Category: Uncategorized

Catalyst @ Health 2.0 & AFBH Launch Call For COVID-19 Vaccine Scheduling

Jan 22, 2021

By ELIZABETH BROWN

Attention digital health innovators! Do you have a health tech solution that can aid community-based care coordinators in COVID-19 vaccine screening and appointment scheduling for their underserved and vulnerable patients? Apply to the second Alliance for Better Health Rapid Response Open Call, hosted by Catalyst @ Health 2.0 & sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation!

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the importance of ensuring health equity and access is vital. This RROC is looking for solutions to help community care coordinators and providers schedule appointments for COVID-19 vaccines for vulnerable and underserved patients who may be facing barriers to self-scheduling those vaccine appointments. The intended care providers are those working with patients who may lack resources, health literacy, or face other barriers to self-scheduling appointments. A select group of semi-finalists will have the opportunity to demo their technology. A grand prize winner will receive $15k and the opportunity to collaborate with Alliance for Better Health!

Do you have a solution that can fit this need? Apply HERE today! Applications close 2/2.

(This is the second of 2 COVID-19 RROC challenges from Alliance for Better Health. The first was for vaccine administration tracking announced on Tuesday 19th. Both are mentioned in the video from Jacob Reider, Alliance for Better Health’s CEO, which you can see below)

CEO Jacob Reider introduces the challenges

About Alliance For Better Health: Alliance For Better Health engages medical and social service providers in developing innovative solutions to promote people’s health, with a goal of transforming the care delivery system into one that incentivizes health and prevention. Established in 2015 as a Performing Provider System in the New York State Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment program (DSRIP), Alliance partners with more than 2,000 providers and organizations across a six-county area in New York’s Tech Valley and Capital Region.

Elizabeth Brown is a Program Manager at Catalyst @ Health 2.0

What If Healthcare Was Like Wikipedia?

Jan 22, 2021• 2

By KIM BELLARD

Last week I wrote about, well, how awful social media has become, so this week it’s nice to write about pretty much the opposite: Wikipedia turned twenty last Friday (January 15).

In person years that’s not even old enough to buy alcohol, but in Internet years that makes it one of the grand old masters, like Google or Amazon. Wikipedia is one of the most visited Internet destinations, with its 55+ million articles, in 300+ languages, getting some 10b+ views per month.

It is something that, by all rights, shouldn’t exist, much less be successful. A non-profit, volunteer written/edited, online encyclopedia? An online resource widely trusted for its objective, generally accurate articles in a world of fake news? As the joke goes, it’s good that it works in practice because it does not work in theory.

That’s sort of the opposite of our healthcare system: it’s good that it works in theory, because it sure doesn’t work in practice.

Wikipedia works due to its army of editors (“Wikipedians”); some 127,000 have edited the English edition alone within the past 30 days. They work in virtual real time; when someone wins an Oscar the update happens almost immediately. When the U.S. Capitol was stormed two weeks ago, Wikipedia had a page up before the protesters were gone.

Hims & Hers CEO on IPO, Push into Primary Care, Target & More

Jan 21, 2021

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

On the eve of the finalization of their SPAC IPO and New York Stock Exchange debut as $HIMS, Hims & Hers CEO, Andrew Dudum, sat down with Jess DaMassa to talk about his wellness company’s transition into full-on healthcare provider. With new primary care, mental health care, and covid19 testing services launched as a result of the pandemic, Hims & Hers has expanded beyond their initial dermatology and sexual health core to provide telehealth-plus-pharmacy services for a growing range of chronic conditions, mental health issues, and everyday health concerns commonly tackled by PCPs. How far into healthcare delivery will Hims & Hers go? What types of acquisitions or innovations will be necessary to compete with the likes of Teladoc/Livongo, Optum, or the slew of virtual-first primary care clinics currently vying to be healthcare’s “digital front door”? And, what are we to make of that fact that Hims & Hers has gone retail: appearing on the shelves of every Target store in the US? Healthcare’s changing, and we get a fired-up Andrew to wax philosophical on why companies like his — that are consumer-focused, disrupting the healthcare “experience,” AND slowly eroding the healthcare payment model with a customer base willing to pay out-of-pocket — will be leading the way to a next-generation healthcare model.

