Tag: digital health

Graphite Health Announces Open Marketplace

Posted on by Jason Barry

Piloting new digital health tools will soon be as easy as downloading a smartphone app, at least if Graphite Health has anything to say about it.

Intermountain Healthcare, Presbyterian Healthcare Services, and SSM Health recently announced the launch of Graphite Health, a member-led nonprofit aiming to create an interoperable data platform that will allow health systems to adopt new technologies “as easily as anyone can download an app from an app store to a smartphone.” 

Graphite Health is modeled on another Intermountain-owned venture called CivicaRx, which works to make generic medications broadly accessible, and is seeking to build an open marketplace for digital health tools.

  • Graphite Health Platform – To support the development of plug-and-play applications, Graphite Health is creating a common data language (built on the FHIR framework) that will allow providers to implement tools without unique customizations.
  • Graphite Health Marketplace – The marketplace will serve as a single location for innovators to distribute their solutions at scale, while giving providers a way to save months (if not years) of security and integration reviews when piloting a new tool.

In addition to the founding health systems, Graphite Health is planning on bringing additional organizations into the coalition over the coming months, with a target of reaching over 40m lives covered.

Industry Impact

Unlike current health marketplaces such as Epic’s App Orchard, Graphite Health’s nonprofit structure allows its marketplace to function as a “health utility,” serving members without the additional provisions of alternatives. If the company succeeds in its vision of streamlining interoperability, an elusive goal for many that have attempted, it will help facilitate the adoption of new tools while bringing operational efficiency to health systems.

Digital Health Funding Tops $21B in 2021

Posted on by Jason Barry

With three months left in 2021, digital health funding has reached a staggering total of $21.3b across 541 deals.

To put that number into perspective, last year was the first year that total digital health funding surpassed $10b, and 2019’s total was a small-by-comparison $7.9b.

These figures are from Rock Health’s Q3 2021 Digital Health Funding Report, which analyzed how 2021’s financing boom is shifting market expectations and creating a landscape that’s ripe for consolidation.

Funding themes remained similar to prior years, with investors focusing on value propositions such as R&D software and clinical indications like mental health. R&D funding was lifted by mega rounds from XtalPi ($400m) and Reify Health ($220m), while mental health services saw an influx of capital at Spring Health ($190m) and SonderMind ($150m).

Most funded value propositions:

  1. R&D catalysts ($4.7b)
  2. On-demand healthcare ($3.4b)
  3. Treatment of disease ($3.1b)
  4. Fitness & wellness ($2.9b)
  5. Non-clinical workflow ($2.1b)
  6. Consumer health information ($2.0b)

Most funded clinical indications:

  1. Mental health ($3.1b)
  2. Cardiovascular disease ($1.4b)
  3. Diabetes ($1.4b)
  4. Primary care ($1.4b)
  5. Oncology ($1.2b)
  6. Substance use disorder ($793m)

Industry Impact

This year’s unprecedented funding signals that investors are betting on a continued surge in healthcare innovation, but the wave of new entrants is creating a clutter of digital health options for patients and providers. As the market begins to call for more unified offerings, companies are turning to M&A for the answer.

The 216 digital health M&A deals through the first three quarters of the year have already eclipsed the 146 deals in 2020. Companies like Headspace and Ginger have combined to vertically integrate their solutions to provide their user base with a deeper well of resources. Other deals, like K Health’s recent Trusst acquisition, are focusing on horizontal integration to serve multiple channels with a single tech interface.

Regardless of the strategy, the rate of the dealmaking is causing many to wonder if company valuations can continue rising at the same pace for much longer, but for now it seems like we could be in the early innings of another record breaking Q4.

Amazon Announces Healthcare Accelerator Finalists

Posted on by Jason Barry

Amazon Announces Healthcare Accelerator Finalists

Digital health startups were in the spotlight this week as Amazon announced the ten finalists for its first ever AWS Healthcare Accelerator.

The companies were selected from 427 applications and 31 countries around the world, although each finalist is US-based. The finalists were chosen by a panel from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and KidsX, an accelerator for companies focusing on pediatric care. Each startup has a validated solution along with existing revenue and customers.

The AWS Healthcare Accelerator is a four week program that pairs finalists with technical and business mentorship from experts from AWS and KidsX, then offers collaboration opportunities with members of the AWS Partner Network looking for healthcare solutions.

