Month: July 2024

CoachCare Locks Growth Capital for RPM Expansion

Posted on by Jason Barry

CoachCare locked in a $48M growth investment to advance its mission of becoming the go-to virtual care management platform for providers, and it has a clear blueprint for how it plans to get there.

After digging into CoachCare for the funding coverage, one of the things that jumped out the most was how well the company seems to be executing on the M&A front:

  • January 2017: CoachCare got its start as a virtual coaching platform for weight and lifestyle management programs.
  • January 2020: The pandemic era emergence of new RPM and CCM reimbursement pathways prompts CoachCare to lean in on commercializing the technologies it built to use internally, with a platform combining connected devices and outreach / monitoring services to give providers everything needed to spin up their own virtual care programs.
  • January 2023: CoachCare kicks off its acquisition spree with NVOLVE, a remote patient monitoring startup focused on MSK, pain management, and orthopedics.
  • April 2023: CoachCare scoops up Carbon Health’s cardiology and nephrology-focused healthcare platform – Alertive.
  • September 2023: WebCareHealth gets brought on to add new RPM, video conferencing, and real-time messaging expertise to the CoachCare platform.
  • December 2023: Verustat joins the portfolio to bolster CoachCare’s presence in primary care and cardiology.
  • June 2024: CoachCare also closed on another soon-to-be-announced acquisition just last month, which saw Dedica Health round out the solution suite with one-to-one care management and navigation.

The end result of all that M&A is that CoachCare now has a platform that can deliver specialized RPM and virtual health services for everything from hypertension and behavioral disorders to stroke recovery and high-risk pregnancies.

  • Along with $48M in newly raised capital, CoachCare just took a step up to the RPM big leagues, and will now be competing for many of the same customers as the established leaders in the space.

The Takeaway

CoachCare is pedal to the metal with its M&A playbook, and an extra $48M pretty much guarantees that more acquisitions are right around the corner. As long as CoachCare continues finding attractive targets for reasonable costs, its next arc of growth will be defined by its ability to execute, hire, and integrate new capabilities into a cohesive offering.

Mayo Clinic Tops Hospital AI Readiness Index

Posted on by Jason Barry

The ambient temperature is rising, and CB Insights just launched its Hospital AI Readiness Index to determine which health systems are most prepared for the shift.

The index is based on an analysis of top private-sector systems in the U.S. (by hospital count), ranked by how prepared they are to adapt to a rapidly evolving AI landscape across two key pillars: 

  • Innovation – measures a system’s track record of developing or acquiring novel AI capabilities, also considers the presence of an AI-dedicated research center
  • Execution – measures a system’s ability to bring AI into clinical practice, also considers internal AI deployments across business and back-office functions 

Without further ado, here’s CB Insight’s first list of AI-ready systems:

Mayo Clinic topped the innovation charts by leading all systems in terms of raw AI investment count (including participation in big rounds from Abridge and Cerebras Systems), while also filing 50+ AI patents in areas like cardiovascular health and oncology.

  • Intermountain ranked second due in part to the AI focus of its venture arm, which invested in Gyant prior to the engagement platform getting scooped up by Fabric.
  • Cleveland Clinic rounded out the top three with a high volume of AI partnerships, including work with PathAI to enhance translational research using pathology algorithms.

High execution scores were driven by AI business relationships and product launches, such as Mayo Clinic’s teaming up with Techcyte to help providers use AI to improve lab testing.

  • Another standout on this front was Banner Health, which is working with Regard to cut down on administrative burdens by automating tasks like notetaking and chart reviews.
  • Johns Hopkins also received high marks after partnering with Healthy.io to offer digital wound care services to patients.

The Takeaway

It’s tough not to love a good stack-ranking of health systems, and this is the best we’ve come across for AI readiness (and potential AI partners). Hats off to the 25 systems that made CB Insights’ inaugural list!

Epic, Mayo, Abridge Tackle Nursing Workflows

Posted on by Jason Barry

The power trio of Mayo Clinic, Epic, and Abridge are joining forces to bring the magic of generative AI to the “scaffolding of the healthcare system” – nurses.

The new solution will work similar to Abridge’s core ambient documentation tools for physicians, but optimized specifically for the unique complexity of nursing workflows.

  • Whereas physician conversations usually involve capturing the medical history and patient’s story, nurses are also performing and documenting tasks like vitals collection or turning patients to avoid bed sores.
  • This data all ends up in different places within the EHR, and requires a new user experience to work backwards from.

