Category: Health Tech

Sword Health, the Hinge Health S1, and me

Mar 21, 2025

By MATTHEW HOLT

The big news in the comeback of digital health is that Hinge Health filed its S1 and is looking to go public soon. I suspect that they’d have preferred to get the IPO done late last year when the AI bubble was expanding rather than deflating, but timing the market is tough! Nonetheless Hinge is almost profitable and at over $350m in revenue at a growth clip of some 75% last year, in terms of a show pony to trot out, it’s about as good as the digital health field has got. The problem is that the last round in 2021 was at a $6bn+ ZIRP-era valuation with Tiger & Coatue paying the idiot price because Teladoc was trading at $15bn market cap then (albeit down from $30bn a year before that!). That is, err, no longer the case. There’s a bunch of weirdness in the IPO structure to pay those guys back, but the main point is that the likely valuation will be in the $1.5-2.5bn range.

But there’s another problem. And it’s one I have some personal experience with. I must stress that my experience is not with Hinge.

As it happens I did a video interview at Hinge’s booth at HLTH in 2022 when my back collapsed, and I got to try out their Enso device (it helped a bit but not much after the first few minutes using it). I discussed the process with PT Lori Walter and got a quick interview with President Jim Pursely (an old Livongo hand BTW).

But this past summer I used the services of their main competitor, Sword Health. As far as I can tell the two companies are very similar in their process and services, both with self-service exercises delivered via the smartphone and both moving from remote care from therapists to AI therapists. But I could be wrong. So for this article I am extrapolating from one company to the other to look at the field of MSK digital services overall.

In total, I thought the Sword experience was good as a standalone program. But the problem was that it was standalone.

My problem was with my left knee. I had a lot of knee surgery in 2002-4 as the result of snowboarding into a tree (Hint. If you snowboard, try to make sure you and the board go the same side of the tree). More than 20 years later in 2024 I managed somehow to induce terrible pain in the knee running for a ferry in January, a train in May and an airport shuttle in June. (It seems that travel and my knee disagree). This didn’t stop me strapping up, taking drugs and snowboarding in the 2024 winter season but it certainly slowed me down a whole lot. Around this time there were many reports of people much younger than me getting their knees replaced.

So I thought I should do something about it. My Blue Shield of California plan offers Solera which is an agglomeration marketplace of digital health apps and services. Sword Health is their PT app, so I selected it, enrolled and off I went.

Note that there was zero integration with my PCP, any orthopedic surgeon, any clinical person at the health plan or basically anyone. This was purely patient-driven and managed.

With Sword I had a 15 min intro call on June 6 – then was sent a box containing a generic tablet and six sensors which fit into straps that you attach to your lower and upper legs and arms.

There was a conversation in the app with a PT and then it spat out a selection of exercises for me. The example below is my second exercise session. If you want to check out more, I have put more of the exercise and the chat with the PT here.

Sword suggested, instead of regular 45-60 minute physical PT sessions, that I did four 15 minutes sessions a week. Essentially one every other day.

The end result was that I did eight sessions between June 12 & June 30.

Next Up: Fiber Computers

Mar 13, 2025

By KIM BELLARD

I know: you’re pretty proud for being into “wearables” to help monitor your health and other functions. You’ve got some apps on your smartphone. You use a smartwatch. Maybe you’ve tried one of the many iterations of smart glasses, like Google Glass or Meta’s Ray Bans. You were disappointed when Humane’s AI pin bit the dust.

Forget all that. With fiber computing, your clothes can be your wearable.

A new paper from MIT researchers discussed the ability to use “single fiber computers” that can be woven directly into clothing. According to the MIT press release:

The fiber computer contains a series of microdevices, including sensors, a microcontroller, digital memory, bluetooth modules, optical communications, and a battery, making up all the necessary components of a computer in a single elastic fiber.

It also has embedded lithium-ion batteries that power it.

MIT has a lab devoted to fiber computing (fibers@mit), led by Professor Yoel Fink, who has been working on it for over ten years. According to its website: “Our research focuses on extending the frontiers of fiber materials from optical transmission to encompass electronic, optoelectronic and even acoustic properties,” with the goal of fibers that can See, Hear, Sense and Communicate.

