We should be celebrating the biggest fundraising year ever for healthcare tech and instead where are we? Not at JP Morgan. Today on Health in 2 Point 00, we chat about the mind-blowingly big numbers for health tech funding this year—Startup Health reported $21.5 billion for the year, Rock Health $14.1 billion. On Episode 177, Jess asks me about Aspen RxHealth raising $23 million in a Series B for their online pharmacy network, Monument getting $10 million for alcohol treatment, Carrum Health raising $40 million for their centers of excellence play, and yet another mental health startup Valera Health raising $4.7 million. —Matthew Holt
The General Public is Meant to be Deceived: The American Food Conspiracy
By HANS DUVEFELT
Everybody knows how to operate smartphones and understands complex modern phenomena, but many Americans are frighteningly ignorant about basic human nutrition.
I am convinced this is the result of a powerful conspiracy, fueled by the (junk) food industry. Here are just a few examples:
Milk has been advertised as a healthy beverage. It is not. No other species consumes milk beyond infancy. Milk based products like ice cream and yogurt are on top of that often sweetened beyond their natural properties.
Fruit juices make it possible to consume the calories of half a dozen pieces of fruit faster than eating just one. Naturally tart juices, like cranberry, are sweetened the same way as soft drinks (high fructose corn syrup), and therefore no healthier than Coca Cola.
Things made from flour—like bread, crackers, boxed and instant cereal, pasta and snacks like pretzels or chips other than plain potato chips—raise blood glucose levels faster than eating table sugar: The breakdown of flour starts in our mouths because of enzymes in our saliva while sucrose doesn’t break down until it reaches our small intestine.
Sugary foods, even candy like Twizzlers, are advertised as “fat free”, which is a relic from the days when fat was believed to be bad for you. Many fats, like those in olive oil, salmon, tree nuts and avocado are extremely healthful.
Another example of tangential descriptions is when flour based snacks are promoted as “baked, not fried”. Flour is bad, no matter what you do with it and, in fact, the presence of fat slows down the blood glucose rise from highly processed carbohydrates.
Continue reading…RWJF Emergency Response Innovation Challenges: The Winners’ Interviews
By ELIZABETH BROWN
On November 19th, six teams competed in two virtual pitch events for the finals of two Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Innovation Challenges, one for Emergency Response for the General Public and the other for Emergency Response for the Health Care System.
The teams – binformed | covidata, CovidSMS, and Fresh EBT by Propel for the General Public Challenge and Path Check, Qventus, and Tiatros, Inc., for the Health Care System Challenge – presented in front of expert judging panels, who evaluated the entries on impact, UX/UI, innovation/creativity, scalability and strength of presentation. (You can see the demos for all teams on yesterday’s post here)
binformed | covidata and CovidSMS tied for first place in the RWJF Emergency Response for the General Public Challenge and were each awarded $17,500.
Meanwhile, Qventus was declared the winner of the RWJF Emergency Response for the Health Care System Innovation Challenge and received $25,000.
After they had a chance to catch their breath and enjoy their wins, Catalyst caught back up with the three winning teams – hear the winners’ reflections below:
Elizabeth Brown is a Program Manager at Catalyst @ Health 2.0
#Healthin2Point00, Episode 176 | Optum acquires Change & deals for Hinge, Liva, and Metronom
Insurgents have stormed the Capitol and we’re still here to talk about health tech deals. On Episode 176, Jess and I discuss Optum acquiring Change Healthcare in a $13.5 billion deal, bringing it back to Jess’s interview with CEO Neil Crescenzo bout what Change Healthcare does with the connective tissue of big healthcare. Hinge gets $300 million in a Series D – this is valued now at $3 billion. Finally Liva Healthcare, which is like European Livongo, raises €24.5 million and Metronom Health gets $22.2 million for yet another CGM. —Matthew Holt
RWJF Emergency Response Challenges: The Demos!
By ELIZABETH BROWN
In mid-June, Catalyst launched the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Emergency Response Innovation Challenges. These Challenges, one for the General Public and one for the Health Care System, asked innovators to develop a health technology tool to support the needs of individuals as well as health care systems affected by a large-scale health crisis, such as a pandemic or natural disaster.
