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Ad buyers optimistic about Snapchat's upcoming redesign
 Since going public in March, Snap has reported disappointing losses in revenue and slowing user growth quarter over quarter. The company’s third-quarter earnings call on Nov. 8 did little to improve the company’s outlook. Snap lost $443 million in the quarter, and its stock continues to fall.

Digiday spoke with 21 ad buyers about their experience with Snapchat and the challenges and opportunities they see ahead. Ad buyers see hopeful signs in the upcoming redesign, lowered CPMs and Snapchat’s helpful sales team as reasons to continue spending on the platform. But many still see Snapchat as a niche ad opportunity, citing its relatively small audience compared to giant rivals. In the end, many buyers still put Snaphat in the “experimental” bucket that only takes up a small sliver of budgets, rather than the must-buy status reserved for Google and Facebook.

“We’ll be keeping an eye on the upcoming app redesign and how it affects user retention in app and how they interact with advertising,” said Torrey Taralli, U.S. head of paid social at mobile agency Fetch. “If done properly, it will open them up to a new demographic of user growth who will hopefully find the app easier to use.”

Therein lies the challenge for Snapchat. It has mostly resisted trying to be all things to all people. That enabled it to be a hit with teens, but it hasn’t done a lot to grow beyond that. Snapchat reported 178 million daily users, a number that pales in comparison to Instagram Stories and WhatsApp, which each have 300 million daily users.

Nearly all of the ad buyers Digiday spoke with say a big reason they continue to spend the majority of their social ad budgets on Facebook, Instagram and even Twitter is because of scale. Meanwhile, ad buyers reserve Snapchat for the “experimental” portions of their budgets — the leftover 10-20 percent.

“What they’ve failed to do is to convince brands that they are a must-have platform for campaigns,” said one ad buyer, who wished to remain anonymous. “They are in most cases an add-on or used to reach a niche, usually young audience. The earnings reflect this struggle and give comfort to marketers who haven’t put dollars into the platform.”

Slow user growth also hurts the platform’s new advertising processes, such as its programmatic offerings, said Noah Mallin, head of experience, content and sponsorships at Wavemaker U.S. “Opening up more targeted API buying was a smart move for Snapchat,” he said, “but without user growth, it becomes hard to slice audiences down even smaller, and that’s reflected in the revenue results as well.”

Snapchat’s ultimate goal is to expand its user base. On the earnings call, Spiegel said Snapchat wants to scale Snapchat to more Android users, people older than 34 and to people in other countries.

Not all ad buyers believe Snapchat should try to reach an older demographic. Rather, some mentioned that it should concentrate on targeting those 13- to 34-year-olds it has become known for. In Snap’s earnings call, Spiegel said the platform reaches over 70 percent of the 13- to 34-year-old population in the U.S., France, the U.K. and Australia. All 21 buyers Digiday spoke to said that for their clients, Snapchat remains the best platform to reach that demographic.

“It would be hard to change that perception at this point,” said one buyer. There’s also concern that a redesign might alienate its existing audience, according to another ad buyer.

The majority of ad buyers Digiday spoke with believe the rollout of Snapchat’s self-service Ad Manager in June was the company’s best move since going public. Sixteen of the 21 ad buyers Digiday spoke with for this piece said the new self-serve tool has significantly made pushing ad campaigns easier on the platform.

Before Snapchat’s self-serve tool launched, an agency would have to make several phone calls to work directly with Snap’s sales team, and each ad product was highly customized to the point where the entire process was cumbersome, said one ad buyer, who wished to remain anonymous. “The more Snapchat puts power in the hands of advertisers, the more they can get themselves out of the zone of just being a platform you test with,” he added.

The self-serve platform has significantly driven down costs of ads on the platform as well.

“Every campaign is different, but since the onboarding of Snapchat’s self-serve platform, results are strengthening,” said Evan Walker, associate media director at GSD&M. “We are seeing tremendous improvements in cost efficiencies, near or on par with Facebook, and in some cases, better performance driving secondary interactions than other networks.”

Walker said CPMs through the self-serve platform are nearly four times as efficient as previous Snapchat-managed campaigns. In fact, Walker said Snapchat ads CPMs are nearly identical to average CPMs across Facebook. Buyers told Digiday that CPMs run between $3 and $8.

The cheaper ads have hurt Snap’s overall revenue in its third quarter, and Spiegel addressed this in Snap’s earnings call, saying that CPMs have decreased more than 60 percent year over year.

Ad buyers, however, believe the self-service platform will eventually pay off. “I firmly believe their self-serve platform is going to lead to a positive shift,” added Walker. “It minimizes the barrier of entry and allows for platform versus platform testing. I think it will ultimately help Snapchat scale their offerings.”

Even with self-service growing pains, Snapchat is known among ad buyers for having a supportive sales team that is making the transition to self-serve smoother. All ad buyers Digiday spoke with mentioned its helpful team, especially when it comes to educating agencies and clients about new advertising options. Four ad buyers stressed that Snapchat’s sales teams are far more helpful than other social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

“Their sales team has been helpful and willing to meet with us, which is in contrast to other platforms,” said one buyer, who requested anonymity. “Sometimes it’s challenging with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, particularly if you have a client with a smaller ad spend.”

But another ad buyer, who works at an agency with global clients and larger ad spends, said the service teams for Snap, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter are all “exemplary,” all giving one-to-one service, responding immediately and even flying out to their company’s offices as needed.

In Snap’s earnings call, Imran Khan, chief strategy officer at Snapchat, said that self-service opens up the Snapchat’s sales team to spend more time acting as consultants. “As we make our buying platform more and more automotive,” he said, “our sales force transition from taking orders to become more of a consultant for our clients.”

Output: Although Snapchat may be viewed as a niche outlet for campaigns, ad buyers are hoping for big things from its upcoming redesign, the latest in a series of moves to make the social media site more attractive to marketers. In a survey of 21 advertisers by Digiday, 16 said the roll-out of Snapchat's self-service Ad Manager significantly improved the campaign experience, and although costs per impression have dropped, some believed it would help the firm scale in the long run. The survey also revealed all 21 firms praised Snapchat's sales team, with one anonymous insider saying working with Facebook and Instagram was "challenging".


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Uber loses appeal over ruling that its drivers are workers
 The ride-hailing firm Uber has lost its appeal against a ruling that its drivers should be classed as workers with minimum-wage rights, in a case that could have major ramifications for labour rights in the growing gig economy.

The US company, which claims that drivers are self-employed, said it would launch a further appeal against the Employment Appeal Tribunal decision, meaning the case could end up in thesupreme court next year.

Drivers James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam won an employment tribunal case last year after arguing they should be classified as workers, citing Uber’s control over their working conditions.

Uber challenged the ruling at the tribunal in central London, warning that it could deprive riders of the “personal flexibility they value”. It claims that the majority of its drivers prefer their existing employment status.

The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which backed the appeal, said drivers will still be able to enjoy the freedoms of self-employment – such as flexibility in choosing shifts – even if they have worker status.

The union said the decision showed companies in the gig economy – which involves people on flexible working patterns with irregular shifts and minimal employment rights – have been choosing to “deprive workers of their rights”.

Farrar said: “It is time for the mayor of London, Transport for London and the transport secretary to step up and use their leverage to defend worker rights rather than turn a blind eye to sweatshop conditions.”

Former Uber drivers James Farrar (left) and Yaseen Aslam leave the Employment Appeals Tribunal in central London. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

“If Uber are successful in having this business model, obliterating industrial relations as we know them in the UK, then I can guarantee you on every high street, in retail, fast food, any industry you like, the same thing will go on.”

Farrar said he was willing to fight the case all the way to the supreme court if necessary but called on Uber’s new chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, to intervene instead.

“We’ve asked to meet him when he came to London and Uber declined to do that, which tells you everything.”

Aslam said: “Today is a good day for workers, we made history. The judge confirmed that Uber is unlawfully denying our rights.”

“It’s about making sure workers across the UK are protected. Companies are hiding behind technology, bogusly classifying people as self-employed so they can get away from paying minimum wage. That can’t be allowed to happen.”

Uber said it would continue to challenge the decision through the courts but had yet to decide whether to apply to leapfrog the court of appeal and go straight to the supreme court.

It could theoretically hitch its case to the supreme court labour rights battles involving courier firm CitySprint and Pimlico Plumbers, due to be heard next year.

The legal tussle could also be superceded by political events, as the government considers tweaking employment law following a review by former Tony Blair adviser Matthew Taylor.

Tom Elvidge, Uber UK’s acting general manager, said: ‘Almost all taxi and private hire drivers have been self-employed for decades, long before our app existed.’ Photograph: Lauren Hurley/PA

Tom Elvidge, Uber UK’s acting general manager, said: “Almost all taxi and private hire drivers have been self-employed for decades, long before our app existed.

“The tribunal relies on the assertion that drivers are required to take 80% of trips sent to them when logged into the app. As drivers who use Uber know, this has never been the case in the UK.

“Over the last year we have made a number of changes to our app to give drivers even more control. We’ve also invested in things like access to illness and injury cover and we’ll keep introducing changes to make driving with Uber even better.”

The tribunal ruling is the latest in a series of legal challenges affecting the “gig economy”, with implications for the future of labour rights in the UK.

