Aneesh Chopra is the former CTO of the US under Obama. He’s now head of strategy at Arcadia, but this week is one of the driving forces behind the new challenge called “Transforming Cancer Navigation with Open Data & APIs” . I caught up with Aneesh about why the need for this type of data exchange and why caner, and also more generally about interoperability, data analysis (his day job) and the impact of AI. Aneesh is an optimist but also about the most articulate person in health care explaining what is going on the ground and in policy with the regulations and actions of data exchange, and its uses. Pay attention–Matthew Holt
Robert Krayn & Georgia Gaveras, Talkiatry
Robert Krayn is the CEO and & Dr. Georgia Gaveras the CMO of Talkiatry. Robert and Georgia are quite the dynamic duo (she says, “He’s the money I’m the medicine!”). As a relative latecomer in the online mental health world, Talkiatry is trying to differentiate itself from the other big players like Lyra, Headspace, Brightside et al. It’s focusing on using psychiatrists as opposed to psychologists, counselors or coaches. This is both as an advertisement to patients but also they’ve set up a system that is much easier for psychiatrist themselves to join as employees and they showed me the way that patients get onboarded in their system, and how they get to that first appointment–in an average of 5 days!
Brad Kittredge, Brightside Health
Brad Kittredge is CEO of Brightside Health, which he co-founded with CMO Mimi Winsberg. They are a large online mental health group that aims a providing more access with higher quality. They have built their own technology stack and medical group, and are in network for about 135m lives. They also take patients from the emergency departments of health systems–as well as direct patient outreach for “standard” mental health conditions. Brad talked to me about measurement, quality and care improvement, including how they are using their algorithms to improve their clinicians’ prescribing accuracy. I also asked him where Brightside were in the process to, err, return at least some of the $150m they’ve raised back to their investors. Matthew Holt
PatientsUseAI: Hugo, Gilles and e-Patient Dave on the race to patient autonomy — THCB Gang Special Episode 149, Thursday December 19
Joining Matthew Holt on #THCBGang on Thursday December 19 at 1pm PST 4pm EST are three leaders in the patient movement Hugo Campos (@HugoCampos); Gilles Frydman (@GillesFrydman); and ePatient Dave deBronkart (@DavedeBronkart). They will be bring us up to speed on the very latest in patients using AI.
You can see the video below live (and later archived) & if you’d rather listen than watch, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels.
Sara Ratner, Nomi Health
Sara Ratner is President of integrated Programs at Nomi Health. They work with employers and health plans to connect them to a network of providers (both telehealth and physical) who accept steep discounts in return for immediate payment. The employees in turn get no co-pay/no coinsurance. In addition they have an analytics company called Artemis which recommends care paths and a PBM to lower drug prices. Sara is trying hard to integrate mental health into their program too. Nomi raised $110m in 2022 and also made a decent amount in covid testing earlier in its life before pivoting.
THCB Gang Episode 148, Monday December 16
Joining Matthew Holt on #THCBGang on Monday December 16 at 1pm PST 4pm EST are patient safety expert Michael Millenson, physician, entrepreneur and technologist Shantanu Nundy; and Digital Health and Emerging Med-Tech Practice Co-Founder at Marsh & McLennan, Beracah Stortvedt.
You can see the video below live (and later archived) & if you’d rather listen than watch, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels.
Kris Engskov, Rippl
Kris Engskov is CEO of Rippl, a General Catalyst-funded company developing a wrap around care model around the primary care doctor for people with dementia. Their process is to help the family caregiver who is looking after the dementia patient and gives a ton of support to those caregivers which helps them be successful taking care of the patient at home. They start with diagnosis and use care navigators to build a care model face to face with patients. They’ve raised $52m and are nearly 2 years into serving a very neglected group of patients and caregivers–Matthew Holt
THCB Gang Episode 147, Thursday December 5
Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) on #THCBGang on Thursday December 5 at 1pm PST 4pm EST are patient safety expert Michael Millenson, patient advocate & entrepreneur Robin Farmanfarmaian; futurist Jeff Goldsmith; and employer & care consultant Brian Klepper.
You can see the video below live (and later archived) & if you’d rather listen than watch, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels.
Lyle Berkowitz, Keycare
Lyle Berkowitz is an old friend and these days is CEO of Keycare, which provides a virtual care workforce, primarily for major health systems. It’s based on Epic taking advantage of Telehealth Everywhere, which means that patients can get to them from within their MyChart accounts and it can easily integrate its EMR data with its health system clients. It’s being used primarily for out of hours care, but increasingly primary care expansion for population health and patient outreach. I call Keycare dinosaur preservation, but Lyle tells me it’s expanding the balloon from within!–Matthew Holt
Sean Bell, Spring Health
Sean Bell is head of new ventures at Spring Health, a very well-funded mental health company. They’ve built a tech platform that its providers (both contractors and FT employees) are on, and spend a lot of time using machine learning to match patients to therapists, to augment the care and also measure the impact of that care. Sean told me about both how Spring Health works and how much its grown, and what new specialized care is being introduced in 2025. He talks quick and we covered a lot of ground including the business of being a highly-valued private mental health company when there are some lower priced public companies out there. Interesting interview — Matthew Holt
