The study, led by Dr. Nathan Houchens from the University of Michigan and Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor Healthcare System, involved a cross-sectional assessment of patient preferences for various visual backgrounds during virtual medical encounters. The institutional review boards of the University of Michigan and Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor Healthcare System approved the research, which included a diverse sample of adult patients who had completed in-person or virtual outpatient visits within the previous year. Notably, the study collected race and ethnicity data but did not report it to protect participant confidentiality.

Key findings

Key findings from the study revealed that the solid color background and other professional environments received similar mean composite scores, indicating patients’ overall comfort and perception of physicians’ qualities such as knowledge, trustworthiness, care, approachability, and professionalism. However, the physician’s office displaying diplomas garnered the highest rating across these domains, signifying its strong appeal to patients during telemedicine interactions.

The preference for traditional healthcare settings as the background for video visits was further highlighted, with two-Participants further highlighted their preference for traditional healthcare settings as the background for video visits, with two-thirds favoring such environments across various physician types. They notably favored the physician’s office displaying diplomas, while they significantly less preferred the bedroom and kitchen backgrounds.

The study’s findings hold significant implications for telemedicine practices, suggesting that patients may harbor specific preferences regarding the background environment used during virtual medical encounters. Notably, the visual backdrop can influence patient trust and satisfaction, highlighting the importance of nonverbal communication in telemedicine interactions.

Limitations and highlights

While the study emphasizes the potential impact of the visual environment on patient perceptions, it acknowledges certain limitations, such as low response rates for mailed surveys and the focus on specific institutions within a single geographic region, which may affect the generalizability of the findings. Nonetheless, the results provide valuable insights for healthcare systems aiming to optimize the telemedicine experience for patients.

As telemedicine continues to evolve as a vital component of healthcare delivery, the study’s emphasis on the impact of background environments on patient preferences underscores the importance of considering such factors to ensure patient-centered and effective telemedicine practices.

The study also highlights the need for further research and consideration of nonverbal communication elements to enhance the overall telemedicine experience for patients. This study’s findings may contribute to the refinement of telemedicine practices by prioritizing the creation of traditional office or examination room environments, aligning with patient preferences for the visual backdrop during virtual medical visits.

In conclusion, the research underscores the significance of patient preferences for telemedicine video backgrounds and emphasizes the need for healthcare systems to integrate these insights into telemedicine practice guidelines and protocols.

PORTLAND, Ore.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#ecommerce—LegitScript, the leader in merchant and product certification and monitoring in the advertising, e-commerce, and payment sectors, has partnered with Google to certify telemedicine providers who facilitate online prescribing via virtual healthcare services and aim to promote their services in South Africa.

For the first time, telemedicine providers who are legally authorized to serve patients in South Africa and offer prescribing of prescription-only medication via virtual services will be eligible to run Google Ads campaigns once they become LegitScript-certified.

“Google’s update to their Healthcare and Medicines ad policy is a turning point for telemedicine in South Africa, offering a unique opportunity for providers to stand out online and affirm their reliability,” said Michal Conley, LegitScript’s General Manager of Certification and Compliance Solutions. “At LegitScript, we’re proud to facilitate this through our Healthcare Certification program. This move not only showcases the potential for digital healthcare but also reaffirms our commitment, in partnership with Google, to ensure a safe, compliant advertising ecosystem. With telehealth services flourishing, now is the time for advertisers to step forward and embrace this new frontier with LegitScript’s support.”

Despite complexity and heavy regulation, the telehealth industry is rapidly expanding. In South Africa, digital health is expected to achieve an annual growth rate of 7.57% (CAGR 2024-2028), for a projected market volume of more than $1.1 billion by 2028, according to Statista.

Google’s policy update will open the opportunity for this growing group of advertisers to expand their digital presence, stand out from the competition, and demonstrate trust and compliance to the public.

Providers can apply directly with LegitScript, and, if certified, can then apply for Google certification to unlock their advertising capabilities. Ads must also meet all other Google Ads policy requirements.