The Labour MP Jack Dromey said: “No British worker should be denied basic employment rights which we have worked so hard to secure.

“Uber is a 21st-century company behaving like a 19th-century mill owner, when workers had no rights. It is now up to Uber to change its employment practices and grant its drivers the rights they deserve and are entitled to in law.”

Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, said: “This ruling should put gig economy employers on notice. Unions will expose nasty schemes that try and cheat workers out of the minimum wage and holiday pay. Sham self-employment exploits people and scams the taxman.”

Output: Uber, the ride-hailing app, has lost its appeal against a UK ruling that its drivers be classified as workers, entitled to benefits, rather than as self-employed. The decision by the Employment Appeal Tribunal could have broad implications for the rights of those working in the country’s expanding gig economy. Last year, drivers James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam, supported by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain, won a case arguing that they were indeed workers and as such should be entitled to holiday pay and the minimum wage.


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Regus Cape Town's Regus team to welcome Hong Kong entry in Volvo Ocean Race
 Volvo Ocean Race: Regus has all hands-on deck as Team Scallywag makes their way to Cape Town:

Global flexible office space specialists, Regus – with over 55 centres in South Africa and another 3 opening in December – is one of the key sponsors for Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag, the inaugural Hong Kong entry into the Volvo Ocean Race. The race – considered one of the world’s toughest – left Lisbon for Cape Town on its second leg of almost 7000 extremely rough nautical miles on 5 November 2017

The opening of the action-packed Race Village on 24 November adds to the excitement and this is where the proud Regus team base will host the crew, media, guests and VIP’s.

11th time host, Cape Town, is recognised for the iconic Table Mountain, its love of football, wine and sailing and will welcome the entrants near the 27 November. With it, comes a welcome economic boost to the city and country’s economy with the 2014 event having contributed over R540 million.

Established in 1973 the Volvo Ocean Race is considered one of the sports’ toughest and most dangerous races – taking the teams over 45 000 miles to 12 host cities across the world. Regus, who shares the Volvo Ocean Race values of commitment, quality, camaraderie, professionalism and a little adventure, were there to support the team when they left Lisbon and will do so again when they arrive in Cape Town.

Seasoned skipper of the Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag, David Witt, returns after 20 years with a strong team and the grit and determination to win. He is keeping his cards close to his chest. “You’re not going to win the race in the first leg. No one is. It is not the first 100 yards that counts. It’s the last 100 yards.”

He says of his team, ‘The Volvo Ocean Race is the absolute pinnacle of the sport. It’s such a big achievement to even get to the start line, never mind winning the trophy. I want to finish with the same guys we start with – I want them to sail every leg together. Out of that, comes friendships and relationships that you’ll keep for life – you can’t get that just having a beer in the pub.”

The travelling Race Village offers a new upgraded pit lane, featuring new and exciting team bases. You can experience the history of the race, rubbing shoulders with key players, while enjoying activities on offer with family and friends. The Race Village is an experience that will bring you as close as possible to the action.

For those fortunate enough to visit the Regus team base there will be the additional allure of the In-port Race, meeting the Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag crew and retreating in the lounge with a glass of boutique French wine, courtesy of Chateau de Berne wines straight from Provence. What could be more perfect?…………….

………..Winning.

CLICK HERE to submit your press release to MyPR.co.za.

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Output: Global flexible office space specialist Regus is one of the key sponsors for Team Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag, the inaugural Hong Kong entry into the Volvo Ocean Race. The Regus team base in Cape Town will host the crew, plus media, guests and VIPs at the opening of the Race Village on 24 November. Those visiting the base will enjoy a view of the in-port race, an opportunity to meet the Sun Hung Kai/Scallwywag team and enjoy a private lounge stocked with wine from Chateau de Berne in Provence.


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Redrow Homes in Shropshire town prove popular with buyers
 Redrow begins the final countdown in Shifnal

With the final home now sold at Aston Fields and the last few properties available at The Uplands, time is running out for Shifnal buyers.

Redrow has been building and selling homes in the Shropshire town since 2014. Over the course of the last three years around 150 of Redrow’s sought-after Heritage Collection homes have been sold.

With the vast majority of the properties now occupied, both locations have become thriving new neighbourhoods each with its own growing sense of community.

The Uplands has proved particularly popular with buyers looking to downsize or rightsize to a house that best suits their lifestyle after their children have flown the parental nest to homes of their own.

Pauline Turnbull, sales director for Redrow Homes (Midlands), explains: “Many people long to escape to the country in later life, but still want easy access to shops, restaurants and other amenities that can be found in towns. The Uplands is perfectly placed, on the edge of Shifnal, to offer the best of both worlds and this is echoed in the design of our homes. They look traditional from the outside but are very much designed with modern living in mind.”

There are now just two styles of properties available at The Uplands – the four-bedroom Oxford and the three-bedroom Leamington, with prices from £339,995.

“The Leamington is as stylish as it is practical and demonstrates that there’s no room for compromise when downsizing – or rightsizing, as we prefer to call it,” Pauline adds.

“These buyers require fewer bedrooms so instead we’ve designed larger and better appointed rooms, with more storage. They also want ample living space for entertaining family and friends. The Leamington is the ideal solution with the amount of living space that people may expect to find in a four-bedroom home. The kitchen is very much the hub of modern living and so we’ve made this the focal point of the ground floor of the Leamington with a combined kitchen, dining and family room overlooking the garden.”

There’s also a separate lounge, utility and convenient cloakroom.

Upstairs, all three bedrooms are doubles, with the master benefitting from a wet room and walk-in wardrobe, leaving the main bathroom to serve the remaining two bedrooms.

To be in with a chance of owning one of the final homes at The Uplands, visit the development, on Wolverhampton Road, open daily from 10am to 5.30pm. For the latest availability and pricing, see redrow.co.uk/theuplands.

Output: Time is running out for buyers in Shifnal as the popular new development, The Uplands, goes down to the last few properties and the final home is sold at Aston Fields. Pauline Turnbull, sales director for Redrow Homes (Midlands), believes the developments' popularity comes down to lifestyle balance. On The Uplands specifically, Turnbull said: "People long to escape to the country in later life, but still want easy access to amenities that can be found in towns." The Uplands is perfectly placed [therefore] to offer the best of both worlds and this is echoed in the design of our homes."


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Redrow Redrow picks up nine honours at the UK Property Awards
 Evesham show home is a winner

It's wowed buyers and now the Redrow show home at Maple Gardens in Evesham has been given the seal of approval by judges in the UK Property Awards.

Redrow picked up nine honours at the prestigious awards ceremony held at the London Lancaster Hotel. Among the accolades was recognition for the Sandringham show home at Maple Gardens in Evesham in the Show Home Interior Design category; winning an award for the West Midlands region.

Pauline Turnbull, sales director for Redrow Homes (Midlands), says: “The Sandringham show home at Maple Gardens has been a real inspiration to buyers and played a key part in the success of the development. We’ve already sold more than 90% of the properties and the vast majority of them are now occupied – it’s become a thriving new neighbourhood where people really want to live.

“We’ve since closed the Sandringham show home, but the fact that it’s been recognised by the UK Property Awards judges is fantastic news and should give customers reassurance of the quality of their own new homes. But with only three properties still available those who want to move here will need to act fast.”

The UK Property Awards are judged by an independent panel of 70 industry experts based on design, quality, service, innovation, originality, and commitment to sustainability.

The judging panel was chaired by Lord Caithness, Lord Best, The Earl of Liverpool, and Lord Thurso, members of the House of Lords.

Homes at Maple Gardens appeal to a variety of buyers including affluent families and downsizers.

As one of the largest properties with the development, the Sandringham was chosen to be styled for the family market.

Redrow’s Group interior designer manager Emma Brindley briefed homebuilder’s interior design team to style the property as the home of the fictional Gardiner family – a couple in their 40s with two teenage children.

“By imagining a real family and giving them a detailed persona, we find that we can really bring a show home to life,” Emma explains.

“It becomes something much more personal, akin to a real family home and something that our customers can really relate to; yet, at the same time, the property has to have enough ‘wow’ factors to occasionally stop people in their tracks and make it memorable for them as they continue their home buying journey.

“Delivering both the practical and the prestige, the aspirational and the achievable, that’s the skill.”

The final three homes at Maple Gardens include three and five-bedroom designs from Redrow’s Heritage Collection, priced from £239,995.

To be in with a chance of calling Maple Gardens “home”, visit the sales centre, on Offenham Road, is open Thursday to Monday from 10am to 5.30pm. For the latest availability and pricing, see redrow.co.uk/maplegardens.

For more information about the awards see propertyawards.net.

Output: Redrow Homes picked up nine honours at the UK Property Awards in London. One of the awards, for Show Home Interior Design, went to the Sandringham show home at Maple Gardens in Evesham. The awards were judged by an independent panel of 70 industry experts who used a number of different criteria. Redrow has sold more than 90% of the properties at Maple Gardens, with the final three homes being priced from £239,995.


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Coutts claims Facebook is financial adviser of the future
 A combination of the rise of robo-advice and the habits of millenials could mean social media platforms such as Facebook could become major players in the financial advice market in the future, according to Coutts.

Output: The rise of robo-advice and the popularity of social networking could mean platforms like Facebook become the financial advisers of the future, according to executives at Coutts, reported David Thorpe in the Financial Times.