Restorative Justice: Don’t Presume “We’re Better Than This”

Jan 21, 2021• 2

By MIKE MAGEE

“We’re better than this” is the common refrain heard from many political leaders following the deadly assault on our democracy on January 6th. We hear empty appeals for blind appeasement from the likes of Kevin McCarthy in the interest of “bringing our country together.” But for those of us who study medical history, pursuing this course takes our nation in exactly the wrong direction.

Rather, the model we must follow is the model of Germany in 1945, or South Africa in 1995. In both cases, strict legal and public accountability (retributive justice) were married with fundamental expansion of universal social services to rebuild confidence and trust in their government’s ability to assure safety and security, and an equal playing field for all of their citizens (restorative justice).

In sorting through the legacy of Hitler’s regime in Germany, the Allied forces established the International Military Tribunal. One of the series of trials, opened on November 19, 1945 in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, delved into egregious examples of medical criminality, including Nazi experimentation on human subjects. These trials are often cited as an example of “retributive justice.” Of 23 defendants, 7 were hanged, 7 acquitted, and the rest given sentences of from 10 years to life in prison.

These judgments were conducted under the direction of U.S. judges and prosecutors and fully compliant with U.S. standards of criminal procedure. Yet another 25 years would pass before any of the 10 agreed-upon medical ethics research standards were integrated into US trial law.

#Healthin2Point00, Episode 179 | Inauguration Day Edition

Jan 20, 2021

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, we’ve made it to Inauguration Day! On Episode 179, we have over $300 million in deals and a SPAC IPO. Jess asks for my take on Hims & Hers going public, primary care chatbot company K Health raising $132 million, digital pathology company Paige raising $100 million, and ACO management company Aledade getting another $100 million. —Matthew Holt

Hinge Health’s CEO on $3B Valuation, Stretch Toward 2022 IPO

Jan 20, 2021

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Hinge Health kicked off 2021 with a massive $300M Series D, driving the digital health musculoskeletal care company to a $3B valuation that, normally, would have sent health tech pundits into full-on IPO rumor mode…except that Hinge Health’s co-founder & CEO Daniel Perez beat them to it! We get into the details behind those comments (from what shall now be known as “the chatty Reuters interview”) where he not only revealed the company’s IPO plans, but also talked about how Hinge is well on it’s way to hit $200M in revenue. If 2021 is a year that Dan says will be focused on getting the business “operationally mature” enough to go public, what, exactly will be on the agenda? We dive into the competitive landscape, talk market size (Dan says more than 50% of employees on employer sponsored plans already have access to Hinge Health), and explore whether or not there are designs to expand into comorbidities common to back and joint pain, like mental health, obesity, diabetes, etc. Says Dan, “We’re going to use the capital to really invest in our innovation and R&D team and to stay different. We’re not just going to do the obvious moves.” Tune in for all the details on exactly what that means and why Dan thinks it’s central to Hinge Health’s market leadership in the MSK care space.

#Healthin2Point00, Episode 178 | Talkspace IPO, Accolade buys 2ndMD & more

Jan 19, 2021

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess admires my new COVID-safe ski gear, designed to provide the right amount of coverage to the right part of your face at the right time. On Episode 178, Jess asks me about Talkspace finally getting its SPAC IPO together with a $1.4 billion valuation – this was a long time coming. Accolade acquires 2nd.MD for $460 million, Dina Health raises $7 million in a Series A, and Komodo Health raises $44 million and acquires the consulting business from Mavens. —Matthew Holt

Catalyst @ Health 2.0 & AFBH Launch Call For COVID-19 Vaccine Administration Tracking

Jan 19, 2021

By ELIZABETH BROWN

Attention digital health innovators! Do you have a tracking tool that can assist public health care providers in managing the two-phased COVID-19 vaccination administration? Apply to the Alliance For Better Health Rapid Response Open Call for Vaccination Administration Tracking!