The Challenges saw a record number of applications— nearly 125 applications were submitted to the General Public Challenge and over 130 applications were submitted to the Health Care System Challenge. Over the course of several months and with the help of experts and industry leaders who evaluated the submissions, these applications were narrowed down to five and then again until only three teams per Challenge remained. These teams were:
Emergency Response for the General Public Finalists:
- Binformed Covidata– Binformed is a clinically-driven comprehensive desktop + mobile infectious disease, epidemic + pandemic management tool targeting suppression and containment of diseases such as COVID-19.
- CovidSMS– CovidSMS is a text message-based platform providing city-specific information and resources to help low-income communities endure COVID-19.
- Fresh EBT by Propel– A technology tool for SNAP families to address food insecurity & economic vulnerability in times of crisis.
Emergency Response for the Health Care System Finalists:
- Path Check– Path Check provides privacy first, free, open source solutions for public health to supplement manual contact tracing, visualize hot spots, and interfaces with citizen-facing privacy first apps.
- Qventus– Qventus is a patient flow automation solution that applies AI / ML and behavioral science to help health systems optimize resources for Covid, create effective capacity, and reduce frontline burnout.
- Tiatros– A mental health and social support platform that combines clinical expertise, peer communities and scalable technology to advance mental wellbeing and to sustain meaningful behavioral change.
These six teams competed in the finals, a virtual pitch event, on November 19th in front of expert judging panels, who evaluated the entries on impact, UX/UI, innovation/creativity, scalability and strength of presentation. (Also re-introduced during this event was Catalyst’s SourceDB, a health tech tracking database – more on that in a separate blog post here!)
In the Health Care System Innovation Challenge, judges awarded first, second, and third place to Qventus, Path Check, and Tiatros, Inc., respectively, with these teams receiving, in order, $25,000, $15,000, and $5,000. However, there was a tie for first in the General Public Innovation Challenge between binformed | covidata and CovidSMS. These two teams split the first and second place prizes and received $17,500 each, and Fresh EBT by Propel in third place received $5,000.
See the demos from all six teams below!
Continue reading…#Healthin2Point00, Episode 175 | Haven, Color, RapidSOS & more
Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I chat about Haven finally closing its doors. On Episode 175, we cover Color raising $167 million growing fast as the major COVID tester in the Bay Area and 23andMe scoring $82.5 million. RapidSOS quietly raised another $51.2 million on New Year’s Eve, Fruit Street Health raises $22 million for chronic condition management, and finally Centene acquires Magellan for $2.2 billion. —Matthew Holt
No Safe Haven to be Found!
By MIKE MAGEE
Can you wrestle a collusive, private, profiteering Medical-Industrial Complex to the ground by throwing more private entrepreneurs at it? Apparently not.
The very public collapse of Haven – the widely heralded health joint venture of Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase – is a case in point. After three years, it is unclear whether they were a public-spirited triad trying to bathe efficiency into our bizarre employer-based health insurance scheme, or becoming predatory investors in one of the most profitable segments of our national economy.
When launched nameless in January, 2018, most of the focus was on the three amigos – Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon, and Jeff Bezos. The linking of hands of the nation’s biggest technology power player, her most revered and respected investor, and her highest ranked financial all star, was impossible to ignore.
What were they up to? No one was quite sure. But there was enough concern about disruption of a sector controlling nearly 1/5 of the American economy that prices of CVS Health, Walmart, Cardinal Health and Express Scripts dove south.
This week, with the announcement of the non-profit joint venture’s collapse, analysts wasted no time piling on. As one said, “Haven had a rocky three years, running up against vague marching orders, a lack of direction, and obstacles inherent to the healthcare landscape.”
But it didn’t start that way. Warren Buffett presented health care that day as “a hungry tapeworm on the American economy.” Jamie Dimon noted that we pay twice as much for poorer quality care than other developed nations. And Jeff Bezos suggested that it was time for PBM’s and insurers to trim their sails.
By the summer of 2018, the three signaled they were seriousby hiring widely acclaimed health leader, Atul Gawande, as their CEO. As Buffett said, “Jamie, Jeff, and I are confident that we have found in Atul the leader who will get this important job done.” It would be another nine months before they could settle on a name for the venture – Haven (as in safe haven for their 1.3 million combined employees).
