Rady Children's Institute for Genomic Medicine in San Diego and Deloitte are developing a pilot project to have drones to pick up lab specimens at the airport and bring them about 5 miles to Rady's for genetic analysis. The groups are working with the Federal Aviation Administration, and the goal is to cut transit time and speed results for patients.

Health care organizations have not moved fast enough to capitalize on their market and understand consumer preferences, but nontraditional health companies such as Amazon and Google as well as private equity firms provide insight on what consumers want and what investments to make, said Hackensack Meridian Health CEO Robert Garrett. Operating margins for health care providers are stable but vulnerable, Garrett said, and the risk has increased due the new players in ambulatory care.

Lark Health's new artificial intelligence-driven apps coach users who want to lose weight, quit smoking, reduce stress or otherwise improve their overall health. Users can select one focus area at a time and move on to others after completing the program.

The impulse to fight health misinformation with facts is well intentioned, but many fact-based public service campaigns have had exactly the opposite effect intended, and perceived social norms are powerful change engines, writes behavioral scientist Jessica Fishman. Health messaging should focus less on negative behaviors and more on positive behaviors displayed by a majority of people, such as the Truth Initiative's videos showing teens tossing out their e-cigarettes, Fishman writes.

Corporate America sees consumerized medicine as the path to lower costs and better patient outcomes, but such an approach could yield an even more fractured system than we have now, writes Ruth Reader. Retail health care clinics and telehealth make primary care more accessible; startups are developing AI platforms to diagnose health conditions and recommend treatment; and apps collect patient data and aid communication, but quality and coordination may be lacking, says American Medical Association CEO James Madara.

The FDA granted conditional approval to Epizyme's Tazverik, or tazemetostat, to treat patients with inoperable metastatic or locally advanced epithelioid sarcoma, a rare soft tissue cancer, and Epizyme announced the drug will be priced at $15,500 per month. Data from a midstage trial showed the drug shrank tumors in some patients.

Employers are finding creative ways to help employees tackle their 2020 wellness goals, such as offering a "jump-start" program with short-term goals that help people achieve bigger goals later on. One financial services company CEO raised awareness about a charity run by jogging in stiletto heels, while HR staff at a chemical manufacturing company used "gate crashing" to pass out informational flyers, fruit and other wellness incentives as workers entered the building.

First-time mothers who received low-dose aspirin daily during pregnancy had 11% lower odds of preterm delivery compared with those who were given placebo, researchers reported in the journal The Lancet. The findings also showed a reduced likelihood of perinatal mortality among those in the aspirin group, but both groups had similar at-term hypertensive disorder risk.

Adults aged 45 to 75 with diabetes experienced a 58.9% all-cause mortality decline for men and 63.6% for women from 2001 to 2016, while younger adults saw an all-cause mortality decline of 33.8% for men and 6.9% for women during the same period, according to a study in Diabetologia. Researchers analyzed data from 770,078 men and women from Hong Kong, and also found that the mortality rates for all-cause, cardiovascular disease and cancer among men declined by 52.3%, 72.2% and 65.1%, respectively, and by 53.5%, 78.5% and 59.6% among women, respectively.

Students at one Utah elementary school will soon start learning about mental health, coping strategies and asking for help through the Reach Out Initiative. The project is being spearheaded by high school students who want their younger peers to know how to deal with depression and anxiety as they grow up, and is part of a larger effort by the state to prevent teen suicides.