IMS

There are more than twice as many health apps as there were in 2013, but whether those apps are better tools for doctors and patients is a mixed bag: while apps today are more likely than two years ago to connect to another device or wearable and more likely to connect to social media, they are no more likely to connect to provider systems or to have more than one function, according to a new report from IMS Health.

Personalized medicine was a hot topic at the BIO conference in Philadelphia, but in a session on digital health and patient engagement, payer and provider panelists also talked about how, in order to really drive medication and treatment adherence, patient engagement also has to be personalized.

Danbury, Connecticut-based IMS Health, a multinational big data and analytics company, has partnered with Quantia, developer of a web and mobile community for physicians.

The FDA has, at long last, released draft guidance for how pharmaceutical companies should behave on limited-character social media platforms like Twitter and when correcting misinformation on third-party sites.