THCB

Categories

Category: Health Tech

Amazon, Google, Microsoft Healthcare Takeover | Dr. Rasu Shrestha, Atrium Health

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

One of the fastest growing chronic condition management companies in healthcare, Livongo just made some big new hires and minted a new category in health tech called “Applied Health Signals.” What’s this? Well, if your new health solution ties together devices, data science, coaching, and clinical management, YOU might be an Applied Health Signals company. CEO Glen Tullman walks us through the new concept, shares his insight on the good & bad of consumer tech companies heading into health… then explains the strategery behind changes to the company’s C-suite and confronts the rumors I’ve been hearing about an IPO.

Filmed at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, CA, January 2019.

Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt.

Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health. 

SCOOP: Facebook enters EMR business

• 4

by MATTHEW HOLT

Big news out of Mountain View, California today as Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg announced that the social networking giant was going to formally enter the EMR business. Sandberg explained that Facebook already has all Americans and most of the world’s population on its system and that adding a little bit of information about their health would be trivial given that it’s easy with AR to abstract that information from their profiles, not to mention that everyone’s phone is already sending data back to Facebook.

In particular, Sandberg highlighted the fact that Facebook has already captured almost all the personal health information of many people with cancer and plenty of other rare diseases in the thousands of health communities that it has been pushing hard over the past few years. Not only have those individuals not known what Facebook is allowing third parties to do with that data, or which hackers have already stolen it in a SICGRL hack, but they have also found it impossible to extract themselves or their data from those groups. As Sandberg says “We already have the EMR business model down, now we just have to provide the products”

When it was pointed out to Sandberg that Facebook didn’t actually have any professional EMR tools that could be used by clinicians or doctors, a scruffily dressed guy hiding his bad haircut under a hoodie grabbed the mike and shouted “We’ve seen the schlock that Epic, Cerner and the rest put out–my wife has to use it and she spends every evening catching up on her data entry. Shouldn’t be too hard for our engineers to knock that off–just ask those guys at Snapchat.” Sandberg commented that while EMR vendors move slowly and break things, Facebook has shown over the years that it can do that much faster. “Have you seen what we did to American democracy or the EU?”

Later today Cerner stock was trading off 25%. When asked, an Epic spokesperson commented that even if you added their ages together, Sandberg and Zuckerberg were far too young to run a proper EMR company.

Matthew Holt is the Publisher of THCB

The Future of Genome Sequencing | Veritas Chief Marketing & Design Officer Rodrigo Martinez

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

DNA testing companies like 23andMe have opened the genome market in the last decade, with adoption skyrocketing on both consumer and clinical sides. Now the trend is pushing even further, from genotyping technology to whole genome sequencing and the health implications are massive. While genotyping looks at less than half of 1% of your genome, whole genome sequencing looks at over 99% of your genome. That’s about 6.4 billion letters of DNA! With elite awards from MIT, Fast Company, and more, Veritas Genetics is not only designing great, user-friendly experiences for people to engage with their personal genome information, but taking it a step further by providing actionable insights that actually result in a healthier life.

Filmed at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, CA, January 2019.

Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt.

Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health. 

Teladoc, CVS, Utilization Rates, & Apple in ‘THE YEAR of Telehealth’ | Teladoc CEO Jason Gorevic

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

According to healthcare leader Toby Cosgrove, THIS is “the year of telehealth.” Although Teladoc CEO Jason Gorevic would rather use the phrase ‘virtual care’ to describe the space, he’s pretty much on board with the idea that more consumers than ever will jump onto the virtual care bandwagon this year. How will Teladoc’s partnership with CVS play a role? Any other acquisitions on the horizon? Gorevic gets real about what’s impacting utilization rates and whether or not he’s worried about Teladoc competing with Apple, Google, and Amazon. (Hint: He’s not.)

Filmed at JP Morgan Healthcare 2019 in San Francisco, January 2019.

Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt.

Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health. 

The Business Case for Social Determinants of Health

• 3

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

How can understanding the underlying social risks impacting patient populations improve health outcomes AND save health plans some serious per-member-per-month costs? You’re probably familiar with the concept of ‘Social Determinants of Health’ (SDOH) but Dr. Trenor Williams and his team at health startup Socially Determined are building a business around it.

By looking at data around what Trenor calls ‘the Significant 7’ social determinants (social isolation, food insecurity, housing, transportation, health literacy, and crime & violence) he and his team are working to help health plans intervene with their most vulnerable populations and bring down costs.

What kind of data is Socially Determined looking at? Everything from publicly available data on housing prices and air quality, to commercial datasets on buying preferences and more. Plus, with help from their health plan partners, they’re using clinical and claims data to create a complete picture of health care spend, utilization, and outcomes.

Trenor walks through some very specific examples in this interview to help illustrate his point. In one, Socially Determined was able to identify how Medicaid could better help asthmatics manage their asthma AND save a thousand dollars per affected member each month. Another project in Ohio identified that a mother with a history of housing eviction was 40% more likely to give birth to a baby requiring NICU care – opening up myriad opportunities for early intervention and the potential to positively impact the lifetime health of both mother and child.

As healthcare continues to realize its ‘data play’ – and look beyond the typical data sets available to healthcare companies – the opportunities for real and meaningful impact are tremendous. Listen in to hear more about what Trenor sees as the new opportunity for Social Determinants of Health.

Filmed at AHIP’s Consumer Experience & Digital Health Forum in December 2018.

Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health. 