To learn more, visit LegitScript’s Healthcare Certification page, or download our Healthcare Primer to get started on your application.

About LegitScript

LegitScript has been leading the charge for a safer, more transparent internet and payments ecosystem for more than 15 years — combining technology and data with a team of experts skilled in monitoring, certification, and investigations. LegitScript’s broad and deep view across the entire commercial internet provides unique insights from all industries and angles, allowing businesses to evaluate, manage, and mitigate risk. That’s why LegitScript is trusted by the world’s largest internet platforms, payments companies, and regulatory agencies. For more information, visit legitscript.com.

Contacts

David Khalaf

david.khalaf@legitscript.com

PARIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Tilak Healthcare, a pioneer and leading player in the field of ophthalmological digital health, has raised €10 million in a funding round led by Elaia and Cap Horn. They were joined by long-standing investors iBionext and SWEN Capital Partners, along with Théa (flagship of the French ophthalmology industry), Adelie and several renowned ophthalmologists and business angels including Yann Fleureau (co-founder of Cardiologs). This new funding round brings Tilak Healthcare’s total funding to €22 million since it was founded within the iBionext ecosystem in 2016.

The funds will be used to accelerate the roll-out of OdySight in France and abroad, and to develop new solutions for other medical conditions. OdySight is the first remote monitoring system for ophthalmic conditions combined with a gaming interface designed to encourage consistent patient use. It is financed by the French social security system under the government’s ‘Article 51’ scheme for experimental technologies.

The investment by Théa, Europe’s leading independent ophthalmology laboratory, emphasises OdySight’s value and importance for visual health applications. Tilak Healthcare and Théa’s extended collaboration will deploy OdySight with the goal to develop new opportunities for healthcare, for both patients and healthcare professionals.

According to the World Health Organization, 3.4 billion people around the world will be affected by visual impairment by 2030. For many of those impacted, such visual ailments will have either not been addressed by medical care or could have been avoided. Tilak Healthcare developed OdySight ((CE marked as a Class I medical device) in response to this need: it is the first solution to combine a medical device with a mobile video game intended to monitor age-related vision impairments remotely. In Europe, since OdySight was first launched, it has already improved the care of 12,000 patients suffering from retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy, allowing ophthalmologists to monitor patients’ visual acuity in real time. Tilak’s investment in telemedicine, which the French government covers financially, has created a sustainable business model that puts Tilak on the path to achieve profitability by 2025.

Edouard Gasser, Chairman, CEO and co-founder of Tilak Healthcare said: “We are very proud to announce this fundraising round and to welcome new investors specialising in digital technologies and healthcare, alongside our long-standing partners who have continued to place their trust in us. All our investors share our ambition of revolutionising ophthalmological care through digital technologies and video games, helping to address some of the problems all healthcare systems around the world are facing. We have recently hit key milestones in our quest to make Tilak Healthcare a global benchmark for remotely monitoring vision impairments. Visual health is one of the keys to ageing well, and we intend to apply our expertise to help people maintain their vision as best as possible.”

“We are delighted to be making this continued commitment to Tilak Healthcare. The company is establishing itself as a leading player in visual health by introducing new ways of monitoring patients with OdySight®, the first clinically proven app for monitoring chronic vision impairments remotely. Tilak has made impressive progress since we first invested,and is on track to meet the growing need for monitoring vision impairments as a result of new lifestyles and ageing populations,” explains Samantha Jérusalmy, Partner at Elaia.

Her view is shared by Gaston Vasseur, Investment Manager at Caphorn: “We have strongly believed in digital therapies, which represent a real solution to the challenges faced by our healthcare systems. By showing OdySight’s clinical utility in monitoring chronic eye disorders, Tilak Healthcare is becoming the benchmark solution in its market and is shifting the focus in ophthalmology from cure to prevention. We are delighted to provide financial support to this pioneering player in remote monitoring, whose business model has proven momentum, with a 500% increase in recurring revenue between 2022 and 2023.”