The lab has had many accomplishments, but the mismatch between the shape of a chip and the shape of a fiber became a problem. Co-lead author Nikhil Gupta, an MIT materials science and engineering graduate student explains the problem:

Linus Health–In-depth demo of cognitive health tool

Mar 12, 2025

The decline in cognitive health, especially that leading to Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases, is one of the most feared conditions by patients and their families. It’s also one of the most expensive. But if we can predict it early there are things we can do to prevent or ameliorate it. The issue has been finding an easy and comprehensive way to monitor it as part of primary care. The team at Linus Health has been building a diagnostic solution for exactly that and claims that it’s now the right time to roll it out as part of general primary care. CEO David Bates, John Showalter, Chief Product Officer (a primary care doc) and Alvaro Pascual Leone, a neurologist and Chief Medical Officer, took me through an extensive end to end demo. This is a long and fascinating look at the state of play in neurology diagnosis, and discussion about what the future of brain health looks like. Matthew Holt

Stuart Blitz, Hone Health

Mar 5, 2025

Stuart Blitz is COO and founder of Hone Health. He comes from a long career in health tech, notably at diabetes device pioneer Agamatrix. Stuart’s been working on his aggressive social media career, but in the background he co-founded Hone Health in the male health online telehealth/pharmacy space in March 2020 (great timing!). It’s now raised real money ($33m last month), has expanded to the other half of the population (women, too!), and is finding a space for itself in the cash-pay space where HIMS, Roman et al are well known. We had a great conversation about how that space is playing out and what Stuart thinks will work there, and what it means for health care overall–Matthew Holt

Natalie Schneider, Fort Health

Mar 4, 2025

Natalie Schneider is CEO of Fort Health, a relatively new entrant into the children’s mental health market. Fort Health’s modus operandi is to partner with (i.e. market via) pediatricians to get them to refer patients. They are delivering integrated care and something called collaborative care…a newer model that has more frequent and shorter interventions and is more affordable. Natalie is concerned that only 20% of current psychiatric care for pediatric patients is currently evidenced-based and measured. Part of their secret sauce is through a partnership with the Child Mind Institute, and they also deliver a series of educational offerings for parents. Fort Health has raised $16m & they’re pursuing a market by market expansion working with those pediatricians starting with New Jersey–Matthew Holt

Unlocking the power of sensor data in type 2 diabetes care

Mar 3, 2025

By GABRIELLE GOLDBLATT

Highly relevant, high-resolution data streams are essential to high-stakes decision making across industries. You wouldn’t expect an investment banker making deals without full market visibility or a grocery store to stock shelves without data on what’s selling and what’s not—so why are we not leaning more into data-driven approaches in healthcare?

Sensor-based measures, data collected from wearables and smart technologies, often continuously and outside the clinic, can drive more precise and cost-effective treatment strategies. Yet, in many cases, they’re not used to the fullest potential – either because they’re not covered by insurance or they’re treated as an add-on rather than an integral input to disease management. As a result, we lack sufficient clarity of the true value of treatments, making it difficult to discern which are high quality and which drive up the already sky-high cost of healthcare in the U.S.

Take type 2 diabetes (T2D), for example, which impacts upwards of 36 million Americans. Many people with diabetes also face comorbidities like cardiovascular disease, obesity, and kidney complications, which increase treatment complexity and costs. The range of treatments available to manage and treat T2D has grown significantly in recent years, from established therapies like metformin and insulin to newer options like virtual care programs and GLP-1 receptor agonists, which offer benefits that may extend to comorbidities.

This expanded treatment landscape promises to improve the standard of care, but it also makes it difficult for treatment options to stand out in an increasingly crowded market. This leads to treatment gaps, worsening comorbidities, and an annual burden of over $400 billion on the healthcare system.

Shocking: Trump Builds a Wall Between Basic and Applied Research

Feb 28, 2025

By MIKE MAGEE

The leaders of America’s scientific community seem genuinely surprised by the actions of the past three weeks. They expected to be spared the wrath of Trump because they believed that “Americans of all political persuasions have respect for science and celebrate its breakthroughs.”

Maybe so. But that is an inadequate defense against a multi-pronged attack which includes purposefully selecting unqualified hostiles to key management positions; restricting scientists travel and communications; censuring scientific discourse; and clawing back promised funding for research projects already underway. This “knee-capping” has extended beyond our geographic boundaries with Trump’s vengeful withdrawal from the WHO and the Musk inspired elimination of USAID.

