The best of digital health 2018 drew factors from trending topics, community interest and positive feedback where content provided insights that benefited our readers in their relevant fields.

We're rounding up the most popular posts of the year as we bid adieu to 2018. We have analysed key trends and member favourites so we can bring you more great content next year.

This week we take look at the implications of electronic patient reported outcome (ePROs) interventions and some notable partnerships and evidence behind these solutions. Is this the future of routine cancer care? We think so. Read on to find out why:

In this week’s blog, we look at how digital health can play a role in clinical trials - from patient recruitment, to helping patients control their own trial experience, to collecting more regular and more accurate data from the trials.

Silicon Valley is known around the world as the center for technology innovation. In this blog post, we have used investment as a proxy for innovation to understand if maybe Silicon Valley has overstayed its welcome and is now paving the way for other tech innovation hubs in the USA and abroad.

The FDA and European commission have taken some big steps as a response to the burgeoning digital health market, while still trying to fulfill its mission of protecting public health. In this blog, we look at American and European initiatives in putting some structure on the regulation of SaMDs.

This week we take a look at some of the notable healthcare activities Google and Apple have engaged in so far to provide insight into their healthcare strategies and where healthcare incumbents may be challenged or where healthcare organisations may stand to benefit from the precedent.

Adequate payment for a digital health solution is essential to becoming successful and driving mainstream adoption. In this week's blog, we investigate which solutions are actually generating revenue, why and what business models have worked.

Rapidly proliferating evidence-based digital health solutions, bigger data sets, more advanced analytics tools and some of the areas discussed above are categorically changing the face of healthcare payments

Is Alexa the new voice of healthcare delivery? She can give information about the weather, the news, play music, tell jokes, etc, surely she can solve your health woes, right? Maybe not just yet. Alexa won’t change healthcare delivery until she is HIPAA compliant.

From a corporate environment, working with accelerators, to becoming an accelerator, working with other accelerators - Martin Kelly CEO of HealthXL gives his account of the journey that led his company out of infancy to a global operation working with 5 of the top 5 pharma's in the world.

Digital innovations that are unleashing the power of technology to fundamentally change how patient care is delivered in India. These innovations span across a wide range of areas such as telemedicine, appointment management, e-pharmacies and adherence tracking.

As we progress into a new health paradigm of personalisation and prevention we are being forced to consider how we can make data more accessible for consumers, ensure privacy and facilitate interoperability. Enter Blockchain.

Scott Weiner MD, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital who has spent many years researching and advocating for solutions to curb the opioid epidemic explains why he became interested in the topic, how hospitals can more effectively deal with this crisis.

We outline the stories of two very different humans whose paths cross given their relationship as patient and physician. You can see the problem of addiction and the hardships in treatment (even if very evidence-based) through their eyes.

While technology is already transforming transportation and infrastructure systems in cities around the world, people are now recognising its potential to also tackle the health and environmental challenges associated with city living.

Digital health continues to attract significant new investment dollars and drive lots of M&A activity, however there is a lot of hype and confusion about how it will reshape healthcare delivery and impact the life-science industry.

FemTech is a rapidly growing area of digital health targeted at women’s health and wellness - from rapid diagnostics and to remote monitoring, and beyond. We looked at some of the most promising Reproductive and Maternal focused FemTech solutions

Medical education needs a bit of shaking up, and medical schools are beginning to innovate to prepare new physicians for the emerging new model of care.

There has been much hype around healthcare consumerism lately, with direct-to-consumer digital health and wellness apps coming into the market at unprecedented rates - But can we really trust patients to filter through this noise and find true value?

Despite billions and billions of dollars of investment, Digital Health is still searching for great examples of how it can improve the patient experience and deliver improved healthcare outcomes.

They say necessity is the root of all innovation - or at least, innovation should be routed in addressing a real need. Read on for an insight into the most promising digitally enabled healthcare innovations in emerging markets.

Digital therapeutics is at an inflection point in its hype cycle progression and has quickly begun to demonstrate its true potential as a solidified new category in healthcare today.

Murdoch Children’s Research Institute’s (MCRI) newly released HeadCheck app is an example of how digital tools can help combat the problem of concussions.

