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Calling All Tech Companies & Early Stage Innovators Health 2.0 Annual Conference Applications Are Open!

May 14, 2019

SPONSORED POST

By IRENA LUO

Considered a major hallmark of the Health 2.0 Annual Conference, these two opportunities for tech presentations are a chance for entrepreneurs and startups to gain visibility for their products with potential investors, partners and peers. The conference—scheduled from September 16–18 in Santa Clara, California—is now accepting applications from companies who want to demo their health tech innovations or pitch for a chance to be named Startup Champion at the HIMSS event.

Health 2.0 Live Tech Demos

Applications close June 7, 2019

Last year at the 2018 Health 2.0 Annual Conference, more than 100 innovative companies, including Aaptiv, Healthify, and Heart Flow, showcased products designed to help transform healthcare. In 2019, the Health 2.0 team is changing things up and reworking their breakout session schedule to allow more focus around the main stage programming. What does this mean for our demos? With more streamlined programming, we’re upping the ante for our tech demo applicants and selecting the most intriguing, adaptable, applicable products to be featured at the 13^th year of the conference. Chosen companies will either demo their tech in standalone presentations or as part of larger panel sessions.

How to apply:

Go to the application page
Create a login
Click “Health 2.0 Live Demos 2019”

Health 2.0 VentureConnect Pitch Competition

Applications close July 8, 2019

For startups and entrepreneurs, the rapid-fire pitch competition is an opportunity to get valuable exposure for their products, make connections with some of health tech’s biggest and most active investors, and ultimately win the title of Most Fundable Startup. Last year, 60 companies competed in the competition. Mira and Avhana Health won in the contest’s consumer and provider tracks, respectively.

The Health 2.0 VentureConnect Pitch competition brings together vetted seed companies through raising Series A companies to pitch their innovative product live on stage during rapid-fire presentations. The prize? Being named the most promising startup by the venture capitalists and corporate investors judging the competition. Six competition finalists—three consumer-facing startups and three provider-facing ones—will compete to win in their category.

How to apply:

Go to the application page
Create a login
Click “Health 2.0 Pitch Competition 2019”

Irena Luo is a Producer at the Health 2.0 Annual Conference, A HIMSS Event

We Are Not A Dashboard: Contesting The Tyranny Of Metrics, Measurement, And Managerialism

May 13, 2019• 2

By DAVID SHAYWITZ

The dashboard is the potent symbol of our age. It offers the elegant visualization of data, and is intended to capture and represent the performance of a system, revealing at a glance current status, and pointing out potential emerging concerns. Dashboards are a prominent feature of most every “big data” project I can think of, offered by every vendor, and constructed to provide a powerful sense of control to the viewer. It seemed fitting that Novartis CEO Dr. Vas Narasimhan, a former McKinsey consultant, would build (then tweet enthusiastically about) “our new ‘control tower’” – essentially a multi-screen super dashboard – “to track, analyse and predict the status of all our clinical studies. 500+ active trials, 70+ countries, 80 000+ patients – transformative for how we develop medicines.” Dashboards are the physical manifestation of the ideology of big data, the idea that if you can measure it you can manage it.

I am increasingly concerned, however, that the ideology of big data has taken on a life of it’s own, assuming a sense of both inevitability and self-justification. From measurement in service of people, we increasingly seem to be measuring in service of data, setting up systems and organizations where constant measurement often appears to be an end in itself.

My worries, it turns out, are hardly original. I’ve been delighted to discover over the past year what feels like an underground movement of dissidents who question the direction we seem to be heading, and who’ve thoughtfully discussed many of the issues that I stumbled upon. (Special hat-tip to “The Accad & Koka Report” podcast, an independent and original voice in the healthcare podcast universe, for introducing me to several of these thinkers, including Jerry Muller and Gary Klein.)

Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 79 | Noom, DispatchHealth and Kaiser Permanente

May 10, 2019

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess is in Italy…and has me up far too early in the morning for this episode. On Episode 79, Jess asks me for an update on uBiome after their raid by the FBI. We also talk about nutrition startup Noom’s $58 million raise and clinician house-call platform DispatchHealth’s $33 million raise. In other news, Kaiser Permanente is launching a network to integrate the social determinants of health with their EHR. –Matthew Holt

Last Month in Oncology with Dr. Bishal Gyawali: April 2019

May 10, 2019

By BISHAL GYAWALI, MD

Keynote speech on the JAVELIN not going far enough to improve survival

The treatment landscape for metastatic renal-cell carcinoma has changed dramatically with the introduction of immunotherapies. Unfortunately though, we are promoting combinations over single agents without having much idea of added benefit of each drug. This is an important issue because when we combine two drugs, the only thing we are certain of are the added toxicities. PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab had improved OS when given in second line, however nivolumab was tested in combination with ipilimumab (not as a nivolumab monotherapy) in the first line trial. Now, pembrolizumab and avelumab have followed suit, although their combination partner was axitinib – a VEGF inhibitor. The control arm was sunitinib for both of the trials of pembrolizumab plus axitinib (KEYNOTE 426) and avelumab plus axitinib (Javelin 101). This is a little surprising because we are testing A B versus C, where both A and B haven’t been approved for the given setting – axitinib was approved for RCC in second line. Both these combinations improved PFS versus sunitinib but only the pembrolizumab combination has shown improved OS. However, I have doubts about the contribution of axitinib to these results. What would the outcome be if pembrolizumab alone is followed by sunitinib in second line? It is important to note that only one third of patients who discontinued sunitinib received PD-1 inhibitor subsequently in the KEYNOTE 426 trial. The important question for patients and clinicians would be to consider a survival difference had most of these patients received a PD-1 inhibitor subsequently. As for avelumab, the JAVELIN trial hasn’t reached as far as pembrolizumab and nivolumab have reached: The OS benchmark – so let’s reserve this combination until we see that benefit.

Have we successfully landed on the COMET?

We should remember that this combo-mania with PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors may also backfire. Previously, the RCTs of nivolumab and pembrolizumab combos were halted in multiple myeloma for higher deaths in the combo arms. Another RCT IMblaze 370 also reports that atezolizumab, alone or in combination with cobimetinib, failed to improve survival versus regorafenib in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. This time again A B failed versus C although C in itself is a drug with very marginal benefits in this setting. Also, I don’t understand testing A plus B combo when both A and B are unapproved for the disease.

THCB Spotlights | Accenture: Brian Kalis, Managing Director of Digital Health

May 9, 2019

By ZOYA KHAN

Accenture’s Brian Kalis, catches us up to speed on some of the survey work and analysis the consulting giant has been working on. In particular, Accenture is seeing a generational divide amongst Baby Boomers & the Millennials/Generation Z’s, the latter of which want to consume health care in both traditional & non-traditional ways – a hybrid of technology and older models of care.

For more watch Matthew’s interview with Brian above.

THCB Spotlights | Max Kerz, Bayer G4A Partnerships Program

May 7, 2019

Today on THCB Spotlight, Jess sits down with Max Kerz, the Chief Technologist for Bayer’s G4A Partnerships Program. Max tells us all about how the program has changed since last year, and gives some tips and tricks for applying. Watch their conversation below for all the details!

To learn more and apply, click here.

A Millennial Doctor’s Experience with Industrial Medicine

May 6, 2019• 5

By TALAL HILAL, MD

A survey of 200 physicians under the age of 35 showed that 56% reported unhappiness with the current state of medicine. That number didn’t seem surprising to me at first. I was not particularly “happy” at the time of reading this survey either.

I’ve aspired to become an oncologist for as long as I can remember. In oncology, despite my inability to cure, I can always try to heal. I form connections with patients and their families as they embark on a journey that is quite often their last. I learn from my patients as much as, and at times more than, they learn from me.

But all of this is overshadowed by a sense of heaviness that I frequently encounter as I enter the clinic room. That sense of heaviness hits when a patient tells me of the time when they were placed on a “brief hold” for more than half an hour in order to reach someone to get a prescription refilled or reschedule an appointment. Or when their insurance refused to cover the drug that I had prescribed to them. It is when I hear that clinic visits or treatments are not scheduled due to insurance authorization delays. Or when I’m asked about the cost of drugs and end up having to explain how nobody really knows.

