4 Can't-Miss Stories from the Week in Health Tech

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What if clinicians had their own secure, accurate digital voice assistant that was capable of transcribing notes and tackling other administrative tasks?

They do. Suki, a startup with serious Silicon Valley brainpower, has been making greater strides into the clinic. And it made for quite a bit of conversation last week as the most popular content to come from Healthcare Analytics News™.

>> LISTEN: Is Anyone Obligated to Incite Healthcare Innovation?

But Alexa for doctors wasn’t the only health-tech news to make the rounds. Other stories on the effects of healthcare mergers and acquisitions, medical device inefficiencies and ridesharing’s role in combating unnecessary ambulance trips also gripped audience members.

Our takeaway: Healthcare is looking for ways to reduce waste and disorganization, whether it be through new technologies or business structures. But there’s no clear indication as to which particular path will work for individual health systems and providers.

The health-tech conversation moves quickly. If your actual work gets in the way of reading about your work, you could miss some big news and ideas. That’s why we run down our top stories and videos every week, arming you with a handy guide to health tech’s most important insights.

Think we missed something? Or do you have a story idea that you want us to chase down? Give us a shout on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

1. Alexa for Doctors Claims 70 Percent Reduction in EHR Time

Suki is a promising startup that aims to bring an Amazon Alexa-like device to the clinic. Since its launch in June, the tech’s adoption rate has tripled, though the company hasn’t offered a hard user count. Last week, Suki attracted great attention when it claimed to have driven a 70 percent reduction in physician time spent on medical documentation. Is this figure accurate? And will Suki be able to scale its success?

2. Fixing Common Medical Device Supply Chain Break Points

When healthcare organizations optimize their supply chain, they can improve efficiencies and patient outcomes. It’s not a simple task, but big data and artificial intelligence can help. Even with these high-tech tools, however, break points exist. It turns out that standardized, accurate information sourcing might be the most critical component.

3. What Do Mergers and Acquisitions Mean for Healthcare’s Digital Transformation?

With billions of dollars in government incentives and near-total adoption rates, the EHR market is no longer young. So, what’s next for health IT? The head of HIMSS Analytics answered that question and more in a presentation to reporters last week. The takeaway: Healthcare is changing in many ways, and health systems must keep pace if they are to survive, never mind thrive.

4. The Clinical Divide: Ridesharing, Mergers and MSK in Hindsight

Kevin Campbell, M.D., a Duke-trained cardiologist and head of the health data startup PaceMate, wants to bridge the divide between clinicians and C-suites. Last week, he examined how they can come together to reduce ambulance waste and more reliably get patients to appointments. The answer: Uber. But Campbell didn’t stop there.

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