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Insurtech Betterview introduces drone package for insurers
 Insurtech startup Betterview, a service provider for capturing and analyzing data from drones, has announced a commercial drone inspection package for insurers.

The pre-assembled package, which is available in Canada, includes a DJI drone, software and training to “provide and out-of-the-box solution to capture, organizes and analyze imagery of buildings and properties,” Betterview said in a press release earlier this week. “Betterview’s goal with its inspection package is to make it easier for insurers, inspection and claims adjusting companies to adopt drone technology.”

“The launch of Betterview’s drone inspection package for insurance was driven by market demand,” reported Dave Tobias, chief operating officer and co-founder of Betterview. “Over the last year as the use cases of our software expanded within insurance, our clients started asking us more and more about providing a hardware and software solution. With our new insurance inspection kit, we’ll be with you every step of the way, whether you need help onboarding staff, assistance with drone hardware or have questions about report output,” explained Tobias.

Among other items, the insurance inspection kit provides a choice of drones from drone manufacturer DJI as well as: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Part 107 certification training (for small unmanned aircraft); a tablet and drone service kit; software for workflow and data management; artificial intelligence image analysis and professional reporting tools; and 3D maps, measurements and digital surface models.

In addition, Betterview will also quickly ship replacement equipment if there is ever a problem, the startup reported. “This service removes the complication of figuring out what to do if something breaks and needs service and also ensures that inspectors, risk engineers and claims adjustors can get back to work with little to no delay,” the release said, adding that the model “makes upgrading to the latest hardware a seamless experience” so that Betterview’s customers no longer have to worry about being left behind when a “new, better” drone hits the market.

“We are extremely pleased to have announced the release of Betterview’s insurance inspection kit,” said David Lyman, CEO and co-founder of Betterview, in the release. “The combination of our services, full stack software solution, and hardware from DJI will eliminate the need to deal with multiple vendors, and more importantly, make it easier to implement drone technology.”

As the recent hurricanes that affected Texas and Florida have shown, “one of the biggest benefits of drones is their ability to expedite the claims process and help claimants get their lives back to normal,” Lyman continued. “With our insurance inspection package, we’ll immediately take care of getting FAA clearance or obtaining waivers to fly in controlled airspace when a catastrophe occurs. For example, the hurricanes in Texas and Florida caused a significant amount of damage to properties in controlled airspace by airports. Our staff was able to get FAA clearances, usually within 24 hours, allowing our clients to capture real-time, high-resolution imagery for analysis and claims resolution,” Lyman concluded.

Founded in late 2014, Betterview is a software platform and service provider for capturing and analyzing data from drones. Betterview, with its network of more than 4,500 drone operators worldwide, has inspected more than 9,000 properties for over 90 insurance customers. Betterview streamlines the inspection process by using drones and software to capture a comprehensive set of aerial building imagery, data and expert analysis.

Output: Canadian insurtech firm Betterview has introduced a package allowing insurers to access drone assessment of potentially insurable properties. The inspection package, launched due to increasing demand, allows insurers to process data gathered by drones when deciding on rates for insurable properties. The package includes such services as drone flight training, artificial intelligence analysis and 3D mapping services. Betterview also notes its drone services can be used in the claims process.


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Synechron launches insurtech accelerators across five cities
 <![CDATA[

Global financial services consulting firm and technology services provider Synechron announced today the launch of a set of InsurTech Accelerator programs in New York, Paris, Dubaï, London and Pune. The expertise of the organisation in business consulting, financial services as well as in technology will provide an innovative support to insurance firms, with an emphasis on digital transformation.

Each strand of the InsurTech Accelerator solution is based on a business case and will enable support companies to optimize their cost models and customer experience by leveraging innovative technology.

The Accelerators will use the following technologies:

Internet of Things (IoT)

Blockchain

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Mobile Solutions

Digital Strategy/Customer Experience Design

This set of Accelerators will guide insurance companies during their digital transformation, and will be supported by a team of consultant experts in insurance business processes, products, regulation, operating models, and data architectures.

About Synechron Synechron is a global consulting and technology organization providing innovative solutions to the financial services industry through its three main business focus areas: digital, business consulting, and technology. Based in New York, the company has 18 offices around the globe, with over 8,000 employees producing over $500+M in annual revenue. For more information on the Company please visit their website.

]]>

Output: Consultancy Synechron has launched an insurtech accelerator. The accelerator will have locations in five cities around the world - New York, Paris, Dubaï, London and Pune. The locations will focus on helping companies develop technologies centred around areas such as internet of things and blockchain. In particular, Synechron notes the goal of the locations is to help insurance companies with a "digital transformation".


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Claims manager Snapsheet launches payment solution
 The partnership sets out to transform the way insurance carriers send payments to claimants. An important objective is to simplify claims, while maintaining an optimal customer experience and a seamless payments solution.

To discover more about the new Snapsheet Transactions payment method, Digital Journal spoke with Snapsheet’s Alex Meisner.

Digital Journal: What are some of the major challenges facing the insurance sector today?

Alex Meisner: The insurance industry is facing mass disruption. However, unlike a lot of InsurTechs that are out there today, Snapsheet’s goal isn’t to disrupt the industry, but to help the industry innovate and make their current processes more nimble, efficient, and customer-friendly.

DJ: Why is so much paper documentation still used by the insurance sector?

Meisner: Paper documentation is a byproduct of the insurance industry relying heavily on legacy technology and manual processes. Until recently, the majority of back-end technology couldn’t support innovation in the form of automation, let alone digital payments. However, we’re rapidly seeing carriers undergo digital transformation, opening up the industry to new technology, which in turn paves the way for InsurTech companies to support these organizational goals.

DJ: Please explain what Snapsheet is and how it works.

Meisner: Snapsheet is the leading provider of virtual claims technology used by auto insurance carriers to optimize workflows, speed up claims processes and provide superior service to their customers. Our cloud-based software enables carriers to virtually process a claim with photos taken by the user via their smartphone.

Through a multitude of technologies housed on our platform, we’re able to help insurance providers process claims quicker, allowing customers to be paid faster and back in safe, repaired vehicles sooner.

DJ: What’s different about Snapsheet Transactions?

Meisner: Most carriers are cutting physical checks for claims payments, but checks are slow. If a user is submitting an auto claim, chances are high that they’re depending on that payment in order to get back on the road.

Recent events, like Hurricane Harvey and Irma, have made this more apparent. In these cases, people may not have a current address to send the check and need the payment in order to recover and get back to normal as quickly as possible, this technology changes that.

DJ: What are the key benefits of Snapsheet?

Meisner: Using Snapsheet, carriers can process 90 percent of all claims by photograph, and automate 70 percent of all customer communications.

The self-service nature of Snapsheet’s model, in combination with the scalability of its platform, makes it easy to service a range of carriers, from small insurance companies that process a low volume of claims, all the way to the industry’s biggest players. Snapsheet processes more than 400,000 claims a year, and is built to manage millions. Our versatility and ability to help insurance carriers of all sizes are a major differentiator against other solutions.

DJ: What types of insurance areas is Snapsheet applicable to?

Meisner: Snapsheet is the industry leading provider of virtual claims technology to personal and commercial auto insurers. In addition to insurance, we also have technology solutions for rental car companies, ride-sharing companies, and third party administrators. Snapsheet Transactions is a solution suitable for all lines of insurance, not just auto.

DJC

DJ: What has been the response to Snapsheet from the industry?

Meisner: The response from the industry has been fantastic. Thanks to our partnerships with carriers, we’re on track to process almost 450,000 claims this year.

To date, Snapsheet has raised over 40 million dollars, including strategic investments from four insurance carriers.

DJ: How have consumers responded to Snapsheet?

Meisner: We’ve seen more customers using their carrier’s apps more than ever. Nearly 75 percent of adults own a smartphone with apps accounting for 89 percent of mobile usage. Consumers are using apps for everything from ordering food to hiring a contractor, so it’s become logical for customers who need to process a claim to reach for the phone first, and we want to make it easy for them to do that.

DJ: What was the main challenge with the development of Snapsheet?

Meisner: Snapsheet originally started as BodyShopBids, an app that provided estimates and auto shop contacts to users who sent in photos of a damaged vehicle. However, we quickly realized that customers were using our service to determine if they should file a claim with their insurance carrier, thus we decided to pivot our business and address the needs of insurance carriers and their customers.

DJ: What other types of technology interest you?

Meisner: IoT and blockchain technologies are very exciting as they have the potential to change the way carriers assess risk and process claims. These technologies and their use cases are still in their infancy and the industry is excited to see where they take us.

Chicago based Snapsheet is a provider of virtual claims technology to personal and commercial auto insurance carriers. The company services major auto insurance carriers through Snapsheet’s Virtual Insurance Claims Exchange platform, with the aim of improving the estimation process for auto repairs from virtual photo submission to final repairs and payment.

Output: Insurtech Snapsheet, a provider of claims management technology, has partnered with Keybank to launch a new payment platform for insurers. The platform aims to streamline the claims process, allowing insurers to pay out to claimants in a more timely fashion. The firm already uses mobile and cloud technology to process claims. The new payments platform, dubbed Snapsheet Transactions, will speed up the process through which claimants are actually paid, eliminating the need for physical cheques to be issued.