Mayo Clinic nurses are at the center of the collaboration.

  • The development team is engaging with them directly to ensure the new solution meets the needs of all nursing and patient care workflows along with regulatory requirements for ambient solutions.
  • Nurses will also help prioritize the workflows where the tool will have the highest impact, and will be “instrumental” in designing and testing the overall solution.

Epic’s involvement will allow the tool to integrate seamlessly into its EHR and inpatient nursing workflows, another sign that the company is all-in on quickly advancing its GenAI roadmap.

  • It also represents one of the most significant efforts to stem from the Epic Workshop program announced last year, which features third-party vendors co-developing technology with Epic. 

The combination of Abridge’s AI stack, Epic’s development, and Mayo Clinic’s nursing expertise should help accelerate the development cycle, and the health system is looking to get the tool in the hands of nurses before the end of the year.

The Takeaway

Nurses perform a massive breadth of activities in fast-paced environments, and they’re grappling with the same documentation-driven burnout as the rest of the industry. Toggling between patient duties, documentation, and staff communication is a demanding use case for ambient AI, but this team appears to have all the pieces it needs to make it happen.

Commure Acquires Augmedix As Ambient AI Race Heats Up

Posted on by Jason Barry

Commure is buying the dip in Augmedix, and it isn’t leaving a single share behind.

The take-private transaction will see Commure acquire Augmedix for $139M, which means shareholders are set to receive $2.35 per share – a 150% premium above their last close.

  • Not bad for an overnight return, but then again Augmedix was trading at nearly $6 back in January.

Commure provides a healthcare-focused operating system that connects patient care, clinical operations, and administrative functions into a single interface powered by AI.

  • Since merging with Athelas late last year, Commure’s solution suite has grown to include everything from patient engagement and RPM to revenue cycle management and staff safety.
  • Commure also recently announced its own Commure Scribe documentation solution, which it made available at no cost to providers and will continue to offer alongside Augmedix’s product portfolio.

Augmedix got its start as a tech-focused VC darling before leaning in on scribing, and it took an interesting path to its current position near the front of the ambient AI pack.

  • October 2020: Augmedix hits the OTC market through a SPAC merger
  • October 2021: Augmedix gets uplisted to the NASDAQ with a $40M public offering
  • July 2024: Augmedix gets taken private once again by Commure 

The acquisition makes Commure a newfound powerhouse in the healthcare AI arena, with a strong foothold in one of the hottest corners of the market. 

  • Not only does Augmedix advance Commure’s strategy of using LLMs to consolidate various point solutions into a unified platform, but it also brings along over 20 health system partners – including a marquee collaboration with HCA.

The Takeaway

The ambient AI consolidation has begun, and Commure just fast-tracked its way to a leadership position. Commure has its work cut out for it to prove that its operating system approach makes Augmedix more valuable than the market gave it credit for, but this could mark the start of a new wave of consolidation if it can pull it off.

Huma Raises $80M to Shopify Healthcare

Posted on by Jason Barry

Our readers know better than anyone that building scalable digital health solutions can be a years-long voyage, which is why Huma Therapeutics closed $80M in Series D funding “to help cut that time down to days.”

Huma will be the first one to let you know that it’s the “Shopify for Digital Health,” offering modular platforms / software development kits that help provider orgs and pharmaceutical companies with use cases such as:

  • multi-channel patient engagement across entire populations
  • scalable remote patient monitoring programs
  • companion apps to support patients through treatment and drug therapies
  • digital clinical trials, including de-centralised trials to accelerate research

That technology has powered projects in over 3,000 hospitals and clinics, with 1.8M active users across its products in 70+ countries.

  • Huma’s partners include providers like the NHS and Johns Hopkins University, as well as pharma giants like Bayer and AstraZeneca – which also participated in the round.
  • The Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) behind Huma’s products also recently became the only configurable, disease-agnostic solution fully cleared by regulators in the U.S., E.U., and Saudi Arabia.

Up next is the Huma Cloud Platform, a no-code app builder that enables other companies to spin up their own solutions using a combination of GenAI prompts and pre-built templates.

  • The platform includes a library of modules and device connectivity tools for any therapeutic area, APIs and integration capabilities, and a marketplace that creates a flywheel of new features from existing users.
  • The best part? Huma’s SaMD clearance “solves all of the regulatory hurdles that developers usually face, freeing up their time and energy” to scale their apps.

