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Tag: Health Tech

The New Scarlet Letter

By KIM BELLARD

This piece is part of the series “The Health Data Goldilocks Dilemma: Sharing? Privacy? Both?” which explores whether it’s possible to advance interoperability while maintaining privacy. Check out other pieces in the series here.

If you live in one of the jurisdictions that have imposed stay-at-home requirements, you’re probably making your essential excursions — grocery store, pharmacy, even walks — with a wary eye towards anyone you come across.  Do they have COVID-19?  Have they been in contact with anyone who has?  Are they keeping at least the recommended six feet away from you?  In short, who is putting you at risk?   

Well, of course, this being the 21st century, we’re turning to our smartphones to help us try to answer these questions.  What this may lead to remains to be seen.

We long ago seemed to shrug off the fact that our smartphones and our apps know where we are and where we have been.  No one should be surprised that location is of importance to tracking the spread of COVID-19.  No one should be surprised that it is already being used.  We may end up being surprised at how it will be used.

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Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 113 | Oura, Heartbeat Health, Vault & Bloomer Tech

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I are covering all the hard hitting news while surviving COVID-19. Before we turn to deals, Jess asks for my thoughts on the American Hospital Association, American Medical Association and American Nurses Association asking for $100 billion from Congress. For our funding news, Finnish smart ring startup Oura raises $28 million in a Series B; Heartbeat Health raises $8.2 million in a Series A for virtual cardiovascular care; Vault raises $30 million in a Series A, entering an already-crowded field alongside Roman and Hims; and Bloomer Tech raises $3 million for their smart bra. Finally, keep up with digital health innovators working on COVID-19 on Catalyst’s new site, covid19healthtech.com. —Matthew Holt

Can AI diagnose COVID-19 on CT scans? Can humans?

Vidur Mahajan
Vasanth Venugopal

By VASANTH VENUGOPAL MD and VIDUR MAHAJAN MBBS, MBA

What can Artificial Intelligence (AI) do?

AI can, simply put, do two things – one, it can do what humans can do. These are tasks like looking at CCTV cameras, detecting faces of people, or in this case, read CT scans and identify ‘findings’ of pneumonia that radiologists can otherwise also find – just that this happens automatically and fast. Two, AI can do things that humans can’t do – like telling you the exact time it would take you to go from point A to point B (i.e. Google maps), or like in this case, diagnose COVID-19 pneumonia on a CT scan.

Pneumonia on CT scans?

Pneumonia, an infection of the lungs, is a killer disease. According to WHO statistics from 2015, Community Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) is the deadliest communicable disease and third leading cause of mortality worldwide leading to 3.2 million deaths every year.

Pneumonias can be classified in many ways, including the type of infectious agent (etiology), source of infection and pattern of lung involvement. From an etiological classification perspective, the most common causative agents of pneumonia are bacteria (typical like Pneumococcus, H.Influenza and atypical like Legionella, Mycoplasma), viral (Influenza, Respiratory Syncytial Virus, Parainfluenza, and adenoviruses) and fungi (Histoplasma & Pneumocystis Carinii).

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Bruce Greenstein to Health Tech: “This is The Make-or-Break Time” | WTF Health on Covid-19

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

“Health tech providers — this is the make-or-break time. If you can’t prove your value in the next, say, eleven weeks, then you should NOT be in the health care game. It’s time to get serious.”

Bruce Greenstein, former CTO at HHS and current Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at LHC Group, one of the country’s largest home health care providers, stops by to share what he’s learned about the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bruce represented the home health industry during last Friday’s (3/13/20) White House meeting, which culminated in a Rose Garden press conference starring the ‘who’s who’ of American health care, retail, and pharma leadership. (Bruce was the guy who elbow bumped Trump.)

Lots of attention on virtual care and telehealth during that presser, and Bruce weighs-in for our health tech and digital health audience about how they can get involved and what big health care companies like his are looking for in digital solutions right now (LHC Group works with 350 hospitals caring for 100K patients.) And how about those HHS Interoperability Rules that have been basically lost in this news cycle? We get Bruce’s feedback on how HHS did, plus his insider info on the HHS “hack.”

Some guidance to help you navigate this chat. Hot Tip: Open up the transcript in YouTube and navigate to these different breaks in the conversation.

  • The ‘Trump Bump’ & Gossip from the Rose Garden Press Conference & White House Meetings
  • 8:40 mark — Advice for health tech startups (must-watch)
  • 15:25 mark — Find out what startups can do that would lead Bruce to “put them in Health IT Hell for the rest of their existence”
  • 16.45 mark – HHS “Hack”
  • 18.14 mark – HHS Interoperability Rules
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Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 110b | Maven, IntelyCare, and New Acquisitions!