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China plans to sequence one million citizens' genes
 Genetic Database

Authorities in the city of Nanjing, the capital of China's Jiangsu province, announced at the end of October that they would sequence the genes of 1 million individuals to build a genetic database of Chinese residents. This project is part of the National Health and Medicine Big Data Nanjing Center, a new data storage facility under construction in the region.

China News reports that the project will focus on population genetics, including identifying genes linked to cancer and rare and chronic diseases, as well as genes linked to brain development in children and the effects of environment on genetics. Four experts, both from China and abroad, will advise the project, including Harvard geneticist George Church — a pioneer of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing and leader of the project to resurrect the woolly mammoth.

The Sanger Center, a contributor to the Human Genome Project, where large-scale human genome sequencing began in 1999. Image Credit: the Sanger Institute Wellcome Trust

"When the facilities are ready, the designed capacity for DNA sequencing will be up to 400,000 to 500,000 samples per year," Lan Qing, deputy director of the provincial health and family planning commission, told China News.

The Big Data Nanjing center will have a capacity of 52 petabytes, enough to contain the health records of 80 million individuals and videos from 174 of the province's hospitals, Yicai Global reports. The center has already connected with several institutions, including Fudan University, Nanjing Medical University, and Peking Union Medical College Hospital.

The Spread of Sequencing

It took over a decade and $2.7 billion to sequence the very first human genome, completed by the Human Genome Project in 2003. Since then, genetic sequencing has rapidly become both cheaper and faster. An increasing number of companies and institutions are developing new methods of reading our most fundamental code, including small devices that can rapidly sequence partial genomes in the field.

According to Motherboard, two aspects of genome sequencing contribute to its cost: the "cost per megabase of DNA sequence," or the cost to produce one 'megabase,' or a million base pairs of DNA, and the cost of actually sequencing a human-sized genome, which contains about 3,000 megabases, which includes the cost of running the computer programs that perform the sequencing.

Around January of 2008, the price of both of these aspects sharply declined with the introduction of next-generation sequencing technology, also known as high-throughput sequencing. While there are several platforms available, all of them sequence millions of small fragments in parallel and then use a complete genome as a reference to map where these fragments should go. Such technology can sequence an entire human genome in just a day.

However, all of this rapid and cheap genetic data is fairly useless if geneticists can't pinpoint the genes — and common errors within them — that cause health issues. Enormous genetic databases can be extremely valuable to doctors and drug companies seeking cures, as the commercial sequencing company 23andMe has already found by monetizing their database.

As such, projects like this one in Nanjing could be essential to finding the genetic basis needed to diagnose and treat some of the worst diseases that continue to plague our species.

Output: Chinese authorities have announced plans to carry out gene sequencing for one million citizens of the city of Nanjing, in order to create a comprehensive genetic database. This project will be run out of the National Health and Medicine Big Data Nanjing Center, a new data storage facility under construction in the region with an expected capacity of 52 petabytes. The database will allow authorities to identify links between genetic traits and diseases like cancer, as well as measure the impact of environmental factors on genetics.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
FDA to ease regulations on consumer genetic tests
 FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced today that the agency intends to make a major change to its regulatory process around direct-to-consumer genetic health risk (GHR) tests. Specifically, the agency is creating a framework that will allow companies to bypass premarket certification for individual tests once they submit to a one-time review of their processes, an approach reminiscent of the FDA's new pre-certification program for medical devices.

"Today, the FDA is taking steps to implement a novel regulatory approach for the regulation of GHR tests that applies proper oversight in a flexible, new way," Gottlieb wrote in a statement. "It builds on the important lessons we learned from the FDA’s authorization of the first GHR and carrier screening tests sold directly to consumers."

Gottlieb's allusion is likely to the FDA's tumultuous relationship with consumer genetic testing pioneer 23andMe. That company halted its US health-related offerings for two years after a very public rebuke from the agency (it continued to offer ancestry tests and to sell health tests in other countries during that time).

"Specifically, today the agency issued a notice of its intent to allow GHR tests to be exempted from premarket review under certain conditions." Gottlieb wrote. "If and when finalized, manufacturers of these types of tests would have to come to FDA for a one-time review to ensure that they meet the FDA’s requirements, after which they may enter the market with new GHR tests without further review. The agency also established special controls for these tests in a separate de novo classification order, which outline requirements for assuring the tests’ accuracy, reliability and clinical relevance and describe the type of studies and data required to demonstrate performance of certain types of genetic tests."

One problem 23andMe ran into was that much of the value of its product lay in offering users a comprehensive test for many different health risks, but the FDA required a separate regulatory clearance for each screening, which proved a financial and logistical hardship for the company.

In fact, Dr. Jeffery Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, alluded to this policy change back in April when the FDA cleared 23andMe's genetic health risk test.

“By establishing special controls and eventually, a premarket review exemption, the FDA can provide a streamlined, flexible approach for tests using similar technologies to enter the market while the agency continues to help ensure that they provide accurate and reproducible results," he said at the time.

In his statement, Gottlieb acknowledged that direct to consumer genetic tests "don’t fit squarely into our traditional risk-based approach to device regulation" and that inaccurate tests do pose real risks to patients: for instance, a patient might stop eating well or exercising if a test tells them they're not at risk for heart disease. Or it could cause a someone to ignore early warning signs of Parkinson's disease or cancer.

Bradley Merrill Thompson, an attorney with Epstein Becker Green who specializes in the FDA's regulation of digital health, said the approach is intriguing, especially considering that the agency is still in the early stages of the pre-cert program.

"Such tests do present special challenges, but also significant opportunities," he wrote in an email to MobiHealthNews. "If used appropriately, such tests, if widely accessible, may cause people to live healthier lives, choosing better diets and getting more exercise if they realize they are at risk. The FDA notes some of the risks that are present if the tests provide inaccurate information. They particularly focus on false negatives, but false positives also carry problems by increasing anxiety."

Certainly the timing is right; as MobiHealthNews noted in a feature piece last year, the market for direct-to-consumer genomics has exploded of late, even if questions remain about the technology's usefulness and accuracy.

"We will really have to wait and see what the real world experience is with this new program, but frankly I'm tickled that FDA is trying to think so creatively," Thompson added. "We really do need fresh thinking, and the agency is clearly willing to consider ideas well outside the traditional box."

Output: The FDA will change its regulation framework for direct-to-consumer genetic health risk (GHR) testing, according to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. Businesses will be able to bypass pre-market certification for individual tests after submitting to a one-time review of their processes, an approach reminiscent of the FDA's new program for medical devices. The move indicates that the FDA is encouraging more consumer-oriented genetic screening tests, similar to the popular product offered by genetic testing firm 23andMe.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
California wildfires may cost insurance sector a record $8bn
 Aon Benfield, the reinsurance arm of global insurance and reinsurance brokerage Aon, has said that the California wildfires could drive an insurance industry loss of up to $8 billion, which, on an aggregate basis, makes it the costliest insured wildfire event ever recorded.

Aon Benfield and its catastrophe risk modelling unit, Impact Forecasting, has released its October 2017 global catastrophe report, which includes the devastating California wildfires that claimed 43 lives and injured another 185 people.

Aon Benfield cites data from the California Department of Insurance that at least 19,000 residential, commercial, and auto claims had already been filed, resulting in payouts of more than $3.32 billion.

Now, Aon Benfield says that this figure is expected to rise to as much as $8 billion as claims continue to come in, with the economic cost expected to be even higher.

“On aggregated basis, this is the costliest insured wildfire event ever recorded,” says Aon Benfield.

The $8 billion overall insurance industry loss from the event is at the top end of the RMS range, which said that economic and insured losses, which it expects to be similar owing to high penetration of wildfire protection in the state, are expected to be between $6 billion and $8 billion.

With insurers and reinsurers having reported declines in profits in the third-quarter, with many falling to underwriting losses as a result of high cat losses, it will be interesting to see what impact the wildfire losses have on both individual companies and the broader marketplace as the January renewals approach.

Some players have already announced their expected hit from the California wildfires, with AXIS Capital expecting a hit of up to $45 million, Beazley saying that it expects the event to increase its Q3 cat loss estimate by up to $25 million, while Travelers has said that after reinsurance recoveries, it expects to experience losses of $675 million from the wildfires.

Output: Wildfires that devastated California recently may prove to be the costliest ever for the insurance industry, warns reinsurance brokerage Aon Benfield. Carriers could lose $8bn from the blazes, the most ever for insured wildfires on an aggregate basis. Analysts are closely watching how the fires affect an industry that has reported declining Q3 2017 profits and as insurers and reinsurers struggle to cope with mounting pressure from multiple catastrophes.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
ShelterZoom offers property transaction platform on Ethereum
 Calling all buyers who are tired of dealing with the hassles of paper: a new startup, ShelterZoom, wants to streamline how you can make an offer on a home-for-sale, with its new website, app, and a widget that can be directly placed on real estate websites. The twist? ShelterZoom is built on the same technology that underpins the digital currency Ethereum.

The company launches today and is based out of New York City.

With ShelterZoom’s free “Offer Now” widget, which can be installed on listing websites and appears as a button, buyers and buying agents can directly submit an offer on a property. After tapping the “Offer Now” button, the parties involved will need to add in details such as their name, address, offer price, down payment, upload a qualifying loan or bank statement, and fill in their attorney information.

