A 60-person task force, including MIT Lincoln Laboratory researchers, has published a study reviewing mobile health (mHealth) technologies and examining their use in monitoring and mitigating the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. They found that mHealth technologies are viable options to monitor Covid-19 patients and predict symptom escalation for earlier intervention. The study, “Can mHealth Technology Help Mitigate the Effects of the COVID 19 Pandemic?”, is published in the IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology. The task force was led by Harvard Medical School Associate Professor Paolo Bonato, director of the Motion Analysis Lab at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, and included international experts and those from across the United States. The study reviewed mHealth technologies in three categories — wearable sensors, digital contact tracing technology, and electronic patient-recorded outcomes screening systems. Task force subgroups then looked at how these technologies could be deployed in various settings and strategies in response to the pandemic....

COVID-19 has been linked to dramatic shifts in demand and extreme uncertainty within payer functions, which in turn could lead to bloated administrative spending in 2021. Executives seeking to right size and create variability in their budgets may want to consider a tried-and-true formula that has not gained traction in the healthcare world: zero-based budgeting.These materials are being provided on an accelerated basis in response to the COVID-19 crisis. These materials reflect general insight based on currently available information, which has not been independently verified and is inherently uncertain. Future results may differ materially from any statements of expectation, forecasts or projections. These materials are not a guarantee of results and cannot be relied upon. These materials do not constitute legal, medical, policy, or other regulated advice and do not contain all the information needed to determine a future course of action. Given the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19, these materials are provided “as is” solely for information purposes without any representation or warranty, and all liability is expressly disclaimed. References to specific products or organizations are solely for illustration and do not constitute any endorsement or recommendation. The recipient remains solely responsible for all decisions, use of these materials, and compliance with applicable laws, rules, regulations, and standards. Consider seeking advice of legal and other relevant certified/licensed experts prior to taking any specific steps.The upcoming budget cycle, due to start or in the works with many payers this month, is likely to be particularly challenging. Chief financial officers potentially have less information on which to base their budgets due to shifts in “drivers of work,” which are the units of demand on payer functions. This shift is a problem created by the COVID-19 crisis. For example, ambulatory claims have dropped (and since risen) significantly, and the volatility in claims and call volumes may continue through 2021. 1 1. Mehrotra A et al., “The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on outpatient visits: A rebound emerges,” The Commonwealth Fund, May 19, 2020, commonwealthfund.org....

Biomedical and data scientists are being urged to join this month’s CoronaHack to fast-track solutions that can help slow, monitor and diagnose the pandemic. The free online hackathon is being led by artificial intelligence consultancy, mindstream-ai.“You will work collaboratively with top data scientists, biomedical researchers, vaccine specialists, startup founders and investors to develop innovative approaches to the current crisis,” the CoronaHack eventbrite page states.We are tracking information on online challenges, funding calls, and initiatives dedicated to tackling COVID-19. Sign up for our regular newsletters in the box below for all the latest on these and please share relevant details to colleagues and friends to help accelerate solutions....

At the end of March, I wrote about a preliminary study conducted by Stanford emergency physician Ian Brown, MD, that indicated that a significant number of people diagnosed with COVID-19 are also simultaneously co-infected with other respiratory viruses, including influenza or rhinovirus. "Currently, if a patient tests positive for a different respiratory virus, we believe that they don't have COVID-19," said Nigam Shah, MBBS, PhD, associate professor of medicine and of biomedical data science at the medical school. "However, given the co-infection rates we've observed in this sample, that is an incorrect assumption."Now Stanford emergency department physician James Quinn, MD, and resident David Kim, MD, PhD, together with clinical virologist Benjamin Pinsky, MD, PhD, have extended this analysis to include more than 1,200 samples, collected from people from multiple sites in Northern California who were experiencing a cough, fever or other symptoms of a respiratory infection. They published their results yesterday in JAMA....