 different hospitals, impacting over 2,000 patients. "It's a game changer, especially during this pandemic," said Stacey Gerlich, Captain of the L.A. Fire Department. "Constant monitoring, no cross-contamination because you don't have to touch the patient, no wasting of PPE supplies, and no disturbing the patient at 2:00 in the morning to take their temperature." (Andy Leeka, ABL-Health LA, & Walt Vernon, JD, ABL-Health San Francisco [SF])
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Alvaka Networks' Essential Steps for a Ransomware Recovery |
In What to Expect During a Ransomware Recovery, Alvaka Networks describes what should be your essential steps to follow in a ransomware recovery situation. The steps include: engage a lawyer; determine what your insurance covers; determine if it's necessary to gather forensic information; consider hiring a ransomware negotiator; decide whether or not you will pay the ransom - based on the extent of the damage, value of the lost data, likelihood of a recovery without paying, and other variables; execute the plan with great vigor, speed and tenacity; and create and implement a new cybersecurity plan. (Oli Thordarson, ABL-Health OC)
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Elemeno Health's App Implemented by Emergency Physicians, Multiple Hospitals & Public Health Dept |
Elemeno Health is joining forces with the American College of Emergency Physicians to deploy Elemeno's free best-practices content-sharing app to help emergency department physicians and nurses throughout the U.S. to manage COVID-19. The app provides critical information and continuously updated COVID-19 practices essential to patient care and infection control. Each ED can add their own local workflows to give frontline teams department-specific support. Also, in the past few weeks, Elemeno has launched enterprise-wide for COVID team communication and point-of-care training at El Camino Hospital (both campuses), Marin General, and Sonoma Valley Hospital, as well as with Alameda County Public Health. (Arup Roy-Burman, MD, ABL-Health East Bay, & Cecile Currier, ABL-Health SV)
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SAVI Group Identifies Promising Technologies Changing Healthcare |
In 5 Promising Technologies Changing Healthcare Today, SAVI Group highlights some promising areas to pay attention to as we move further into 2020 and beyond. In summary, they are: telehealth's tremendous growth due to the COVID-19 pandemic; outsourcing of revenue management operations; 3D printing making it possible for low-income or war-torn areas to gain access to low-cost, customized prosthetics and medical equipment, as well as doctors-in-training practicing on 3D-printed human parts; robots' tremendous help in making minimally invasive surgeries safer and faster; and healthcare systems and networks using Internet of Things to lower project delivery times and costs. (Sumit Mahendru, ABL-Health OC)
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SimpleTherapy Offers Free, Unlimited Access to Digital Musculoskeletal Program |
As social distancing has become the current norm, people with a musculoskeletal (MSK) disorder may find that access to in-person physical therapy is challenging and, in many cases, not possible. As such, SimpleTherapy has taken action to ensure that everyone has access to quality, evidence-based exercise therapy regimens to manage their MSK condition from the comfort of home. Through July 1, 2020, SimpleTherapy is providing unlimited access to their digital musculoskeletal program for you and your employees at no cost and without any obligation. For more information and a free access code, please contact [email protected]. (Arpit Khemka, ABL-Health SV)
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TECH INDUSTRY NEWS & TRENDS
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TECH TRENDS SPURRED BY COVID-19
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Work-From-Home Era Drives Demand for PCs |
These days, PCs are pretty important. Office work, education, medicine, and our social lives have all been forced to adapt to the changes brought about by COVID-19. And much of that has seen us fall back to the PC to earn a living, learn, and connect with our friends. Revenue and demand are up for companies such as AMD, Intel, and Samsung. This trajectory runs against the now-dated belief that mobile devices would permanently dominate PCs in the home tech market. (Read Article: Engadget, 5/11/20)
Meanwhile, Home Office Tech Will Need to Evolve in the New Work Normal
The new normal for work will be more remote, spur a home office innovation wave, make edge computing more mainstream, and require more automation, immersive experiences, and robotics. Those are just some of the takeaways from a conversation with Dell Technologies CTO John Roese. The conversation revolves around what we've learned so far from the great work-from-home experiment and where we're going next. (Read Article: ZDNet, 5/17/20)
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Coronavirus & 5G: New Devices are Coming, but Will Networks Be Ready? |
Like COVID-19 itself, the pandemic's impact on 5G isn't easy to summarize. Pushed by major brands, smartphone and component factories generally resumed production quickly enough to guarantee 5G device supplies, but some testing and R&D initiatives were set back by months. On the network rollout front, some carriers and countries have suggested that nothing has changed, while others have at least modestly delayed individual or national rollouts. As the U.S. workforce becomes increasingly mobile, with work from home as a viable option for more users, 5G is going to be a key enabler of both high-speed portable communications and wireless home broadband. Here's what businesses and consumers can generally expect from 5G device and network rollouts over the next six months (in summary): Devices: Expect modest delays; and Networks: Carriers try to move forward, with or without governments. (Read Article: VentureBeat, 5/13/20)
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Voice Assistants May Play Big Role in How People Shop After Pandemic |
Voice assistants may play a big role in how people shop after the coronavirus pandemic, retail consultant Jan Kniffen said recently. Retailers will need to solve the problem of people not wanting to stand in line outside a store, which has happened in some instances due to capacity limits and the need to maintain social distancing. Voice assistants could be a solution - shoppers could wait in their cars in the store parking lot and a voice assistant could tell them their place in line, and also ask what the person hoped to buy so it could check on product availability. (Read Article: CNBC, 5/12/20)
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Perfecting Driverless Tech Taking Longer than Expected; Pandemic Making It Even Harder |
A decade after Google unveiled an autonomous car prototype with global fanfare, the technology is still far from ready, and many investors are wary of dumping more money into it - just when the world could benefit from cars that ferry people and deliver packages without a human driver. The companies that made these promises are now in a jam: To perfect their technology, they need to test it on roads. But they need at least two people in the cars to avoid accidents. Because of social distancing rules meant to keep people safe during the coronavirus pandemic, that is often not possible. The timeout caused by the pandemic has hastened an industry shakeout that was already starting to happen. (Read Article: New York Times, 5/12/20)
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TECHNOLOGY & GOVERNMENT
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Senators Petition Congress for Additional $2 Billion Toward Broadband, Telehealth |
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators recently wrote to the leaders of both lawmaking chambers advocating that greater broadband funding for healthcare providers be included in upcoming coronavirus relief packages. The letter, dated May 8, specifically calls for $2 billion to be added to the existing Rural Health Care Program to offset telehealth demand driven by the health emergency, and to expand the reach of the program to healthcare providers at non-rural and mobile care facilities. (Read Article: MobiHealthNews, 5/13/20)
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U.S. "Will File Antitrust Charges Against Google;" Case May Be Joined by State AGs |
The Justice Department is planning to file antitrust charges against Google as early as this summer, said two people with knowledge of the situation, in what would be one of the biggest antitrust actions by the U.S. since the late 1990s. The regulators are focused on Google's dominance in the online advertising industry, and the case will also involve allegations that the company abused its dominant position in online search to harm competitors. State attorneys general are likely to file their own antitrust lawsuit against Google or join the Justice Department case sometime this year, said a person with knowledge of the state investigation. (Read Article: New York Times, 5/15/20)
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