Put it all together, and Huma’s tech infrastructure, partner roster, and regulatory grounding make a compelling case that we’re closer to a “Shopify for Digital Health” than we’ve ever been.

The Takeaway

Shopify brought an online presence within arms reach of millions of vendors that wouldn’t have had the resources to pull it off without them, and Huma is looking to make that same experience possible in digital health. Although healthcare is a far cry from slinging t-shirts and cookies, enabling people to focus on their craft instead of technical potholes seems like an end-goal worth striving for in any industry.

Alternative Staffing Models Harming Patients

Posted on by Jason Barry

New research in Medical Care found that hospitals opting to replace registered nurses with non-RN staff could be sacrificing patient safety for short-term financial gains.

This was one of the largest-ever studies investigating the tradeoff between RNs and lower-wage labor, yet it received surprisingly little coverage given the implications of its findings.

UPenn researchers analyzed clinical and claims data for 6.5 million Medicare patients across 2,676 US hospitals in 2019, finding that every 10 percentage-point reduction in RNs was associated with:

  • 7% higher odds of in-hospital death
  • 1% higher odds of readmission
  • 2% increase in expected days
  • “Significantly” lower patient satisfaction

Hospitals are often pressured to pursue “team nursing” models for the immediate financial lift of substituting RNs with nurses’ aides or licensed practical nurses, but the authors warn that the true impact of using less skilled workers is likely the exact opposite.

  • The study estimates that a 10 percentage-point reduction in RNs would result in nearly 11k avoidable deaths annually and 5,207 preventable readmissions.
  • That translates into roughly $68.5M of additional Medicare costs each year, with hospitals also losing nearly $3B annually because of patients requiring longer stays.

Then why do hospitals continue substituting RNs with lower-wage staff? From the patient perspective, the negative impact on outcomes – let alone mortality – should stop the idea of lowering the skill-mix in its tracks. 

  • That said, the average hospital sees an instant cost reduction of $31.94 per patient day for every 10 percentage-point reduction in RNs to total nursing staff.

The financial near-sightedness of that $31.94 cost reduction blinds hospitals to an estimated $66.03 of lost revenue per patient day for the same 10pp reduction in skill-mix… in other words the expected ROI is more than a two-fold loss.

The Takeaway

Nursing budgets are a huge slice of the hospital expense pie, making them a go-to target when leadership teams are looking to make cuts to fund other areas. This study reaches the paradoxical conclusion that the reason hospitals don’t have funds for other areas could be because they aren’t investing enough in the nurses they’re thinking of cutting.

Rock Health: H1 Funding Comeback

Posted on by Jason Barry

There’s a comeback brewing for digital health, with Rock Health’s latest funding report showing that the sector is officially on track to beat last year’s investment total.   

US digital health startups raised $5.7 billion across 266 rounds in the first half of 2024, setting a pace that could surpass 2023’s full-year total of $10.7 billion.

Most of the excitement came from early-stage startups. Seed, Series A, and Series B raises accounted for 84% of labeled rounds in H1. The median size of a Series A was $15M (up $3M from last year), driven by big showings from companies like Hippocratic AI and Fabric. 

  • Rock Health pointed out that larger Series As have helped AI startups manage costs for training models and acquiring datasets, while also helping others make well-timed M&A (Ex. Fabric’s acquisition of MeMD from Walmart).

Unlabeled rounds started to wane as fewer companies pushed off a valuation haircut or delayed a labeled raise due to not meeting necessary benchmarks. Just 33% of Q2 2024 rounds were unlabeled, down from 47% in Q1 and 55% in Q4 2023.

  • This could mark the beginning of a return to a more normal cadence of labeled raises, which Rock Health predicted would be in the cards for 2024.

The most funded value proposition in H1 went to “treatment of disease,” thanks in part to Foodsmart’s $200M raise feeding the $1.1B total. 

  • Mental health retained its usual position as the most funded clinical indication, raising $700M as companies like Talkiatry and Brightside managed to attract more investor attention than the surging weight management segment ($300M).

The first half saw three public exits for digital health companies, ending a 21 month drought with stock market debuts for Nuvo (remote fetal monitoring), Tempus AI (precision diagnostics), and Waystar (revenue cycle management).