GDPR is set to place a greater responsibility on companies to actively engage with the people whose data they are processing, the healthcare industry will be impacted by a new paradigm on how privacy, personal information and consent are managed.

How do novel technologies such as robotics, telemedicine & vehicle interfaces extend the safety & independence of older adults? We took a look at how is being used to improve the well-being of an aging population.

The United States is in the midst of the worst drug crisis in the nation’s history, a toll measured in fatalities on a scale never seen before. With a record-setting 42,000+ drug overdose deaths involving an opioid in 2016.

In recent years pharmaceutical companies are turning to AI and Deep Learning to support their research to develop drugs. We took a look at some of the high profile deals, partnerships and collaborations in the past few years.

We have gone from genome sequencing costing a whopping $10M in 2007 to as little as $79 in 2018. It is important to stay focused on real integration into clinical settings for broader population health. Enter GenomeAsia and Genomics England.

The rise of precision medicine, the movement of customized healthcare for all, is driving the growth of medical 3D printing. we reach out to our community to gather their expert perspectives

You’re the person responsible for bringing innovation to a health system that cannot sustain expanding aging populations, chronic diseases, and worrying cancer trends, without the opportunity offered by digital health. What keeps you up at night?

Five billion people worldwide do not have access to safe surgical services. Surgical diseases cause more death worldwide than HIV/AIDS, TB & Malaria combined. Using digital technology, we may enable surgeons to deliver safe surgical care for everyone

News and hype surround the field of radiology with headlines around the world purporting that it will be disrupted overnight. Few companies though really have the evidence to back up these claims.

Digital patient reported outcomes (or ePROs) are one area of digital health showing significant promise. These solutions are showing evidence of efficacy on the basis of timely communication, simple technology solving a complicated problem.

The opioid crisis in the US is known to all in the health industry. We decided to launch a Task Force to gain a better perspective of the problem and potential technology enabled solutions from a multitude of stakeholders.

We brought together a multi-stakeholder group of experts who commented on key questions relating to the disruptive possibilities of virtual pharmacies on traditional retail pharmacies as well as other areas within the healthcare ecosystem.

The promise of Artificial Intelligence to transform the healthcare industry is as bold as ever, but, is this promise being delivered on? We conducted an analysis of adoption in pharmaceuticals/life sciences, care delivery, and the payor space.

José Pedro Almeida, Director of Big Data Analytics & Machine Learning is confident that we leverage technologies such as Machine Learning or Big Data Analytics to help physicians and nurses save more lives.

Naomi Fried, PhD and Founder & CEO of Health Innovation Strategies givers her insights on what an innovative culture looks like.

In a data-rich world, digital biomarkers have the potential to reduce costs, and improve patient outcomes. We took a look at some of the innovations and companies that are developing the solutions of tomorrow.

Precision medicine will help us move from a "one fits all approach” of healthcare, to instead moving towards a more customized individual focus to improve patient outcomes. We look at some startups leading the way.

The applications of sensors in the digital health space were previously limited by their large size and front end electronic but this no longer the case. Check out how sensors can be deployed to quantify, monitor, diagnose, and gamify our health.

Our current model of care is coming under increasing pressure to adapt to the needs of our growing ageing population. Check out some of the companies that are striving to reduce the number of hospital admissions among seniors.

Virtual Reality has already made incredible strides within media and entertainment . We asked ourselves, what about Healthcare? How is VR technology being used, and who is using it?

With DNA data becoming more affordable for companies to obtain, the consumer genomics industry is looking set to really gain momentum. Let’s explore the landscape and take a look at what it can do?

Big data, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics are all becoming increasingly familiar to the healthcare industry. Blockchain however, is still a bit of a mystery. Today were going to take a quick look at what exactly is blockchain?

We explore digital health organizations leading the way with clinical evidence

Roundup of the most interesting stories in digital health this week

Insights from Peter Chai MD on adherence tracking devices

The key innovation opportunities highlighted by Dr. Ameet Bakhai during our Digital Heart Health webinar.

We spoke with our members about how they evaluate digital health solutions as a customer rather than an investor. We used the feedback to produce scoresheet around the attributes they value

For several months HealthXL had been collaborating with the Northern Health hospital network in Melbourne and IBM to investigate digital health innovation in the aged care market.