“This funding, set against a tough economic backdrop, shows Tilak Healthcare’s ability to attract a complementary set of leading investors to help it transform the care of patients suffering from chronic eye disorders such as AMD,” said Alexia Perouse from iBionext.

Fabrice Mercier, Alliance Manager at Théa, added: “Théa is looking forward to increasing its support to Tilak Healthcare, continuing our successful collaboration in launching OdySight in France. This commitment emphasises our aim of pursuing therapeutic advances that meet the needs of both patients and healthcare professionals. At Théa, we are fully committed to fostering innovation in collaboration with all participants in the healthcare ecosystem, with the ambition of eliminating avoidable blindness and proposing solutions that improve the quality of life of people living with eye disorders.”

Guided by Prof. José-Alain Sahel, Founder of France’s Institut de la Vision and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and by the iBionext team, and headed by Edouard Gasser, Chair, CEO and co-founder of Tilak Healthcare and former studio manager at Gameloft, the team consists of experts with more than three decades of experience in designing video games as well as highly experienced, world-renowned scientists. This unique blend of complementary skills helps Tilak create engaging solutions for patients while meeting the rigorous clinical demands of medics.

As part of this funding round, Clipperton acted as sole financial advisor to Tilak Healthcare.

Participants

Investee: Tilak Healthcare

Investors: Elaia Partners, Cap Horn, iBionext, SWEN Capital Partners, Groupe Matmut, Laboratoires Théa, Adelie, Business Angels

Fundraising Advisor / Investment Bank: Clipperton – Antoine Ganancia, Grégoire Bonnet, Ismail Roqaichaoui

Financial Due Diligence: 2C Finance – Benjamin Bitton, Claire Jacinto, Corentin Perez

Legal Advisors – Investee: Bird & Bird – Emmanuelle Porte, Pascaline Sagot

Legal Advisors – Investors: Reed Smith – Guilain Hippolyte, Marco Hazan; Jones Day -Jean Gabriel Griboul

About Tilak Healthcare

Tilak Healthcare is a digital healthcare specialist that is developing a disruptive technology platform involving medical video games prescribed by healthcare professionals to help people with chronic vision disorders. OdySight, its first platform, focuses on ophthalmology and in particular chronic macular degeneration, which is rapidly becoming more prevalent and is the world’s leading cause of blindness in people under 50. OdySight improves the patient care pathway and is the benchmark solution for monitoring vision at home. It is already used in the United States and Europe, particularly as a result of a co-promotion partnership in France with Laboratoires Théa. Tilak Healthcare was founded in 2016 as part of the iBionext ecosystem.

About Elaia Partners

Elaia is a European top-tier VC firm with a strong tech DNA. We back tech disruptors with global ambition from early stage to growth development. For the past 20 years, our commitment has been to deliver high performance with values.

We are proud to have been an active partner in over 100 startups including success stories such as Criteo (Nasdaq), Orchestra Networks (acquired by Tibco), Volterra (acquired by F5), Mirakl (valued $3.5B in Series E) and Shift Technology (valued $1B+ in Series D).

About Cap Horn

Cap Horn is a private equity firm based in Paris and specialising in the healthtech and climatetech sectors. We support high-potential companies and their founders at all stages of their development, through investments of between €1 million and €20 million. Cap Horn has an active portfolio of more than 50 companies and supports their growth with the help of its vast network.

Cap Horn’s investment in Tilak Healthcare was led by Gaston Vasseur and Alexandre Heraud.