Continue reading…Health Care: Don’t Be Evil
By KIM BELLARD
Google’s corporate motto – written in its original Code of Conduct — was once “Don’t be evil.” That softened over time; Alphabet changed it to “Do the right thing” in 2015, although Google itself retained the slogan until early 2018. Some Alphabet employees think Google/Alphabet has drifted too far away from its original aims: they’ve formed a union in order to try to steer the company back to its more idealistic roots.
Parul Koul and Chewy Shaw, two Alphabet software engineers, announced the Alphabet Workers Union in a New York Times op-ed, vowing to live by the original motto, and to do what they can to ensure that Alphabet and its various companies do as well. They assert: “We want Alphabet to be a company where workers have a meaningful say in decisions that affect us and the societies we live in.”
It’s past time that health care workers, including physicians and executives, stood up for the same thing.
Ms. Koul and Mr. Shaw cite several grievances, including payouts to executives accused of sexual harassment, the firing of a leading AI expert over her efforts to address bias in AI, and company efforts to “keep workers from speaking on sensitive and publicly important topics.” Doing the work, even doing it well and being well paid for it, is not enough:
We care deeply about what we build and what it’s used for. We are responsible for the technology we bring into the world. And we recognize that its implications reach far beyond the walls of Alphabet.
Their goal is for Alphabet “to be a company where workers have a meaningful say in decisions that affect us and the societies we live in.” Alphabet, they say, “has a responsibility to prioritize the public good. It has a responsibility to its thousands of workers and billions of users to make the world a better place.”
Investors may not quite agree.
Continue reading…Quality in Healthcare: Cultural Competence, Diagnostic Accuracy or Patronizing Insensitivity?
By HANS DUVEFELT
I sometimes tell patients “I work for the government”, but sometimes I say the opposite, “I work for you”.
Herein lies a dichotomy that is eating away at primary care in this country, like a slow growing cancer. I suspect everybody is aware of it, but it seems nobody has the inclination to deal with it.
2020 exposed how differently Americans view and prioritize things like personal freedom and public safety. We have also seen how vastly different perceptions of reality suddenly exist about what constitutes medical facts. Alternative facts and fake news are suddenly household concepts.
For years, American healthcare has paid lip service to ethnic and cultural sensitivity, as long as minority opinions or practices don’t clash too badly with the holy cows of western society. We tolerate circumcision in men, but not genital mutilation in women, for example. But we don’t even pay lip service to the majority’s right to direct their own healthcare.
Continue reading…Need to Choose a Doctor? What Does AI Think About the Choices?
By ZEESHAN SYED
Tens of millions of Americans rely on consumer experience apps to help them find the best new restaurant or the right hairdresser. But while relying on customer opinion might make sense for figuring out where to get dinner tonight, when it comes to picking which doctor is best for you, AI might be more trustworthy than the wisdom of the crowd.
Consumer apps provide us with rich data categories that often take into account preferences, from location to free wi-fi, to help users narrow down choices. Navigating your health insurer’s network of physicians is a different proposition, and some of the popular ranking systems reportedly have significant limitations. Doctors are often categorized by specialty, insurance, hospital, or location, which may be effective for logistics, but fail to take into account a patient’s unique health conditions and say very little about what an individual patient can expect in terms of health outcomes. Research from my company Health at Scale shows that 83% of Medicare patients seeking cardiology care and 88% of cases seeking orthopedic care may not be choosing providers that are highly rated for best predicted outcomes based on each patient’s individual health conditions.
Deep personalization is exactly what physicians, health systems, and insurers need to offer patients to improve outcomes and lower costs across the board. A study using our data recently published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research sought to quantify how consumer, quality and volume metrics may be associated with outcomes. Researchers analyzed data from 4,192 Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries undergoing elective hip replacements between 2013-2018 in the greater Chicago area, comparing post-procedure hospitalization rate, emergency department visits, and total costs of care at hospitals ranked highly by popular consumer ratings systems and CMS star ratings as well as those ranked highly by a machine intelligence algorithm for personalized provider navigation.
Continue reading…