Once this is complete, they’ll receive a SMS message asking them to finish the process via the ShelterZoom app and to pay an $8 fee. On the other end, the listing agent can see the offer and decide to accept or reject it, confer directly with the seller, or make a counter offer.

The upside to this process it that it’s transparent; both sides can see what’s being said and what information is being shared on the ShelterZoom dashboard.

For early adopters who install the widgets before January 31, 2018, there will be no fee. As for those making offers using the Offer Now widget, the $8 fee will also be waived during the company’s initial beta period, which will run through the end of February 2018.

ShelterZoom says the fee is in the best interest of the consumer; by charging fees, the company is able to “filter out people who are submitting offers just to drive the price up,” said Chao Cheng-Shorland, the cofounder and director of ShelterZoom, in an interview with Inman.

As for how Ethereum fits in: ShelterZoom uses the Ethereum blockchain to come up with secure property agreements. Blockchain refers to a distributed system of ledgers that exist on multiple people’s computers, and is the same basic tech that underpins Bitcoin and most other popular digital currencies.

In the case of ShelterZoom, its offer system relies on smart contracts–a process in which a computer can look and determine qualifying factors about an offer based on a set of rules–to come up with the agreement.

And while keeping your data safe and out of the hands of several people is a nice benefit, Cheng-Shorland also sees the blockchain as a means to keeping ShelterZoom “futureproof.” Cheng-Shorland told Inman that the company could’ve used something like an e-signature, but “the team felt like it was [this] last decade technology.”

So instead it built on top of the blockchain to come up with what is “probably the most advanced use of blockchain in the world at the moment,” according to Cheng-Shorland.

Feeling wary? You can check out what the” Offer Now” widget looks like on November 27 on Cyrus Charter Property and Land Co., a business owned by Amir Allen Alishahi, who is also a cofounder and director of ShelterZoom.

Another customer you’ll see using ShelterZoom sometime this Winter, includes Sandy Krueger, CEO of SIBOR. There, the widget will live on both the public website, as well as the members-only site.

Mixing blockchain with real estate might seem like a risky business but to Cheng-Shorland, “it’s an empty space at the moment and a great opportunity to get in.” A prime opportunity or more blockchain hype? ShelterZoom and the rest of us will find out soon.

Email Inman

Output: A new company based in New York, ShelterZoom, is looking to disrupt the property-buying market with a transaction platform that is built on blockchain technology. ShelterZoom uses the Ethereum blockchain to create secure property agreements, and the service can be accessed from any website via a widget function that is placed on estate agents' sites. The service can be seen in action on 27 November, when Cyrus Charter Property and Land Co., a business owned by Amir Allen Alishahi, who is also a co-founder and director of ShelterZoom, adds the ShelterZoom widget to Land Co.'s site.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Mercy Hospital offers full virtual treatment
 CHESTERFIELD, Mo.― Located off a superhighway exit in suburban St. Louis, nestled among locust, elm and sweetgum trees, the Mercy Virtual Care Center has a lot in common with other hospitals. It has nurses and doctors and a cafeteria, and the staff spend their days looking after the very sick―checking their vital signs, recording notes, responding to orders and alarms, doing examinations and chatting with them.

There’s one thing Mercy Virtual doesn’t have: beds.

Instead, doctors and nurses sit at carrels in front of monitors that include camera-eye views of the patients and their rooms, graphs of their blood chemicals and images of their lungs and limbs, and lists of problems that computer programs tell them to look out for. The nurses wear scrubs, but the scrubs are very, very clean. The patients are elsewhere.

Mercy Virtual is arguably the world’s most advanced example of something gaining momentum in the health care world: A virtual hospital, where specialists remotely care for patients at a distance. It's the product of converging trends in health care, including hospital consolidation, advances in remote-monitoring technology and changes in the way medicine is paid for. The result is a strange mix of hospital and office: Instead of bright fluorescent lighting, beeping alarms and the smell of chlorine, Mercy Virtual Care has striped soft rugs, muted conversation and a fountain that spills out one drop a minute. The mess and the noise are on screens, visible in the hospital rooms the staffers peer into by video—in intensive care units far away, where patients are struggling for their lives, or in the bedrooms of homebound patients, whose often-tenuous existence they track with wireless devices.

The virtual care center started as an office in Mercy’s flagship St. Louis hospital in 2006, but got its own building and separate existence two years ago. It is built on many of the new ideas gaining traction in U.S. health care, such as using virtual communication to keep chronically ill patients at home as much as possible, and avoiding expensive hospitalizations that expose patients to more stress, infections and other dangers.

But perhaps the most important factor driving Mercy Virtual isn’t technology or new thinking but new payment systems. In the near future, the hospital’s administrators believe, instead of earning fees for each treatment administered, insurers and the government will pay Mercy Virtual to keep patients well. A visit to the hushed carrels and blinking monitors is a glimpse into a future in which hospital systems are paid more when their patients are healthy, not sick.

Even now, Mercy Virtual is in the black, because of existing Medicare payment reforms that have already converted some of the agency’s payments into lump sums for treating specific illnesses. Mercy can get its patients out of the hospital much faster than average, so it pockets the money it doesn’t need for longer stays, says Mercy Virtual President Randy Moore.

The hospital is well placed, he adds, for the full transition to a payment system based on efficiency and preserving wellness. “Our idea is to deliver better patient care and outcomes at lower cost, so we can say to an insurer, ‘You expect to spend $100 million on this population this year. We can do it for $98 million with fewer hospitalizations, fewer deaths and everyone’s happy,’” says Moore. “It’s a very strong future business model.”

Nurse Veronica Jones speaks with patient Richard Alfermann, who suffers from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, during a video call on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017, at the Mercy Virtual Care Center in Chesterfield, Mo. Jones says that she and other nurses who work with homebound patients like Alfermann feel like they have “50 grandparents.” | Whitney Curtis for POLITICO

One weird thing about thinking this way is that it radically reimagines traditional notions of medical care—not just how it's delivered, but when. Most hospitals wait for a sick person to walk through the doors or come into the ER. Mercy Virtual reaches out to patients before they’re even aware of symptoms. It uses technology to sense changes in hospitalized patients so subtle that bedside nurses often haven’t picked up on them. When the computer notes irregularities, nurses can turn a series of knobs that allow them to “camera in” on the patient; they can get close enough to check the label on an IV bag, or to observe a patient struggling for breath or whose skin is turning gray.

There are those who say that even an intensive care unit could, in principle, be brought to a patient’s home. But for now, the future looks like this: Hospitals will keep doing things like deliveries, appendectomies and sewing up the victims of shootings and car wrecks. They’ll also have to care for people with diseases like diabetes, heart failure and cancer when they take bad turns. But in the future, the mission of the hospital will be to keep patients from coming through their doors in the first place.

As the country moves to brake escalating health care costs, hospital systems that want to stay in business will have to follow this heavily software-dependent model, say Moore and others. “One night in the hospital in the U.S. costs $4,600 on average, just for the bed,” said Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute and author of several books on the future of medicine. “You can get a lot of data plans and devices for that amount of money.”

Racing the Symptoms

On a recent Monday morning, nurse Veronica Jones touched a button on a screen in front of her to make a video call with Richard Alfermann, a retired 75-year-old banker living on a wooded acre outside Washington, Missouri, 50 miles west of the center. A lifelong smoker until 10 years ago, Alfermann suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. He has trouble breathing and even slight exertion can floor him. The most minor illness, in the past, was enough to force him into the hospital.

Seated on a couch in his home, Alfermann happily greets Jones, with whom he has spoken through video at least twice a week since entering the virtual care program in August 2016. The previous year, he was hospitalized three times. Since then, Alfermann has managed to stay in his home.

One paradox of care at home is this: Monitoring patients from afar with regularity can create more intimacy between patient and his caregivers than a sporadic, once-every-three-months visit in person. Jones and the other nurses on the virtual ward say they feel like “we have 50 grandparents now,” she says. In addition to the touchless warmth, regular interactions enable more individualized care. For example, many COPD patients have such high pulse rates on a good day that an unsuspecting doctor might immediately send them to an ICU. A tele-doctor in regular contact, however, can distinguish a true crisis from a baseline reading that might seem alarming but is normal for that patient.

TOP: Nurses and doctors at the virtual hospital run by Mercy Health System use web cameras and track vital signs remotely to assist healthcare professionals in hospital rooms far away and also homebound patients with chronic illnesses. BOTTOM LEFT: Nurse Anne Bowie monitors ICU patients via camera and vital sign monitors. BOTTOM RIGHT: An example of a telemedicine station, which includes a camera view of a hospital bed, data tracked from vital sign monitors, and computerized supports to help nurses and doctors at the virtual hospital help staff at brick-and-mortar hospitals around the country. | Whitney Curtis for POLITICO

In Alfermann’s case, if he shows signs of failing health, his physician―Carter Fenton, an emergency medicine doctor with 450 patients under his care—can call in home health care nurses, who can examine Alfermann more closely, take X-rays and EKGs and blood samples if necessary. In a sense, Mercy has given Alfermann his own hospital, a home hospital.