About iBionext

iBionext is a venture capital firm that supports the development of healthtech businesses, i.e. ones that are developing major technological breakthroughs in the healthcare space. iBionext is the first healthcare-focused French startup studio and, together with its associated investment fund, provides operational coverage of its investees’ entire value chain from foundation to growth. All iBionext companies are based at its hub in the “Passage de l’Innovation” in Paris. Since it was created, the iBionext fund has co-founded and funded six companies – Prophesee, ChronoLife, BrainEver, Tilak Healthcare, GrAI Matter Labs and T-Heart – which have raised more than €200 million and employ more than 200 specialist staff members in leading-edge industries. iBionext is an active investor that is committed to having a positive social impact through its companies and their technologies.

About SWEN Capital Partners

SWEN Capital Partners is a major player in terms of sustainable investment in the private equity, infrastructure and mezzanine debt fields, with more than €7.8 billion* under management and advisory, along with almost 100 staff members. It is owned by Ofi Invest (whose main shareholders are members of the Aéma group: Macif, Abeille Assurances holding, Aésio Mutuelle) and Crédit Mutuel Arkéa. The firm and its team have always placed ESG and impact at the heart of their approach, and offer clients innovative and sustainable investment solutions. SWEN CP supports entrepreneurs and its partners with workforce-related, social and environmental matters and with the creation of sustainable value, which it regards as essential for meaningful funding. Since January 2022, SWEN Capital Partners has been a shareholder of NEC Initiative, an independent social enterprise and the developer of a methodology that allows socio-economic entities to measure their contribution to ecological transition in pursuit of the goal of building a responsible, sustainable economy.

* Cumulative commitments.

About the Matmut group

With almost 4.1 million members and over 7.8 million insurance policies managed (as of 31 December 2021), Matmut is a major player in the French insurance market. The Matmut group serves all market segments – individuals, small businesses, corporations and non-profits – providing them with a comprehensive range of property/casualty insurance products (in segments including motor, boat, home, liability, family protection, health, legal expenses and assistance) as well as financial services and savings products (car finance, project finance, creditor insurance, savings accounts, life insurance etc.). The Matmut group currently has 6,500 employees and generated €2.4 billion of revenue in 2021. The Matmut group has an ambitious innovation policy, and in particular seeks to develop collaborations with entities that are innovating within the insurance value chain. Matmut Innovation is its investment vehicle.

About Théa

Théa is Europe’s leading independent ophthalmology-focused pharmaceutical group. Based in Clermont-Ferrand, it has 35 subsidiaries and offices in Europe, North and South America, North Africa and the Middle East. Today, its network has almost 1,900 staff members and its products are available in 75 countries worldwide. In 2022, Théa’s global revenue amounted to around €865 million. It is an independent, family-owned group that began as an R&D startup by Henri Chibret, and has since 2008 been chaired by his nephew Jean-Frédéric Chibret.

About Adelie

Adelie is a private equity firm founded in 2019 and based in Paris and London. Adelie’s multi-stage funds generally invest between €1 million and €10 million in European tech companies. Adelie’s investor base features more than 200 tech investors, senior partners of private equity funds and executives of major financial corporations. Adelie also has close links with Clipperton, a European investment bank specialising in technology that has worked on more than 400 transactions over the last 20 years. This partnership gives Adelie unique access to high-quality investment opportunities at various stages of development all across Europe. The team’s investments include AramisAuto, Botify, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue), Equativ (formerly Smart), Fenergo, Glovo, Leetchi, Nexthink, Odoo, Teads and ThirdBridge.

Contacts

Tilak Healthcare
Edouard Gasser +33 (0) 7 62 27 18 42 – egasser@tilakhealthcare.com
Press: Annie-Florence Loyer +33 (0)1 44 71 00 12 / (0)6 88 20 35 59 – afloyer@newcap.fr

Elaia Partners
Louisa Mesnard – lmesnard@elaia.com

Frontiers Health has established itself as a pivotal platform for exploring the intersection of healthcare and technology, driving discussions on groundbreaking advancements, trends, and challenges in the digital health landscape.

This year’s conference will provide a dynamic hybrid experience with physical and virtual interactions, building on the success of the 2022 event in terms of attendance and engagement.