By the time I hear these stories, the “allotted time” for the clinic visit is coming to an end. The emotional burden and physical symptoms of my patient’s cancer diagnosis or chemotherapy side effects often not adequately addressed.

THCB Spotlights|Deven McGraw, CRO of Ciitizen

May 3, 2019

Deven McGraw is one of America’s best known health privacy lawyers, including a stint at HHS running the Office of Civil Rights. But now she’s a cool startup kid living in Silicon Valley and is the Chief Regulatory Officer at Ciitizen. Ciitizen is focusing on helping people collecting, organizing, and securely sharing their personal health data to improve their care, and was founded by Anil Sethi who previously founded Glimpse and sold it to Apple (where it is now the core of Apple’s Health records product).

For more details, watch Matthew’s interview with Deven below.

ONC & CMS Proposed Rules – Part 5: Business Models

May 2, 2019

By DAVE LEVIN, MD and GRANT BARRICK

The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) have proposed final rules on interoperability, data blocking, and other activities as part of implementing the 21^st Century Cures Act. In this series, we will explore the ideas behind the rules, why they are necessary and the expected impact. Given that these are complex and controversial topics open to interpretation, we invite readers to respond with their own ideas, corrections, and opinions. In part five of this series, we look at how competition unlocks innovation, and how the proposed rules may disrupt the balance between innovation, intellectual property (IP), and supporting business models.

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The recent publication of proposed rules by ONC and CMS set off a flurry of activity. In anticipation of their implementation, the health care industry is wrestling with many questions around business models. What practices inhibit competition and innovation? How do we balance the need for competition while protecting legitimate intellectual property rights? How can vendors ensure profit growth when pricing is heavily regulated? In this article, we will examine how competition unlocks innovation and the possible disruptions the proposed rules may bring for innovation, intellectual property (IP) and supporting business models.

Unlocking Innovation via Competition

In most markets, innovation is driven forward by competition. Businesses compete on equal footing, and their investment in R&D drives innovation forward. Innovation in health care has been dramatically outpaced by other markets, leading to an urgent need for both disruptive and evolutionary innovation.

What is inhibiting health care innovation? The rules identify a combination of tactics employed in health care that restrict the free flow of clinical data, such as:

NDAs
Confidentiality Clauses
Hold-harmless Agreements
Licensing Language

These tactics slow innovation by contributing to an environment where stakeholders resist pushing the boundaries — often because they are contractually obligated not to. The legislation and proposed rules are designed to address the ongoing failure of the market to resolve these conflicts.

As the rules are finalized, we will continue to monitor whether the ONC defines these practices as innovation stifling and how they will implement regulations — both carrot and stick — to move the industry forward.

Pulling Care Out of Hospital—By Phone, Ambulance, and Good Ol’ House Calls.

May 1, 2019• 2

By REBECCA FOGG

In the 20th century, hospitals completed their transformation from the hospice-like institutions of the Middle Ages, into large, gleaming centers of advanced medical expertise and technology that save and improve lives every day. But an unintended consequence of hospitals’ dazzling capabilities is a staggering cost burden that’s proving toxic to the American economy.

Today, hospital care accounts for approximately 33% of the US’ $3.5 trillion annual health care expenditures, according to CMS. The drivers of hospital costs are complex and hard to tackle, including (but not limited to) market consolidation that enables price hikes, heavy administrative burdens, expensive technology and patient usage patterns.

In The Innovator’s Prescription, Clayton Christensen et al. explained another important driver of high hospital care costs: conflation under one roof of business models designed to address very different needs—such as the need for diagnosis of unique, complex conditions and experimental treatments, versus that for highly standardized services (for instance, some surgical procedures). This common phenomenon makes optimization of either business model very difficult, and thus drives up overhead costs.

One solution to this seemingly intractable problem is to make home and community the default locations for care, where in many circumstances it can be provided less expensively, more conveniently, and more effectively than in a hospital. Fortunately, business model innovation toward this end is gaining traction.