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the importance of ensuring health equity in #COVID19 vaccination administration for vulnerable and underserved populations is increasingly critical. Catalyst @ Health 2.0 is proud to host a Rapid Response Open Call (RROC) in collaboration with Alliance For Better Health. A select group of semi-finalists will have the opportunity to demo their technology. A grand prize winner will receive $15k and the opportunity to collaborate with Alliance For Better Health!

Do you have a solution that can fit this need? Apply HERE today! Applications close 1/31.

(This is the first of 2 COVID-19 RROC challenges from Alliance for Better Health. The second will be announced on Thursday 21st but is mentioned in the video from Jacob Reider below)

CEO Jacob Reider introduces the challenges

Elizabeth Brown is a Program Manager at Catalyst @ Health 2.0

This is Not Health Care

Jan 18, 2021

By HANS DUVEFELT

We use the word health rather loosely in America today. Especially the expression health care, whether you spell that as one word or two, is almost an oxymoron.

Health is not simply the absence of disease, even less the pharmaceutical management of disease. The healthcare “industry” is not the major portion of our GNP that it is because there is a lot of health out there, but the opposite. What consumes so much money and generates so much profit is, of course, sick care. The sicker people are, the more money is spent and earned in this market segment. It is a spiral, and a vicious one.

Health is a naturally occurring phenomenon, a state of perfection. Modern life has corrupted many natural, self-healing biological mechanisms and upended the natural order of things in our bodies – just the way it has altered our environment.

Our bodies are pretty ingenious in their ability to heal. When I crushed my finger in my garage door a few years ago, my disfigured fingertip, bisected nail and contused nail bed slowly regained their original shape, almost like a lizard grows a new tail. Yet in an opposite scenario, a person with scleroderma can lose their fingertip to gangrene without physical injury because of what we call autoimmunity – instead of self healing, our bodies can engage in self destruction. My fingertip could heal perfectly but some people’s skin or stomach ulcers fail to do so.

We intuitively seem to have accepted that, most of the time, nature takes care of itself if we don’t mess with it. And when temperatures rise, forests burn or species go extinct, we are quick to assume our industrial or agricultural processes are the cause.

Yet, we have this head-in-the-sand view of disease that it is a random occurrence, the sudden manifestation of ancient and rare genetic glitches or I don’t know what. The real answer is that much of it is a consequence of what we eat and otherwise expose our bodies to – how we produce and refine food, how we alter its natural properties and how we over- or under-consume basic nutrients.

Functional Medicine asks and answers many of these questions and promises to be the future of medicine. I believe in this, but I also believe that the sick-care industrial complex is powerful enough to severely slow down this revolution. I also believe the food industry will double down its efforts to continue misleading the public.

The Cost of Free Speech

Jan 13, 2021

By KIM BELLARD

Well, you’d have to say that the past week has been interesting. It’s not every week that Joe Biden “officially” won the 2021 election, again, as Congress certified the election results. It’s not every century when the U.S. Capitol is overrun by hostile forces. And it’d never been true before that Twitter and Facebook banned President Trump’s accounts, or that various tech companies belatedly acted on the threat that Parler poses. Oh, and we hit new daily records for COVID-19 deaths (over 4,000) and hospitalizations (over 132,000) in case you’d forgotten there is still a pandemic going on.

Yes, all in all, a very “interesting” week.

I’m going to skip talking about the horror that was the Capitol insurrection, in part because I fear that we’re going to find out more details that will make it clear that it was even worse than we now know. Similarly, I’m not going to dwell on the shame that Republicans should feel about the fact that two-thirds of their House members still voted to object to certifying the election results even after they’d been forced to flee from the terrorists who sought that very goal with their violence.

Instead, let’s talk about “free speech,” and the social media platforms that helped foster the violence and are now trying to do something about that.