The prestigious Auditorium della Tecnica in Rome, Italy will provide the perfect backdrop for the convergence of global thought leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and stakeholders that are shaping the diverse digital health landscape.

Frontiers Health has been at the forefront of fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange within the digital health community and our media partnership amplifies the platform’s ability to disseminate cutting-edge insights, trends, and discussions in the rapidly evolving field of digital health.

The collaboration aims to provide comprehensive coverage and deep insights into the conference’s sessions, keynote speeches, panel discussions, and workshops. With our expertise and reach, a broader audience will have the opportunity to engage with the latest advancements, breakthroughs, and critical conversations surrounding digital health technologies, patient care, telemedicine, AI in healthcare, and much more.

Stay tuned for further announcements, speaker reveals, and session updates as Frontiers Health 2023 approaches. For more information and registration details, visit the Frontiers Health website.

More on the FH23 event:

Thanks to the support of Healthware Group as global co-host and main sponsor, and to the conference chairman, Roberto Ascione, Frontiers Health is recognised as one of the leading global health innovation events and has become the epicentre of the digital health ecosystem.

The conference agenda, in its second year as a hybrid physical-virtual experience, will feature partnership opportunities to run custom breakout sessions, corporate events, keynote speakers, discussion panels, plenary sessions, challenges, breakout sessions and more.

Themes

This year’s conference will explore topics inspired by healthcare, including:

Digital Therapeutics
Patent protections, regulatory developments, reimbursement strategies, data protection, open-sourcing healthcare

Digital Transformation
R&D transformation, health insurance trends, consumerization of healthcare, mjedical on-demand models, the connected patient

Telehealth
Patient centricity, remote monitoring, beyond episodic care, mental telehealth, big data & AI

Funding & Scaling
SPAC strategies, digital health IPOs, investments

Tickets

Take advantage of the Early Bird discount to get your ticket – digital or in-person – to attend the most important global event dedicated to digital health innovation!

Buy your pass to keep up to date with the global conference

Notably, the tech giants have several activities in their pipeline related to health technology innovation. Let’s discover them in details.

Amazon

AmazonDX.com has been launched to the general public and several deals have been signed between Amazon Care and several enterprises.
On the investment side, through the alexa fund they invested $4.4 million in Pixieray and launched the AWS Healthcare Accelerator.
And that’s not all. Amazon has signed a 5-year partnership with the National Safety Council to establish new research, technologies and processes to combat musculoskeletal disorders, one of the leading causes of workplace injuries.

Apple

Apple has announced several updates to its Health app (as part of its upcoming iOS 15 software update) that will allow patients to analyse personal health data trends and share their self-generated health data with doctors, family and friends. They  also launched new Fitness+ programmes for pregnant women and the elderly. Rumours are persistent about the Cupertino company’s ambition to launch a digital primary care service.
There are several established partnerships for sharing medical records data with companies such as Cerner, Allscripts, athenahealth and CPSI. A recently formed partnership with Rockley Photonics, a biosensor company, has reignited other rumours about non-invasive blood glucose and blood pressure monitoring for a future Apple Watch.

Facebook

Rumours about Facebook’s potential smartwatch suggest it could include a heart rate monitor. Facebook has also added a number of new emotional health resources to its platform’s Mental Health Resource Center.
Numerous partnerships were signed with various technology, health and academic institutions to establish the Alliance for Advancing Health Online, which aims to improve public understanding of how social media and behavioural science can be used to help community health. Facebook has also partnered with the government of India to launch a vaccine search tool through its app.

Google

Derm Assist is the first medical device launched by Google, powered by artificial intelligence that helps dermatologists in diagnosing skin conditions. Details have also emerged on Google’s progress on a health record initiative aimed at consumers.
Through the deal with HCA Healthcare, Google wants to develop algorithms that could help improve operational efficiency, monitor patients and guide doctors’ decisions.
GV (Google Ventures) has invested in Kindbody, Brightline, Pill Club, Overture Life, Dyno Therapeutics, Headway, Affinia Therapeutics, Treeline Biosciences, Adagio Therapeutics, Tend, and Ventus Therapeutics.