And that’s the main purpose of the “engagement at home” program—to keep very sick patients out of the hospital, where their care runs up enormous bills and is laced with dangers to the patient, ranging from nasty bacterial infections to misplaced drug orders to the disorientation of constant alarms, tests and injections. “A telemedicine visit is never going to be as good as having a doctor and his or her team at your bedside,” says Moore. “But 99 percent of the time we can’t make that happen. With virtual we can at least see any patient just like that―rather than tomorrow or next week. And that can be a life or death thing.”

One major aspect of the hospital of the future, it seems, is “less hospital, more future,” says Robin Cook, a former ophthalmologist and the best-selling author of medical thrillers that feature things like roboticized hospitals and killer apps that actually kill their patients. People will continue to go to hospitals—or, increasingly, outpatient surgical centers―to get operations, but their stays will be shorter. “It’s going to be progressively more procedure-oriented, with a lot less parking people to monitor them,” says Cook.

As Alfermann, his nose fitted with a cannula bringing him 100 percent oxygen, pops up on the monitor in front of her, Jones is examining his vital signs, which include blood pressure, pulse, temperature and blood oxygen readings that feed wirelessly into the system from devices that Alfermann attaches to himself at home.

LEFT: Dr. Carter Fenton Jr., left, consults with nurse practitioner Maryellen Bowman. Fenton oversees 450 patients, most suffering from severe lung and heart diseases, by monitoring them at home through wireless medical devices and video consults. RIGHT: Nurse Veronica Jones during the video conference with patient Richard Alfermann. | Whitney Curtis for POLITICO

Most medical interventions take place when a patient presents himself at a doctor’s office or an emergency room. Because “frequent flyers” hate going to the hospital—often a traumatic place for the old and infirm--they’re often in denial about any symptoms they may have, which, ironically, raises the risk that things will get to a critical point if no medical staff are watching.

“A lot of times they’ll say, ‘I feel fine,’ but I can see on the monitor that they are struggling to breathe,” says Fenton. “I remind them that this is how things got started the last time they were hospitalized. There’s a trust factor at first. Sometimes it takes a trip to the ER to vindicate us.”

Today, the concern is Alfermann’s pulse. It’s been above 100 beats per minute twice the last three mornings, from its usual level around 85. Pulse is “a big clue that he may not know what’s happening but something may be about to happen,” Fenton says. He and Jones worry that with cooler weather and drier air, Alfermann might be developing a cold that could exacerbate his COPD.

“Any shortness of breath or changes in your cough?” Jones asks. “Any fever or chills?”

“I don’t think so,” responds Alfermann, a fan of bowling, fishing, and the St. Louis Cardinals. “Yeah. Nothing better, nothing worse. Same old shit.”

“If anything changes with that you know you got to call me right way.”

Jones and Fenton monitor Alfermann carefully over the next several days to make sure there’s no incipient problem. But by Wednesday his pulse is back to normal. Until the next time. “I don’t feel super, but I’m OK,” he tells Fenton. “I haven’t felt good in so long I don’t know what good is.”

Reassured for the moment, Fenton knows there’s always an escape valve. “We always tell the patients, if you feel like you’re getting worse, you need to just go to the hospital,” he said.

Virtual ICU

On the other end of the second floor at Mercy Virtual Care, which is a maze of desks and computer screens, nurses and doctors have their fingers deep in the business of colleagues at hospitals across the country, from North Carolina to Oklahoma. They run a series of programs —TeleICU, TeleStroke, TeleSepsis and TeleHospitalist — all aimed at keeping hospitalized patients from growing sicker and at getting them home faster.

In part, the virtual ICU is dealing with a problem that technology created. All the beeping monitors in the patient’s hospital room crank out massive amounts of information, presented in too cumbersome a way for nurses and doctors on site—at least in typically understaffed hospitals―to deal with quickly. So Mercy Virtual provides nurses and doctors who can focus on monitoring and digesting these data streams, looking for signs of trouble. That way the nurses and doctors on site can pay more attention to the patients and less to the machines.

Electronic health records, which most hospitals started using over the past decade, “inundated us with data,” says Chris Veremakis, who runs Mercy’s TeleICU program. “The EHR has become a thing of its own, and you find people spending so much time in front of the EHR instead of spending time with the patient.”

A layer of backstopping colleagues, watching the data roll in in real time, can improve the quality of treatment by making sure good care standards are being met and catching signs that a patient is going downhill, Veremakis says: “We let the nurses on the floor do their regular work and not be pulled in a million different directions."

One of the intense professionals doing this is Tris Wegener, who was an ICU nurse for 22 years before a snowmobiling accident wrecked her arm and led her to virtual nursing. Now she spends most of her days at Mercy seated in front of a bank of computer screens. She’s waiting for the appearance of a little red flower icon, which means that a computer program, after taking in data from the monitors in the patient’s room, is warning of a danger of sepsis, an immune response to a bacterial bloodstream infection that is the No. 1 hospital killer.

Sepsis can be hard to spot, manifesting itself in irregular symptoms. It’s on the increase among chronically ill patients who are living longer than before―about 1.5 million people get sepsis in the U.S. every year, and 1 in 6 die. When one of the red sepsis flowers pops up, Wegener makes a series of inquiries to rule out false positives. If the patient meets all the criteria—typically very low blood pressure, high fever, infection and high levels of lactic acid—she calls the nurse or doctor on duty. The hospital might be in High Point, North Carolina, Joplin, Missouri, or a dozen other places.

“I get the data as soon as it enters the system,” she says. “The nurse on duty might have three other patients. Is she aware of the problem? Sometimes, sometimes not. She might have another patient who’s coding in the emergency room. They don’t have time to check out this patient whose X-ray looks clear, but we know that tomorrow, if this isn’t taken care of, he’s going to code with pneumonia.”

It’s not unusual for the entire staff of a small ICU to rush into a patient’s room when a patient crashes. When that happens and Mercy is watching, its remote nurses can keep an eye on the other patients while those at the scene take care of the most critical case.

TOP: Nurses and doctors at the virtual hospital run by Mercy Health System use web cameras and track vital signs remotely to assist healthcare professionals in hospital rooms far away and also homebound patients with chronic illnesses. From left to right: Dr. Gavin Helton, Dr. Justin Huyhn, Dr. Christopher Schlanger, Kellie Matusofsky, director of [email protected], and Dr. Carter Fenton Jr. BOTTOM: Nurse Nichole Jones monitors ICU patients. | Whitney Curtis for POLITICO

Working on a single shift not long ago, Wegener and two other virtual nurses had to sort through 136 sepsis alerts from hospitals around the country. Each one takes as long as 40 minutes to resolve. “It keeps your mind going,” she said.

“The job isn’t physically demanding but mentally, oh gosh,” says Lindsey Langley, whose expertise is in diagnosing and ordering treatment for stroke—a condition in which speedy diagnosis and treatment can be the difference between a minor tic and death, or a grave, lifelong disability. “You go home every day exhausted. You are tapped out.”

Most of Mercy’s telehealth and remote monitoring covers patients and hospitals inside the small Catholic hospital system, which has facilities in Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas. But it also partnered with hospital systems at the University of North Carolina and Penn State. Part of the attraction is the backup Mercy provides to hospitals that serve uninsured or low income patients and can’t afford to staff up to levels that might be desirable.

“Mercy runs 24/7 in the background collecting analytics on our patient population,” said Dale Williams, chief medical officer at 351-bed High Point Regional hospital in North Carolina, which is part of the UNC system. As they gather vital signs, EKG data and so on, the Mercy staff can alert brick-and-mortar staff to any significant changes. If there isn’t a nurse or doctor in the room, they intervene.

Of course, a nurse in St. Louis can’t fill an IV fluid bag in North Carolina, but she can use a camera in the room to see that an IV bag is almost empty—then call and instruct a nurse on the floor to refill it. The telemedicine cameras are powerful enough to detect a patient’s skin color; microphones can pick up coughs and gasps and groans.

Making that order from far-off St. Louis can be a delicate matter until the virtual nurses and doctors establish good working relationships with their partners in the flesh-and-blood world. Unsurprisingly, when Mercy starts its virtual relationships with these hospitals, the professionals on site often aren’t exactly enthused to be getting instructions from afar.

“People just think that they can put the technology in place and get amazing results,” said Moore, who estimated that Mercy had spent $300 million to create the virtual care center. But acculturation is key to the process. At most ICUs and other hospital services, physicians and nurses already think they are operating at top capability. It takes work to convince them that their services would be better with help from outside.

“We’ll spend time with them and say, ‘This isn’t Big Brother looking over your shoulders: We’re partners,’” he said. “But doctors don’t necessarily want other doctors writing their orders, and if they won’t accept it, it doesn’t work. If a nurse ignores our team because she’s too busy and not used to TeleICU, nothing happens.”

Sometimes the cultural shifts required may be a bit too much to work. Tampa General Hospital piloted a TeleICU relationship with Mercy Virtual for six months, but ended the agreement Nov. 15. The hospital gave no explanation for the decision.

Mercy Virtual President Randy Moore says the virtual center is already in the black but was really designed for the health care system of the future, in which health systems are paid for keeping patients healthy and out of the hospital—rather than getting compensated for procedures and visits. | Whitney Curtis for POLITICO

Longer term partners, however, seem to have converted to the concept. “A decade ago I would have said, ‘I don’t know that that can work,’” said Williams, who has been working with Mercy Virtual for about two years. “I’ve been convinced. It would be ideal to have a doctor in each unit 24/7, but even then they can’t be looking at the analytics the way these people do. They have critical care-trained nurses and doctors looking at this stuff all the time. They can camera in and count the pores on someone’s nose.”

