Becker's Hospital Review

54 INNOVATION Mayo Clinic launches 2 companies in support of new health analytics platform initiative By Jackie Drees R ochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic launched two companies to support its Remote Diagnostics and Manage- ment Platform, which connects data with artificial intelligence technologies for clinical decision support. Six things to know: 1. Mayo Clinic unveiled RDMP April 14; the platform combines health data and AI algo- rithms to create clinical decision support tools, diagnostic insights and care recommendations for clinicians to make faster and more accurate diagnoses, according to a news release. "With RDMP, clinicians will have access to best-in-class algorithms and care protocols and will be able to serve more patients effec- tively in remote care settings," Mayo Clinic Platform President John Halamka, MD, said in the news release. "e platform will also enable patients to take more control of their health and make better decisions based on insights delivered directly to them." 2. Mayo partnered with AI health tech com- pany Nference to form the first new compa- ny, dubbed Anumana. Using billions of heart health data from Mayo's clinical data analyt- ics platform, Anumana will focus on design- ing new neural network algorithms to unlock hidden biomedical knowledge and enable early detection and accelerated treatments of heart disease. 3. Anumana this year completed a $25.7 mil- lion series A financing round led by found- ers Nference and Mayo. e company will use the funds to develop and commercialize AI-enabed ECG and multimodal algorithms for clinical care. 4. Mayo teamed up with healthcare tech com- pany Commure to launch the second compa- ny, named Lucem Health, which will provide the platform for connecting remote patient telemetry devices with AI-enabled algo- rithms, including those developed by Mayo and Anumana. 5. Lucem's platform gathers, manages and curates data from mobile health devices then hosts AI and machine learning algorithms to deliver application development frameworks and services for integrating with workflows. 6. Lucem this year completed a $6 million series A financing round led by Mayo and Commure; the new company will use the funds to continue building out its platform for delivering AI-powered insights to the point of care. n Fauci: US won't mandate vaccine passports By Katie Adams A nthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Politico's "Dispatch" podcast that the federal government will not mandate COVID-19 vaccine passports for businesses or events. Dr. Fauci said COVID-19 passports are being de- veloped by private companies, and businesses will decide whether they adopt those tools with little involvement from the federal government. "You could foresee how an independent entity might say, 'Well, we can't be dealing with you un- less we know you're vaccinated,'" he said in the April 5 podcast. "But it's not going to be mandat- ed from the federal government." The adoption of COVID-19 vaccine passports is currently not widely agreed upon among business owners and lawmakers. New York became the first state to launch a COVID-19 vaccine passport March 26, and the state now uses IBM's passport for sporting events and other large gatherings. A week later, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order prohibiting the use of COVID-19 vaccine passports in the state. n What Northwell is doing with 2,800 Amazon Echo devices By Jackie Drees N ew Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health is expanding a program to equip COVID-19 patients' rooms with Am- azon Echo Show devices, which feature two-way video calling capabilities that let clinicians check on patients via video, CNN reported March 30. Manhasset, N.Y.-based North Shore University Hospital was the first of Northwell's hospitals to pilot the devices, according to the report. Over the past few weeks, the health system has deployed 2,800 devices across more than a dozen of its facilities and plans to further expand the technology, the network reported. The video devices have helped physicians preserve a human con- nection with their patients, North Shore Chief Clinical Information Officer Al Caligiuri told CNN, adding that the hospital "can commu- nicate with [patients], we can answer questions, we can decrease foot traffic in the room and minimize the exposure to staff, and re- duce the use of [personal protective equipment] over time." The hospital has configured the devices to comply with federal telehealth guidelines on privacy and data protection practices. While in-person, physical interactions between providers and pa- tients are still necessary for examinations and treatments, the de- vices have been helping with exchanges such as asking patients about their health histories or how they feel after receiving a med- ication, according to the report. n

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