Leaders from across the digital health and technology spaces met virtually for the HLTH 2020 conference to give updates on partnerships and new digital tools for combating COVID-19, reducing healthcare inequities and transforming primary care.

HLTH is a five-day conference that brings together leaders in pharmaceuticals, healthcare services, technology and government to discuss innovations and the future of health.

Digital solutions

Ride-share company Lyft Inc. offered more details about its new healthcare partnership, which will allow doctors to arrange rides to healthcare appointments for patients who may not have reliable transportation. The company is partnering with electronic health record company Epic Systems Corp. to give health system staff the ability to call a Lyft directly from a patient's record from November.

SoftBank Corp.-backed Alto Pharmacy, part of ScriptDash Inc., announced at the conference that the online prescription drug platform is moving into two new markets early next year: Houston and New York City. The company operates in the San Francisco Bay Area; Los Angeles and Orange County; the Denver-Boulder area; Las Vegas; Seattle; San Diego; and Sacramento, Calif.

Meanwhile, remote patient monitoring company TytoCare Ltd. premiered a new tele-diagnosis platform at the conference. TytoCare has a number of digital tools for patients to be able to conduct simple diagnostic tests, like ear canal and throat examinations. The latest tool uses AI to assess photos, videos and audio submitted from the patient's phone to alert a doctor — for instance, informing a physician of the likelihood they have tonsillitis based on an at-home throat exam.

Big tech meets healthcare

International Business Machines Corp. unit IBM Watson Health Inc. has created a digital health pass to help employers and businesses bring people back into public spaces. The pass can contain multiple data points, such as on-site temperature scans or COVID-19 test results, while its blockchain technology is designed to ensure private health data is protected.

"Think about this as being similar to a financial credit score. It's a score based on multiple data points yet the lender never sees the detailed, private financial information underneath," Paul Roma, general manager at IBM Watson Health, told HLTH attendees.

Biotech company Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp. and Microsoft Corp. provided updates on their ImmuneCODE database for mapping T cells and immunity to the coronavirus. Adaptive collects blood samples and nasal or throat swabs from current and former COVID-19 patients, and then the companies are able to sequence and map the different immune responses to the virus before uploading this information to the database.

"Using machine learning, we can search for unique signatures associated with COVID-19 and the specific cells that determine the human immune system's response to the disease," Greg Moore, corporate vice president of health at Microsoft, said.

Adaptive president Julie Rubinstein said that, so far, data has shown that T cells are often the first cells to react to COVID-19 infection, before antibodies respond. Rubinstein said they have even found that some asymptomatic COVID-19 patients or patients with mild cases only use T cells to fight off the infection, and these cells are still present in the body 100 days post-diagnosis.

Telehealth and chronic care management

Medical-device maker Abbott Laboratories and privately owned digital health company Omada Health Inc. used the conference to announce a clinical study to demonstrate the effectiveness of their combined digital diabetes offering. The integrated solution allows Abbott's Freestyle Libre continuous glucose monitor to send information to Omada's app, which provides real-time glucose data and access to diabetes coaches. The initial study of this offering will then lead to a randomized control trial in the first quarter of 2021, the companies said.

Elsewhere, the CEOs of telehealth firm Teladoc Health Inc. and chronic care management company Livongo Health Inc. provided updates on their $18.5 billion merger, including the companies' first commercial cross-selling agreement with GuideWell Mutual Holding Corp. GuideWell, the parent company of health insurer Florida Blue Medicare Inc., had previously offered Teladoc's services to its customers, and the new agreement means these individuals will also have access to Livongo's chronic condition platforms and tools.

Teledoc rival Amwell, which is moving to the Google Cloud platform in January 2021, and representatives from Alphabet Inc.'s Google Cloud unit came together at HLTH to discuss the importance of telehealth and their partnership. Aashima Gupta, director of global healthcare solutions at Google Cloud, said the digital giant had decided to partner with Amwell because the company is a leader in the industry and both organizations share a vision to increase healthcare access.

"We know the world of healthcare is filled with tremendous disparities and also opportunities, and technology will be the key enabler. As we continue to innovate with our customers in mind, getting a partner like Amwell will significantly, incredibly leapfrog our journey," Gupta said.

In a separate HLTH panel, Amwell CEO Roy Schoenberg said the recent telehealth boom is going to change the way the healthcare sector operates.

"It feels like the healthcare industry discovered the internet," Schoenberg said.