Softbank Vision Fund is a $100 billion technology-focused fund with an eagle eye on the tech that is poised to disrupt large markets, including healthcare. From hyperscaling to detailed advice on pitching, VP Sakshi Chhabra Mittal goes deep on what they’re looking for from startups, especially those that have closed their Series A and are looking for a B.
Filmed at the Frontiers Health Conference in Berlin, Germany, November 2018.
Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.
The team at Akili Interactive has developed the very first doctor-prescribed video game to treat cognitive dysfunctions like ADHD. With game developers from Lucasarts on their roster (that’s right…Star Wars) it’s no wonder they’re seeing north of 85% rates of compliance! Are video games really the future of treatments for cognitive dysfunctions? Akili Interactive is betting on it with plans to add treatments for depression, multiple sclerosis, and schizophrenia on the horizon.
Filmed at the Frontiers Health Conference in Berlin, Germany, November 2018.
Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.
When Albert Franz was 30-years-old he discovered that he was not his parents’ biological child. The discovery took him on a quest for his past that led him to a fateful DNA test. Hear the gripping story and find out how it shaped his perspective on medical ethics and the right to identity.
Filmed at the Frontiers Health Conference in Berlin, Germany, November 2018.
Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.
I’ve been talking in recent posts about how our typical methods of testing AI systems are inadequate and potentially unsafe. In particular, I’ve complainedthat all of the headline-grabbing papers so far only do controlled experiments, so we don’t how the AI systems will perform on real patients.
Today I am going to highlight a piece of work that has not received much attention, but actually went “all the way” and tested an AI system in clinical practice, assessing clinical outcomes. They did an actual clinical trial!
Big news … so why haven’t you heard about it?
The Great Wall of the West
Tragically, this paper has been mostly ignored. 89 tweets*, which when you compare it to many other papers with hundreds or thousands of tweets and news articles is pretty sad. There is an obvious reason why though; the article I will be talking about today comes from China (there are a few US co-authors too, not sure what the relative contributions were, but the study was performed in China).
China is interesting. They appear to be rapidly becoming the world leader in applied AI, including in medicine, but we rarely hear anything about what is happening there in the media. When I go to conferences and talk to people working in China, they always tell me about numerous companies applying mature AI products to patients, but in the media we mostly see headline grabbing news stories about Western research projects that are still years away from clinical practice.
This shouldn’t be unexpected. Western journalists have very little access to China**, and Chinese medical AI companies have no need to solicit Western media coverage. They already have access to a large market, expertise, data, funding, and strong support both from medical governance and from the government more broadly. They don’t need us. But for us in the West, this means that our view of medical AI is narrow, like a frog looking at the sky from the bottom of a well^.
Medtech startup, BOCAhealth has created a portable device and a software aimed at monitoring the hydration status of patients with chronic kidney disease and heart failure. Using machine learning technology, the software quantifies hydration levels that were not quantifiable before, and then provides insight on what to do next.
Filmed at the Frontiers Health Conference in Berlin, Germany, November 2018.
Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.
MyCliniCare brings breast cancer screenings to some of the most underserved populations. They go the last mile, bringing diagnostic tools everywhere from traditional locations like hospitals to Tupperware-style breast screening parties and parks. More impressive, they’re doing all of this in India, which leads the world in breast cancer deaths. Through a recent partnership with Microsoft, MyCliniCare is reaching even more women. Anyone who says “yes” to a screening—one woman in her living room or a hundred at a clinic—they will be there.
Filmed at the Frontiers Health Conference in Berlin, Germany, November 2018.
Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.
Today on THCB Spotlight, Chris Gervais, Chief Technology Officer of Kyruus, tells us about what Kyruus is doing to improve patient access and help health systems match patients to the right providers. Health systems often don’t know enough about their providers, and Kyruus is working to empower health systems to use that data in a computable way in order to coordinate patient demand with physician supply.
While overseeing new technology development at Intouch Solutions, an industry leading pharmaceutical marketing agency, Abidur Rahman spends his time identifying which healthcare innovations are actually relevant. An important job, considering the insane proliferation of AR/VR/AI technologies in the pharmaceutical industry. Get his take on the most viable health tech applications for AR/VR/AI now and what areas startups should be innovating towards in the future.
Filmed at the Frontiers Health Conference in Berlin, Germany, November 2018.
Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.
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 21st Century Cures Act. In this series, we will explore ideas
behind the rules, why they are necessary and the expected impact. Given that
these are complex and controversial topics are open to interpretation, we
invite readers to respond
with their own ideas, corrections and opinions.
Interventions to Address Market Failures
Many of the rules proposed
by CMS and ONC are evidence-based interventions aimed at critical problems that
market forces have failed to address. One example of market failure is the long-standing inability for health care
providers and insurance companies to find a way to exchange patient data. Each
has critical data the other needs and would benefit from sharing. And, as CMS
noted, health plans are in a “unique position to provide enrollees a complete
picture of their clams and encounter data.” Despite that, technical and
financial issues, as well as a general air of distrust from decades of haggling
over reimbursement, have prevented robust data exchange. Remarkably, this happens
in integrated delivery systems which, in theory, provide tight alignment between
payers and providers in a unified organization.
With so much attention
focused on requirements for health IT companies like EHR vendors and providers,
it is easy to miss the huge impact that the new rules is likely to have for
payers. But make no mistake, if implemented as proposed, these rules will have
a profound impact on the patient’s ability to gather and direct the use of
their personal health information (PHI). They will also lead to reduced
fragmentation and more complete data sets for payers and providers alike.
Overview of Proposed CMS Rules on Information
Sharing and Interoperability
The proposed CMS rules
affect payers, providers, and patients stating that they:
Require payers to make
patient health information available electronically through a standardized,
open application programming interface (API)
Promote data exchange
between payers and participation in health information exchange networks
Require payers to provide
additional resources on EHR, privacy, and security
Require providers to comply
with new electronic notification requirements
Require states to better
coordinate care for Medicare-Medicaid dually eligible beneficiaries by
submitting buy-in data to CMS daily
Publicly disclose when
providers inappropriately restrict the flow of information to other health care providers and payers
Looking for money to bring your health tech solution to underserved markets in Africa or Asia? PATH is a 41-year-old global health non-profit with a big mission, to ensure that innovations reach underserved populations across the world. Their new initiative, Digital Square has earmarked funds for startups who are able to bring their software solutions to emerging markets as quickly as possible. Startup companies with digital solutions can come in through PATH’s Digital Square to get capital and on-the-ground support to deploy in sub Saharan Africa or Southeast Asia, as well as recognition by the development community for doing a digital global good.
Filmed at the Frontiers Health Conference in Berlin, Germany, November 2018.
Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt. Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.