  • Among players still gearing up for an IPO, fewer companies were rounding out their offerings by acquiring the missing pieces, which was chalked up to companies wanting to be conservative with their runway. H1 2024 clocked in at 34 digital health acquisitions, well below half of 2023’s full-year total (83).  

The Takeaway

Resilience seems to be leading to brilliance for digital health founders, with overall funding momentum and fewer transition measures (AKA unlabeled rounds) suggesting the “new normal” is upon us. Although a presidential election and decisions around telehealth flexibilities will have a huge impact on the rest of the year, most signs are pointing toward H2 playing out just as well as the first half.

K Health Closes $50M to Bring AI to Primary Care

Posted on by Jason Barry

Momentum begets momentum, and K Health is building on the recent debut of its AI Knowledge Agent with the close of $50M in equity funding led by Claure Group.

K Health is on a mission to provide access to high-quality medical care at scale by using AI to turn patient smartphones into the first stop along their care journey.

  • K’s clinical-grade AI for primary care takes patients through a personalized chat to walk through their symptoms, develops an assessment grounded in the EHR, then delivers insights to providers to inform their diagnoses and treatments.
  • This allows providers to practice at the top of their license and engage with their patients instead of spending valuable time manually piecing together relevant information.

We unpacked K’s AI Knowledge Agent when it was first unveiled, but the short-and-sweet version is that it’s composed of an array of LLMs enhanced by K’s own algorithms, with a few key differentiators from today’s standard AI applications:

  • It incorporates the patient’s medical history to provide highly tailored responses, enabling a higher level of personalization than standalone models.
  • It’s optimized for accuracy by using curated sources, then leverages multiple specialized agents to verify the answer matches the sources and the EHR data is appropriate.

A core component of K’s blueprint is partnering with health systems to serve as an entry point to their larger care ecosystem, and Cedars-Sinai has been helping co-develop a longitudinal care program that integrates virtual care with in-person services.

  • By combining K’s AI with the patient’s EHR and Cedars-Sinai’s brick-and-mortar assets, patients can be intelligently routed to the right place to resolve their needs, reaching everything from primary care and specialists to labs and tests within the same interface.

K’s competitive advantage is its ability to do more with less. An AI-led model that eliminates the need to build clinics allows K to achieve better outcomes at lower costs than traditional primary care, and profitability looks like it’s in the forecast for next year.

  • The fresh funds will be used to fuel more health system partnerships and continue sharpening K’s AI, which should in turn allow it to keep improving the unit economics that separate it from the likes of Walmart Health (RIP) and VillageMD.

The Takeaway

Primary care is the gateway to the healthcare system, but that gateway is rusting away from the demands of an aging population and a shortage of providers. K Health is setting out to prove that AI can repair the situation, and it now has $50M to help it make its case.

Arcadia Acquires CareJourney to Advance VBC

Posted on by Jason Barry

At a time when many people are questioning the effectiveness of value-based care, Arcadia is doubling down on its potential to move the industry forward by acquiring health analytics firm CareJourney.

Arcadia helps payors and providers put their data to work by surfacing insights for use cases like closing care gaps, managing costs, or transitioning to VBC.

  • It recently locked in $125M to advance its analytics capabilities, which funded the launch of its data platform and the expansion of its partner ecosystem.
  • Last year’s revenue topped $100M, which put Arcadia in profitable territory.

CareJourney offers cost and quality analytics for value-based networks and providers, focusing on Medicare, Medicaid, Medicare Advantage and commercial claims data.

  • Its trove of data spans across 300M+ beneficiaries and over 2M providers nationwide.
  • That data feeds an analytics platform that helps organizations strengthen their networks, improve provider performance, and better manage at-risk populations.

The power to merge clinical data with claims records makes the combined company greater than the sum of its parts.

  • The expanded data resources will fuel advanced analytics for Arcadia’s customers, enhancing their ability to pursue value-based care and market expansion.
  • As these analytics unlock new insights, the integration of CareJourney’s solutions into the Arcadia platform will give organizations more operational tools to execute their strategies for improving patient and financial outcomes.

Arcadia’s analytics models are a core differentiator from competitors like Innovaccer and Health Catalyst, and it’s now looking to separate from the pack by leaning in on its strengths.

The Takeaway

Value-based care is hard to get right, but not getting it right hasn’t exactly worked out either. The holes in healthcare’s data analytics capabilities have been a go-to argument for VBC naysayers, and that’s exactly what Arcadia is aiming to solve with its acquisition of CareJourney.

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