News

Adding educational health content to text reminders for influenza vaccines improves the effectiveness of those texts, when compared with written reminders and texts that do not offer extra health information, according to a study of 660 children published in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Minneapolis, Minnesota-based telemedicine company Zipnosis has received a "significant" strategic investment from Fairview Health, the hospital system the company has been working with the past several years.

Caremerge, makers of a care coordination software for seniors in assisted living facilities, raised $4 million in its first institutional round of funding.

Madison, Wisconsin-based Wellbe raised $2.

According to a recent survey of 24,000 consumers in 24 countries, about 8 percent now own wearable fitness monitors and 6 percent own a wearable health monitor.

The new heart rate-enabled devices Fitbit announced in October have begun shipping and are now available for purchase online, the company announced.

Garmin has unveiled a new offering for employers, called the Garmin Connect wellness portal, to help them manage their corporate wellness programs.

Funding by category, from Rock Health's report Seed investor Rock Health and digital health academy StartUp Health, two companies that track funding and other data points about digital health, are both reporting 2014 as a record-breaking funding year for digital health in multiple categories.

San Francisco-based health behavior monitoring and analytics startup Ginger.

Shelton, Connecticut-based Fitlinxx, maker of the BtoB activity tracker Pebble, has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo for its newest device, a bandaid-like heart rate tracker, called AmpStrip.