Williams’ hospital has two critical care doctors who take care of the 28-bed intensive care unit from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day, with “Mercy running in the background,” he said. After 6 p.m., nurses on the ward continue to do their thing, but Mercy is in charge.

“This allows our guys to go home on backup call,” he said. If needed, the doctor can always drive back to the hospital, but most nights Mercy’s intensivists take care of problems. “This allows us the best of both worlds. We have constant analytics and if something is changing that’s not seen by nursing staff, they’re right there monitoring it in St. Louis.”

The relationship has improved outcomes at High Point, Williams said. Doctors who used to get burned out and quit after a year or two tend to leave less often. And the hospital’s care has improved year after year—fewer hospital infections, fewer patient days on ventilators, fewer readmissions and better patient survival, he said.

For now, Mercy and its partners have one foot in the old payment system and the other in the new world, where best outcomes and money align. But there are still administrators at Mercy hospitals who see fewer admissions and days in the hospital and “aren’t particularly happy about it,” Veremakis said. “There is an awkwardness in this time. But enough people with vision recognize this is the right way to go.”

Mercy Virtual’s ICU nurses, most of whom had years of experience before coming here, are sometimes a bit nostalgic for the bedside, with its immediacy and adrenaline. “You’re used to being in charge. Here you’re part of a team,” said Wegener. “If you think something is not being done you have to be polite.

"And there’s no way I can put a price on being able to put my hand on a patient and say, ‘My name is Tris.’”

Arthur Allen is eHealth editor for POLITICIO Pro.

Authors:

Output: The Mercy Virtual Care Center, a Missouri-based healthcare facility, cares for its patients remotely through the use of cameras and monitoring equipment. The centre is intended to allow patients to remain in familiar, comfortable environments during treatment and to lower the costs of hospitalisation, which can often lead to deterioration. The facility is designed to operate under a new financial model, wherein federal funding and insurers pay for care, rather than for treatments administered.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Budapest rents double in five years
 Young people all over the world dream of a place of their own but are increasingly outpriced from the markets because of the housing booms.

Budapest also has one. In fact, according to a recent study by Habitat for Hungary (pdf) shows how rental prices have doubled in downtown Budapest in the last five years only. Wages, on the other hand are only catching up in the statistics – and even that only happens since the government told that they should.

By 2016 the average rental price of a 40 square meter apartment in Budapest had hit 100% of one person’s average wage.

Official data on rental prices is always useless. Most of the rentals are still on the black market, and according to official statistics 90% of Hungarians still live in owner-occupied apartments. Which is obviously not true, but landlords are heavily incentivized not to report their incomes to the taxman. Hence the entire sector is hiding from statistics.

This is why Habitat used the data from a real estate website – where all those non-existent rental properties are put to the market.

But worry not, there is no inflation! Housing may take up a 100% of your income, but still not considered relevant enough to be included in the measurement of the purchasing power of your money. Thank you, central banks.

Oh and please remind me what I should do to get on the property ladder… Oh yes, that one: I should be saving. Right.

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Output: Rents doubled in central Budapest between 2011 and 2016, according to a study by Habitat for Hungary. By 2016, the average rental price for a 40 sq metre flat in Budapest had reached 100% of an individual's average wage. Habitat for Hungary based its insights on data from a property rental website to try to gain an accurate picture of the market.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Restaurants upgrade apps allowing them to control consumer data
 Tearsheet’s one-day “Hot Topic: Mobile Payments” event is coming up in NYC on Nov. 30, and we’re opening up a few complimentary spots to executives from banks and other financial institutions to attend. Interested? Apply here.

In the past month, fast-food brands like McDonald’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Panera, Chick-fil-A and Domino’s have updated their existing apps or introduced new ones with reward programs, faster payment options and delivery services.

Others, like Shake Shack and Domino’s, are integrating their apps into their physical chains or popular social networks. Even traditional restaurants like Red Lobster and Texas Roadhouse are implementing their own in-app reward programs. Chipotle was one of the latest to update its app, adding a way to quickly reorder past orders, a rewards program and the ability to purchase meals through Apple or Android Pay on Nov. 6.

These brands say these endeavors are an effort to give consumers what they want — a faster, convenient way to place an order and reach consumers on their mobile devices, where they spend the most time interacting and engaging with others. But more important, the apps allow brands to collect their own data on consumers, as their delivery partners — services like Seamless, Grubhub, Postmates and DoorDash — possess the majority of market share for digital delivery.

The relationship between restaurants and delivery services is complicated, to say the least. Chipotle, for example, does not deliver itself, but it can be ordered through Postmates, Tapingo or Favor. Chipotle plans on adding four or five other services by the end of the year. By building out their apps, restaurants can retain some of the customer data they lose to the delivery services they work with in order to stay competitive.

“There’s definitely a frenemy relationship that goes on where brands are working with these delivery services, but they’re also hedging their bet by making sure they have their own fulfillment network in place,” said Ben Zeidler, director of consumer goods research at L2.

Most delivery services do not provide brands with the data they need to understand customer intention or preferences, unless there’s a specific arrangement between a brand and a service to do so. Curt Garner, chief digital and information officer at Chipotle, said Chipotle receives data around sales, transactions, timing and orders from its delivery partners, but not customer data.

Most of these brands are planning on using their app data to track purchase patterns and build customer profiles they can use to target individuals with personalized offers. Chipotle plans on using its updated app to understand what it can offer that would “surprise and delight” consumers, said Garner. “As a data play, it makes a lot of sense because you’re controlling that consumer experience, and you’re doing it in a way where consumers want to interact with you,” he said.

Apps may seem like the wrong move to build consumer profiles. Today, most people don’t keep many apps on their smartphones. App Annie’s 2017 report on app usage found that a person will use 30 apps a month and open nine daily, but the majority are social media apps or apps that come installed on the device like Safari.

However, brands like Red Lobster and Chipotle have already seen success from their app updates. With Red Lobster’s in-app reward program, for example, the brand found that 75 percent of the people who downloaded the app used it to scan a receipt, and 25 percent redeemed points two or more times. Although he wouldn’t reveal specific numbers, Garner said Chipotle orders are increasingly coming from mobile devices.

Food brands likely won’t stop working with delivery services. Essentially, they are opting to have a piece of the pie rather than leftover crumbs. The truth is that delivery services possess the majority of market share in the delivery space. Grubhub alone takes up 23 percent of market share, second only to Domino’s by 1 percentage point, according to 2016 Morgan Stanley data.

What’s more, new delivery services are popping up all the time. Small-scale services such as Waitr and The House concentrate on smaller cities that the Grubhubs of the world don’t reach. Tech companies have ventured into delivery as well, with offerings like Amazon Restaurants, Facebook’s new Order Food feature and UberEats allowing brands to reach consumers in other places where they spend most of their time. Chipotle, Five Guys, Jack in the Box, Papa John’s, Wingstop, Panera Bread, TGI Fridays, Denny’s, El Pollo Loco and Jimmy John’s are among the first to offer ordering straight through their Facebook profile pages.

Zeidler said delivery services owe their success to indecisive customers and the power of online search. In L2’s October Digital IQ Index study of the restaurants sector, the firm found that unbranded search terms, such as “restaurants near me,” saw around 50,000 more online searches than brand search terms such as “Papa John’s.”

“There is an undecided consumer out there. That’s why they’re going to Seamless in the first place,” he said. “They don’t know what they want to order. Brands can look at that as an opportunity, and they can look at it as a sign of potential slowdown.” The brands that are updating their apps are trying to make the most of this situation.

Output: In the last month, major fast-food brands have upgraded their mobile apps in an effort to remain relevant, offering new payment options and loyalty perks. These brands are also looking for new ways to collate data on their customers' behaviours, as their delivery providers do not ordinarily pass on consumer data to food retailers. “There’s definitely a frenemy relationship that goes on where brands are working with these delivery services, but they’re also hedging their bet by making sure they have their own fulfilment network in place,” said Ben Zeidler, director of consumer goods research at L2.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Farmobile raises $18m for its farming data analytics platform
 Ag tech startup Farmobile raises $18M round for global expansion

Ag tech company Farmobile has reaped a substantial Series B funding round that positions the firm to rapidly accelerate across the world.

The Overland Park-based company announced Friday that it raised $18.1 million to expand its data platform to help farmers mitigate risks and generate a revenue from the data they own.

The round includes Anterra Capital, AmTrust Agricultural Insurance Services and other undisclosed investors. The new funding pushes the firm’s total capital raised to more than $28 million.

The platform aims to empower farmers to make better choices and to grow their operations, CEO Jason Tatge said.

“Our customers continue to tell us Farmobile’s data as a service platform is the best way to collect, organize, share and sell their agronomic and machine data,” Tatge said in a release. “Our mission is to make sure farmers, worldwide, have access to a cost effective strategy to collect, protect and own their digital assets with a clear path to ROI opportunities.”