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Today on Health in 2 Point 00, we resume our two-part series with part B and bring our promised special guest! Continuing from the first part of Episode 110, Jess and I discuss the women and family health startup Maven raising $45 million in its Series C round with celebrity investment. 1UpHealth, the MassChallenge HealthTech Finalist, raises $8 million; IntelyCare raises $45 million bringing the gig-economy approach to nurse staffing raises, and HealthJoy raises $30 million in Series C funding. The hospital owned ACO umbrella services company Caravan Health acquires Wellpepper, and Sharecare acquires Visualize Health; are these good acquisitions? -Matthew Holt

Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 110a | Trump at HIMSS20, K Health, and Accolade

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess is singing as we are finally back with a two-part episode to cover the deals over the past couple weeks! On part A of Episode 110, Jess and I begin with Trump as he is set to speak at HIMSS next week. K Health raises $48 million in its Series C round to focus development on AI-powered primary care. Accolade files for a $100 million IPO and the telehealth language service platform Cloudbreak Health raises $10 million. Finally, Q Bio raises $40 million in Series B funding aiming to open additional centers and enhance the digital health platform. -Matthew Holt

How Hospital Systems Invest in Digital Health | Brent Stackhouse, Mount Sinai Ventures

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Savvy health tech startups can learn how the differing investment priorities of venture capital funds and strategic investors (those tied to large healthcare organizations like health plans, pharma companies, and health systems) can impact everything from their capital raise to their ability to gain new clients. Brent Stackhouse, Managing Director at Mount Sinai Ventures, talks about the nuances of investing as a strategic, trying to balance a health system’s inherent aversion to risk with the gusto it takes to place good bets on the future of health. Where does a hospital system find investments? Are they looking for clinical solutions or consumer solutions? Brent shares the details behind Mount Sinai’s investment thesis and talks ‘big picture’ about trends he’s seeing in healthcare investing worldwide.

Filmed at Frontiers Health Conference in Berlin, November 2019.

Consulting for Health Tech Startup CEOs From the Guy Who Knows | Matthew Holt, SMACK Health

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By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

To hear Matthew Holt tear apart a pitch deck—or worse, a demo—one thinks of another Brit with a penchant for criticism and tell-it-like-it-is tough love. Could Matthew Holt be the Simon Cowell of health tech? Or maybe he’s got a point underneath all that gruff? Having co-founded Health 2.0, Matthew helped bring digital health and health tech startups into the mainstream by providing a friendly forum for entrepreneurs and established healthcare incumbents. Along the way, he’s suffered through his fair share of demos and pitches, and watched all corners of the healthcare market as it reacted to (and invested in) tech health solutions. Now bringing that 30 years of wisdom to startups seeking coaching, help with strategy, business model design, fundraising, and, of course, demoing and pitching, Matthew explains how he hopes to help the current class of up-and-coming health startups via his consulting biz, SMACK Health.

Filmed at HLTH 2019 in Las Vegas, October 2019.

Who’s in Your Supply Chain?

By KIM BELLARD

Tesla is now, by market cap, the second largest auto manufacturer (after Toyota).  Its market cap exceeds U.S. auto makers Ford, G.M., and Fiat/Chrysler — combined.  This despite selling less than 400,000 vehicles in 2019, a figure that is more than the prior two years combined.   

Tesla has made its bet on the future of electric cars.  It didn’t invent them.  It isn’t the only auto manufacturer selling them.  But, as The Wall Street Journal recently said: 

Investors increasingly see the future of the car as electric—even if most car buyers haven’t yet. And lately, those investors are placing bets on Tesla Inc. to bring about that future versus auto makers with deeper pockets and generations of experience.

 A recent analysis suggested a big reason why, and its findings should give those in healthcare some pause.  Tesla’s advantage may come, in large part, from its supply chain.

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Consumer Health Tech Market Outlook for 2020 | Robert Garber, 7Wire Ventures

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

7Wire Ventures is a venture fund that invests in early-stage healthcare companies that are focused on connecting with the healthcare consumer — kind of like one of the most successful companies in its portfolio, Livongo, which went public in 2019. Robert Garber, a partner with the firm, stops by to share his point-of-view on where the consumer health tech market will be headed in 2020, if we’ll see more exits, and whether or not consumer health will be able to gain traction with healthcare’s established players like payers and health systems.

Filmed at J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, January 2020