| | | |   | Good morning! Mohana here from the Bay Area, where I’ll now be covering more West Coast news. If you haven’t already, let me know if you’re out here. And as always, I welcome any tips. | | | Google’s wearables plan takes shape If you’ve been wondering how the tech titan planned to blend Fitbit with its analytics business, Mario’s got you covered. Google Cloud and Fitbit are unrolling a new service they think could help hospitals gather and crunch data from wearables and fitness trackers, potentially laying the groundwork for remote patient monitoring, research, and other health programs. “Device Connect for Fitbit” is one of the first public initiatives to emerge since Google acquired Fitbit for $2.1 billion in 2021, and includes tools to help health systems and researchers manage enrollment and consent and quickly add their data to the cloud to more easily access analytics and visualization tools. Fitbit Health Solutions General Manager Amy McDonough said the service aims to meet demand from existing health care customers. Read the full story. | FDA’s precert pilot is officially over The federal agency’s software precertification pilot exploring new approaches for regulating the burgeoning market for medical device-related software has concluded, and FDA is now calling for a new system that could require legislative changes. In a new report outlining its findings, FDA said the working model it explored during the pilot — which involved evaluating a product’s safety at multiple points throughout its life cycle — didn’t turn out to be practical nor scalable. Also in Washington, yet another federal watchdog has joined the chorus calling for more data on telehealth safety and quality. While HHS’ inspector general’s office’s recent inquiry into telehealth fraud found that the violations constituted only a small fraction of visits — a victory for telehealth champions who feel that concerns about fraud are overblown — the Government Accountability Office is urging CMS to gather more data on the quality of care and the types of services patients receive. Among their recommendations to CMS and HHS: the Office of Civil Rights should educate patients about privacy and security risks, and the CMS administrator should “comprehensively assess the quality of Medicare services” delivered using telehealth during the pandemic. | Optum’s data shakeup UnitedHealth Group’s data and pharmacy benefits property caused a stir among academic researchers with a recent change to longstanding practices for licensing data, Casey reported exclusively last week. Optum told users that any future projects can only access insurance claims through an enclave hosted by another part of the company, a new system researchers say could be prohibitively costly. It’s already impacting research plans: The University of Michigan is already telling faculty to limit their use of Optum data. | Unpacking healthcare’s newest buzzword: “digital twins” From AI-based simulations of disease progression, to mechanistic models of organ or cellular function, digital twins are revolutionizing healthcare—but no one agrees on a single definition for them. Stream our latest webinar with industry leaders from the digital twin frontier to learn how the term is being used today and discover how digital twins will continue to disrupt the healthcare of tomorrow. Watch here. | Data points on digital mental health care A couple intriguing studies this week. One literature review finds a similar effectiveness between face-to-face and digital cognitive behavioral therapy services. The findings support a personalized approach to CBT treatment for depression, authors wrote.
Another in Psychiatry Research Communications finds that about half of people with depression and anxiety accessed online patient portals in 2020, up from 36.3 percent in 2017. Among the ones who did use patient portals, about 86 % used them to view health results, 60% messaged clinicians, and 47% were filling medications.
 | The latest deals and hires | What we're reading - Telemedicine abortions are now more complicated for providers, NPR
- ADA, Abbott, and Podimetrics partner on amputation prevention, Fierce Healthcare
- How medical records can lead to discrimination, Kaiser Health News
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