Founded in 2013, Farmobile created a device — a Passive Upload Connection (PUC) — that plugs into a tractor’s diagnostic port to collect a variety of data useful to farmers and ag operations. Not only does the data provide information for farmers’ decisions on planting, spraying, fertilizing harvesting and more, it can be sold to third parties via Farmobile’s data marketplace.

“Farmobile’s technology allows farmers to access, control and monetize data like never before,” Dudley Hawes of Anterra Capital said in a release. “This is a team that understands farm data and the power of various data layers as they pull together.”

The funding will allow Farmobile to accelerate development of distribution channels in ag retail, insurance and equipment dealerships, Tatge said.

Farmobile was recognized as one of Startland News’ Top Startups to Watch in 2017 for its disruptive model in the trillion-dollar agriculture industry.

Output: Agriculture technology start-up company Farmobile has raised $18.1m in a series B round to expand the customer base for its data platform. Commenting on the new funding, Farmobile CEO Jason Tatge said: "The funding will allow Farmobile to accelerate development of distribution channels in agriculture retail, insurance and equipment dealerships." The new funding pushes the Kansas-based firm’s total capital raised to over $28m. Investors included Anterra Capital, AmTrust Agricultural Insurance Services and others. Farmobile's platform allows farmers to collect, organise, share and sell agricultural data, and includes software that connects to a tractor's diagnostic port.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Online TV network Cheddar to locate studios in US WeWork offices
 Cheddar is joining forces with WeWork to scale its on-air guest booking operation. It's building remote studios in WeWork offices around the country, and eventually around the globe, to bring more TV-quality live shots to the network's weekday live programming slate. The Cheddar team will go live with its first-ever daily broadcast from a WeWork location today in Hollywood.

Why it matters: It's a cost effective way for Cheddar to scale its digital TV business at the local, national and global levels. And it's a good example of how technology is upending the traditional TV business.

"The partnership gives us more edge against competitors by allowing us to have the remote broadcast scale of a major cable network," says Cheddar CEO Jon Steinberg. Most networks rely on affiliate relationships around the country to deliver high-quality guest live shots, while Cheddar uses Skype for some of its 50+ daily guest interviews. Steinberg is hoping the WeWork partnership will also increase the frequency of guests booked per day, which will cut down on segment length.

against competitors by allowing us to have the remote broadcast scale of a major cable network," says Cheddar CEO Jon Steinberg. Most networks rely on affiliate relationships around the country to deliver high-quality guest live shots, while Cheddar uses Skype for some of its 50+ daily guest interviews. Steinberg is hoping the WeWork partnership will also increase the frequency of guests booked per day, which will cut down on segment length. Steinberg says they are looking to add a minimum of 5-10 locations in 2018 and build from there. They will set their sites on U.S. cities to start, like DC, Chicago and San Fransisco, and then plan on expanding to perhaps London or Asia.

and build from there. They will set their sites on U.S. cities to start, like DC, Chicago and San Fransisco, and then plan on expanding to perhaps London or Asia. The investment also provides a foray into more local news coverage. "Conceivably, this could be used in breaking news situations across the globe," says Steinberg. The company launched "Cheddar Local," this summer to provide top business headlines to local news broadcasts, tailored to their region.

Cheddar's strategy has thus far been to scale as quickly as possible at low cost. It's relied on strategic partnerships with established media entities to do so.

Nationally, Cheddar has scored distribution partnerships with Sling, Amazon, Pluto, Facebook, Twitter and two more bundles by year end.

Internationally, Cheddar launched a partnership with Propagate, a global indie studio, to produce a daily segment from New York Stock Exchange that would be customized and distributed for international markets.

Cheddar launched a partnership with Propagate, a global indie studio, to produce a daily segment from New York Stock Exchange that would be customized and distributed for international markets. "Everything we do now, has to work when we're 10x the size," says Jon Steinberg. "The goal is always to create a model where the cost drop is efficient. Steinberg says the total cost to build out all of their studios, controls rooms, equipment etc. has thus far been $2.2 million. Steinberg says the 90-person company is looking to net over $10 million in revenue this year.

The partnership is a first for WeWork as well. " "This deal is a good example of the way that we can start to program our own physical space while simultaneously offering a great opportunity for our members to share their stories with the world," says WeWork Vice Chair Michael Gross.

Output: Digital TV news network Cheddar has signed a deal to locate remote studios in WeWork offices throughout the US so it can feature more guests on its programmes. Cheddar CEO John Steinberg said the company hopes to add between five and 10 locations in 2018 through the partnership, giving "us more edge against competitors by allowing us to have the remote broadcast scale of a major cable network". New sites will initially be located across the US but London and Asia are being looked at as later possibilities.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
WeWork is mining customer data to develop apps and service that improve work
 In the future, you’re going to love going to the office. Everything you need to do your job effectively will present itself without effort. You won’t have your own desk, because your employer will know you only use it for 63 percent of the day. But you won’t mind sharing it, because said employer will make sure you have a private room with green leafy plants, soundproof walls, and warm light between 2 and 2:20 p.m. so you can call your daughter. At 3:30 p.m., when you need a conference room for the product managers’ meeting, you won’t even have to book it. It’ll just be there. And everyone attending remotely will already be invited.

[#image: /photos/5947e0146c638b3847cde2a7]|||||| Jessi Hempel is Backchannel's editorial director. --------- Sign up to get Backchannel's weekly newsletter, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

“This isn’t right away, of course,” David Fano tells me. “But it’s not that far out.”

We’re standing in the epicenter of WeWork’s cavernous New York City headquarters, where Fano, the company’s Chief Growth Officer, has set up a demo area to show off new technologies for prospective clients. A balding guy with a shaved head and dark eyebrows, Fano stands 5’11”, and when he touches his phone to a desk, it recognizes him and raises itself to rest at his standing height. The smart furniture is just one of many ways that WeWork is wrangling data that it’s collected over the years to quietly reorganize an office around its workers. To Fano’s right is a touchscreen the size of a chalkboard where he can, with a swipe or a pinch, pull up real-time information about any of WeWork’s 164 open locations. Want to know when the air filters were last cleaned in WeWork’s Mexico City offices? Curious how many conference rooms are currently occupied in Charlotte, North Carolina? This program can tell you.

WeWork is counting on this research to form the meat of its business and to justify its newly ordained position at the very top of an elite group of startups. Maybe you thought WeWork was about hip shared offices for millennials and beer on tap, or corporate slogans in twee typeface that read “Do What You Love.” But WeWork has much larger ambitions. Seven years after it opened its first coworking spot in SoHo, it has catapulted into a briskly ballooning global business—and it is now trying to position itself as the foremost expert on offices. In the past two months, WeWork has partnered with Softbank to open in Tokyo, where it will own 50 percent of WeWork Japan; it has announced a Chinese unit; and it has purchased Singaporean competitor Spacemob. It’s operating in 16 countries outside the United States right now, and it has launched upscale, dorm-like apartment buildings—aptly called WeLive—in New York, Washington, D.C., and soon Seattle. In late August, the company raised $4.4 billion from Softbank’s gigantic Vision Fund. WeWork is now valued at close to $20 billion, putting it in a league with Palantir and SpaceX as the most highly valued private US tech startups after Airbnb and Uber.

WeWork’s bet is that because it is amassing so much office space and studying how thousands of different businesses use it, it can position itself as the company with the most valuable firsthand knowledge about how jobs best get done. Since its inception, WeWork has been collecting data about how people work, where they are most productive, what they need to feel good, and how much space they really require in the first place. (It’s less…much, much less…space than you think.) So far, WeWork has applied this knowledge to its own locations. But for the past year, the company has quietly been experimenting with ways to turn that data into new products for enterprise customers. These offerings include building out custom office interiors, licensing software that companies can use to book conference rooms, analyzing data on how people are using those conference rooms, and providing on-site human community managers indoctrinated in WeWork’s community-minded philosophies. Fano calls this grab-bag of services “Powered by We.”

Think of it as office space-as-a-service. To date, big companies like Microsoft or IBM have used WeWork spaces in places where they don’t need to have as many employees or in areas where they believe their employees might benefit from an outside environment. But many of those companies are now testing deeper integrations. WeWork manages an entire building for IBM in Greenwich Village, and it now runs Airbnb’s Berlin office as well as Amazon’s Boston office. Soon, the company anticipates, large enterprises will outsource their office buildings to WeWork, which will draw from its increasingly sophisticated data to insure that enterprise clients get the most productivity possible for the least amount of money. It’s a natural extension of WeWork’s current business, according to Chief Operating Officer Jen Berrent, who explains that the idea of adding a services business is “something that there’s demand for in the market.”

Over time, this could be a much bigger opportunity than coworking spaces, one in which everything WeWork has built so far will simply feed an algorithm that will design a perfectly efficient approach to office space. WeWork aspires to be the de facto source to which businesses will turn when they need help figuring out how to spend the least amount possible for an environment that will delight employees and entice new ones.

Output: WeWork’s bet is that because it is amassing so much office space and studying how thousands of different businesses use it, it can position itself as the company with the most valuable firsthand knowledge about how jobs best get done. Since its inception, WeWork has been collecting data about how people work, where they are most productive, what they need to feel good, and how much space they really require in the first place. (It’s less…much, much less…space than you think.) So far, WeWork has applied this knowledge to its own locations. But for the past year, the company has quietly been experimenting with ways to turn that data into new products for enterprise customers.