“This too will pass,” whisper Republicans behind closed doors. But even so, the nature of scientific discovery and implementation is a complex rebuild. This is because the path from innovation to invention to implementation is interdisciplinary and requires collaborative interfaces and multi-year problem solving. Not the least of the challenges is gaining access, trust, and cooperation from the general public which requires funding, public education, and community planning.

Take for example a life saving device that is increasingly ubiquitous–found everywhere these days from rural high school cafeterias to the International Space Station and everywhere in between-– the Automated External Defibrillator or AED.

It is estimated that AED’s have the potential to save 1,700 American lives a year. Experts estimate that over 18,000 Americans have a life threatening cardiac arrest outside of a hospital with a shockable rhythm disturbance each year. But 90% don’t survive because access to an AED is delayed or not available. Without a correction in about ten minutes, you are likely to die. This means that the 6 pound AED has be where the patient is, the bystander has to know what to do with it, and there can be no delay.

Creating the modern day AED was a century long affair according to the “Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers” or IEEE .

What would a rational DOG(gi)E do(o)?

Feb 27, 2025

By MATTHEW HOLT

DOGE, or Doggie as Kara Swisher has been calling it, has gone from being a meme about Shiba Inus to a crypto scam to a group tearing the Federal government apart.So I thought I would use the title of this piece to make a joke. Like Musk’s humor it’s puerile and not funny. What’s also not funny is what Musk’s team has done to small government agencies, like USAID & CFPB that really help people, not to mention the irrational firing of thousands of government employees that appear to be screwing up the NIH, the National Parks, the FAA and much more. But it’s all got me thinking, what in health care should an effort to quickly rationalize government spending do?

Now I’m not proposing that there’s anything OK with the way Musk and his team have been blundering around the Federal government, telling lies about what it does and indiscriminately firing the people who have the most important responsibilities and then desperately trying to get them to come back. This has been pure ignorance theater, and it would be hilarious if it wasn’t so damaging. Equally importantly the places DOG(gi)E has started are stupid because they don’t spend much money. But the government spends a lot on health care –between two and three trillion dollars, depending on how you count it.

So if you wanted to save some money and potentially change the system, what would you do? First you’d take a deep breath and get some real data, and improve your understanding about what is actually happening. There are some areas in health care where the issues are well understood and the data is clear and there are others where it’s less obvious.

Let’s start with a relatively small one–spending on Federal Employees health benefits. Chris Deacon’s Linkedin posts are a constant source of fun and games, and she has been highlighting screwups in the FEHBP administration for a long time. Essentially the government via the OPM pays lots of different insurance companies to manage Federal employees’ health care. There is very poor oversight of what happens in those programs and when the OPM’s OIG points that out, not much happens. The plans (including Horizon Blues in NJ and BCBSNC and many others) have been caught being sloppy or fraudulent but not much has happened. All DOG(gi)E needs to do is read the report on the audits, or look at what GOA said about $1bn being spent on ineligible members in 2022 and apply their recommendations.

Next let’s get into something that requires a little more investigation. In America we buy (and sell) drugs in a mind-bogglingly complex way.

Lynda Brown-Ganzert, RxPx

Feb 24, 2025

Lynda Brown-Ganzert is CEO of RxPx. The company is the 2022 merger of the company she founded, Curatio, which was a support system for rare disease patients, with RxMx, a complementary service that helped clinicians manage patients on treatment or clinical trials. Lynda says that somehow I inspired the merger! (Although I don’t remember it, nor did she send me my 10%!). Now the company is supporting rare disease patients, funded primarily by pharma, across the globe. Lynda gives a full demo of both the clinician and patient experience–coordinating meds, labs, imaging, appointments, content, symptoms, patient reported outcomes, peer and coach support, and more. And she discusses how a great PE takeover works. (Not all of them are!)–Matthew Holt

Katherine Saunders, FlyteHealth

Feb 21, 2025

Katherine Saunders is the co-founder and CMO at FlyteHealth. She was one of the first 20 obesity fellows in the US. FlyteHealth is the specialized online obesity clinic that resulted from her desire to scale what works for individuals to combat their obesity–by the time people get to FlyteHealth 99% of them are ready for medical treatment. Katherine explains how FlyteHealth manages the whole of the patient’s experience with MDs, NPs, dieticians and more. Yes, we talked about GLP1s too!