This funding is an extension to a round announced back in May that saw the firm take home €50 million. Including this extension, Doktor.se has garnered approximately €160.5 million in funding.

Martin Lindman, CEO & co-founder of Doktor.se, says: We are excited to welcome Tencent Holdings in our mission to provide the technology which enables safe and accessible healthcare for everyone, making the experience frictionless and efficient. Tencent shares our belief that we can give patients faster, better care in our unique combination of physical and digital healthcare. We look forward to working with them as we expand internationally.

The startup employs nurses, specialist nurses, general practitioners, specialist doctors, psychologists, counsellors and physiotherapists at its digital and physical healthcare centres.

Currently, Doktor.se’s telemedicine platform is used in countries across Europe through veterinary care chain AniCura, in Belgium through a partnership with telecommunications group Proximus and in Brazil with the digital healthcare provider ViBE.

The funds will help Doktor.se to further expand its digi-physical services by acquiring physical healthcare services to integrate into its digital platforms. By the end of 2021, the company aims to be operating in more than seven countries.

MSD has announced the first Europe-wide Patient Digital Health Awards (PDHA.eu), a competition intended to directly involve patients and patient advocacy associations so as to highlight their needs and diverse experiences as drivers of digital health thinking.

Modeled after the highly successful Italian edition now in its fourth year, PDHA.eu 2021 was developed in collaboration with Digital Health Academy to inspire and recognize digital healthcare innovation from a patient perspective. It applauds solutions aimed at improving care and quality of life for patients and their caregivers, particularly those developed collaboratively with patients and/or advocacy organizations.

The competition is open to individuals, patient associations, healthcare providers, scientific foundations, public or private universities and educational institutions, services companies, IT companies, and startups that are located within any of the EU Member States, EFTA Members, the Balkans, and the UK.

Applications must be submitted by 25 July 2021, 12:00 am CET.

The award categories are: Digital Prevention and Diagnostics, Mental Health, and Social Support, New Ways to Interact with Healthcare Teams and Providers, Disease Monitoring and Therapeutics, and Returning to Care (post-pandemic).

More than merely an award, the PDHA.eu initiative bolsters the vital role of healthcare innovation at the rapidly evolving intersection of technology and science, for both patients and providers.

PDHA.eu’s commitment to putting patients first, from the project themes to the judging panel members, truly sets it apart, as do its goals of sparking innovation, connecting patients and innovators, and creating a positive synergy within the communities.

For more information and to enter the competition, visit www.pdha.eu today!

This year, Frontiers has been a global Hybrid conference. In line with the “new normal” situation, the format of the 2020 edition has been hybrid, combining online global streaming together with offline events and activities held at hubs in multiple locations such as Italy, Germany, Finland, Spain, the USA, Switzerland and more.

It has been dedicated to digital health innovation in the context of the “new normal”, focusing on telemedicine, digital therapies, breakthrough technologies, patient-centricity, healthcare transformation and ecosystem development.

You can read the full live coverage on the pharmaphorum dedicated pages: Day 1 – Day 2

Yes, you read it right.

Frontiers Health is changing format, combining online and offline events and different activities in Italy, Germany, Finland, Spain, USA and many other locations.

Join us on the 12^th and 13^th of November

The Frontiers Health Global conference will go live in a new hybrid and engaging format, which has already proven effective with the Frontiers Health Live event held in May.
In fact, 7 hours of live coverage reached over 20,000 users worldwide.

The local hubs will host the iconic breakouts and plenary sessions. So attendees from all over the world will enjoy the pure Frontiers Health conference spirit, on line and also offline.

In fact, they could take advantage of the “silent conference” experience, designed for off line attendees.

Don’t miss the Start-up Discovery and the networking opportunities in dedicated virtual rooms.

Get your ticket now