The Case for Open Innovation in Health | Sara Holoubek of Luminary Labs

• 2

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF Health

“Most large healthcare companies will have numerous teams – innovation teams, maybe a venture fund, business units – all doing different things,” says Sara Holoubek, CEO of Luminary Labs, a consultancy known in healthcare for its expertise staging open innovation challenges. “How much more powerful would it be if everyone agreed on a common investment thesis? ‘We know our business model is changing and, therefore, where is our big bet?’”

The ‘big bet’ is not always easy for stakeholders in healthcare companies to agree on. Hence, Sara’s advocacy for open innovation, a methodology built for collaboration both internal and external to the organization. She’s been masterminding challenges, hackathons, participatory design sessions, and the like in healthcare for years, helping pharma companies, health plans, health systems and government organizations gain access to new ideas from external problem solvers and startups.

Open innovation not only brings much-needed agility to the way these big companies develop products, build partnerships, or pivot into new markets, but it also helps clarify which business problems the organization is actually trying to solve.

Large organization or small, how do you know when it’s time to take your innovation efforts outside? How do you make sure that your open innovation attempt is truly a ‘challenge’ and not just a splashy brainstorming session or hackathon to nothing?

A few weeks back, Luminary Labs published ‘The State of Open Innovation Report’ in effort to help benchmark the practice and build its business case as a worthwhile methodology for business innovation. Seeds of the report can be found in this interview. Listen in as Sara defines the practice and shares her tips and best practices.

Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health. 

Exponential Medicine

• 2

By MATTHEW HOLT

After only maybe 5 years when I’ve been away running a conflicting conference in some other part of the world I finally get to go to Exponential Medicine the next 4 days. I met Daniel Kraft way back before he was famous, and his conference grew from being a week long academic session in an airline hangar in Mountain View to being a mega 4 day bash at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego (partly aided by TEDMED abandoning the venue and heading off in its own strange direction post billionaire buyout–well done Mark Hodash despite the lawsuit and yes I am jealous!).

Anyway, it’s going to be lots of fun. There’s plenty of people from my Health 2.0 world presenting. Lonnie Rae Kurlander, ePatient Dave, heck even John Halamka has been tempted off the farm — although I suspect Dave will have him in a headlock about access to his BIDMC data pretty quick).

Then there’s the surgeons and the weirdos. I leave Shafi Ahmed & Stefano Bini to decide which category they’re in, although whatever John Brownstein says I do owe him a nice bottle of scotch. Anyway, check out the program and if you haven’t bought yourself a ticket or bribed your way in, don’t worry it’s all being live streamed and Jessica DaMassa from WTF Health will as ever be interviewing anyone who doesn’t get out of the way quick enough.

So if you’re there I’ll be milling around not doing much, so say hi. And otherwise follow along here and @boltyboy

AMA to Health Tech: Call a Doctor

• 1

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF Health

“That’s why we’re investing so heavily in the innovation space…we look at physicians and how they’re spending their days. The amount of time they’re spending clicking away on their EHRs, wasting time – we think we can help fix it. It’s been a lot of years of other people not fixing it. We think it’s time for physicians to actually be in the rooms helping to make those solutions.” — Dr. Jack Resneck, Chairman of the Board, AMA

Sounds to me like physicians are a little disappointed in health tech. Don’t get me wrong. This is not another ‘digital health snake oil’ controversy. (Although we do go there…)

Instead, my main takeaway from this conversation with Dr. Jack Resneck, Chairman of the Board for the AMA, is that physicians don’t exactly feel included or engaged in the tech revolution happening in healthcare.

In short, while docs are excited about innovation, it seems they don’t feel heard. So much so that the AMA has created its own Silicon Valley-based ‘business formation and commercialization enterprise’ called Health2047 to prioritize solution development for what physicians have deemed the biggest systemic issues in healthcare. What’s out there is just missing the mark and, in more instances than not, says Dr. Resneck, the practicing physician’s perspective on what problems need to be solved in the first place.

I open this interview by asking what digital health entrepreneurs and health tech startups can do to work more effectively with physicians. The answer, it seems, might be as simple as ‘just ask your doctor.’

Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health. 

Treating Mental Health Disorders with Art

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF Health

In honor of World Mental Health Day, I’m sharing the story of PeaceLove Studios and its founder & artist-in-chief, Jeff Sparr. Jeff‘s built an expressive arts program to help millions cope with mental health disorders after he found painting to help with his OCD.

Healthcare needs a place for non-pharmaceutical, non-digital modes of therapy, and PeaceLove Studios is focused on ramping up awareness about the therapeutic benefits of expressive arts when it comes to mental wellness. Part of the challenge, however, is just starting the conversation and bringing visibility to mental health disorders in the first place. Jeff is hoping to inspire a movement. Tune in to find out how. 

Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health. 

Egg Freezing Fertile for Disruption Says Freeze.Health

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF Health

Although egg freezing was only approved for general use six years ago, the business is fertile ground for disruption according to Jen Lannon, co-founder of website Freeze.Health.

Jen and her co-founder, Sidonia Swarm, started the site when, through their own consumer research, they found that egg freezing could cost anywhere from $4,000 to $18,000 — at clinics in the same market!

Now that ‘social egg freezing’ is a thing among Millennial women who want to delay motherhood, Freeze.Health hopes to become the go-to resource for price shopping, medical information on the process, and details on the patient experience. Believe it or not, but women rallying around #NoBabiesNow don’t exactly feel like they belong at fertility clinics with so many baby pictures on the walls.

Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health. 

assetto corsa mods