Blue Cross and Blue Shield has announced a partnership with Onduo, an Alphabet-backed wearable device for the monitoring of glucose levels in diabetic patients.

Researchers from Dartmouth, Stanford University and IBM Research have conducted a review of literature to evaluate the feasibility of using social media data to identify behavioral patterns of prescription drug abuse. Findings are published in Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Policymakers may think elderly Americans should be satisfied with their Medicare coverage, but, according to new research from the Commonwealth Fund, they come in last place when compared to senior healthcare in 10 other countries.

EpicMD, www.epic.md, a trusted leader in cloud-based telehealth and telemedicine technology platforms, today announced the appointment of Jack Karabees as EpicMD’s President and Vice President of Sales. Karabees has spent over 25 years successfully establishing and executing high-growth sales and marketing plans for enterprise healthcare, payer and hospital-related software technology companies. “We feel that Karabees brings an unusual blend of technology and healthcare leadership experience to the company,” said Matt Wanderer, company CEO. “His experience at this stage of company growth is also a fantastic fit,” he continued.

In October, Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago, repealed a penny-per-ounce tax on sugary beverages that had been in effect for just two months. The move, which resulted from a huge public backlash to the tax, may lead to some 600 layoffs included in a proposal from Board President Toni Preckwinkle.

Chronic motion sickness patients could be helped by the Reliefband, a wearable that uses pulses to block signals entering the part of the brain related to nausea. 

As the number of individuals with type 2 diabetes increases, researchers search for a way to prevent or slow the progression of diabetes in at-risk patients. According to a study published in JMIR Diabetes, an artificial intelligence (AI) coaching platform could improve habits to prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes.

Price growth in healthcare was at a 1.1 percent annual rate as of Sept. 2017 compared to the year prior, according to the Altarum Institute, coming close to the all-time low of 0.9 percent annual growth seen in Dec. 2015.