AWS Healthcare Accelerator finalists include:

  1. AIVA is a voice-powered care assistant for hospital patient rooms and senior living communities with a mission to be the voice operating system for better care. 
  1. b.well offers an integrated solution for consumer engagement, holistic health management, and cost containment. They use longitudinal aggregated data to paint a picture of health for each consumer and aggregate data to show population health.
  1. Ejenta automates remote monitoring and remote care delivery using AI exclusively licensed from NASA. Their “intelligent agents” learn from connected devices and EHR data to monitor patients, predict health, and connect care teams.
  1. Giblib creates an educational content streaming experience for healthcare providers. It allows for on demand streaming of surgical videos and medical lectures from subject matter experts along with the ability to receive continuing education credits.
  1. Gyant is a virtual assistant and digital front door solution designed to optimize patient journeys. It navigates patients to the right care setting and resources while providing simple appointment scheduling.
  1. Kaizen Health is a healthcare logistics platform that connects healthcare and transportation to reduce access barriers.
  1. Medical Informatics Corp offers an FDA-cleared Sickbay virtual care platform that helps hospitals improve operational efficiencies by enabling the rapid scaling of remote patient monitoring across any inpatient setting.
  1. Neuro Rehab VR is reinventing training exercises for physical and cognitive therapy by leveraging VR and neuroplasticity for recovery. It allows providers to track their patients in real time and has shown increased patient engagement.
  1. OneRecord provides an app that helps patients build a consolidated health record of their entire medical history in a single place.
  1. Pieces uses AI to connect patients and health systems with solutions that address social determinants of health. They connect care providers to actionable data, people to services, and caseworkers to information.

Industry Impact

Amazon’s multi-pronged strategy for entering the healthcare market goes beyond its hands-on approach with Amazon Care. By providing companies such as these finalists with AWS solutions, Amazon is establishing itself as the cloud-based foundation for a new cohort of healthcare disruptors.

Verily Starts Planning for Life After Google

Posted on by Jason Barry

Alphabet’s life sciences division Verily is working to distance itself from Google technology as it plans for the next phase of its products and a possible future outside of its parent company, according to reporting from Insider.

The project known internally as Flywheel began in 2021 and involves transitioning Verily’s products away from Google’s internal cloud to a public version of the tech infrastructure.

Internal documents appear to reveal that an initial version of Verily’s updated technology stack is set to arrive by early next year.

  • Verily is aiming for independence. As the company matures, it is looking to diversify its product offerings into new areas such as telehealth, but potential partners have often needed reassurance that Verily’s data would not be shared with Google.
  • Flywheel could signal an IPO. Verily CEO Andy Conrad has previously mentioned a push towards an initial public offering, although the pandemic pushed back those plans. A current employee interviewed by Insider confirmed that an IPO is “the carrot Andy is always dangling in front of us.”
  • Verily’s recent moves support the theory. It raised $700m in late 2020 before acquiring clinical trial management system SignalPath in August to expand its commercial offerings. It also recently partnered with Mayo Clinic to develop a clinical decision support tool, all while bolstering its leadership team.

The Takeaway

When Google reorganized as Alphabet in 2015, the structure was designed to give subsidiaries more flexibility to expand away from the company’s core operation. Although no large companies have yet to be spun out, the Flywheel project makes Verily look like a strong contender to be the first one. Possibly as early as next year.

Xealth Makes Digital Health Usable

Posted on by Jason Barry

The booming digital health sector has seen such rapid expansion that it is beginning to enter the next level of its industry life cycle: the stage where solutions have solutions.

Digital health integration platform Xealth recently closed $24m in Series B funding, bringing the Providence St. Joseph Health spinoff’s total funding to $52.6m.

Xealth aggregates and organizes digital health tools within the EHR, enabling not only easier reporting, but also centralized distribution, enrollment, and patient monitoring.

The Xealth platform has three interdependent modules:

  • Xealth Clinical Interface – Solutions are ordered, delivered, and tracked from within the EHR, with clinical decision support matching patients to relevant solutions.
  • Xealth Digital Command Center – Provides customized reporting of patient and provider engagement, which is aggregated to match demographics to solutions.
  • Xealth Integration Layer – Supports deployment of multiple solutions through a single integration with the EHR, allowing health systems to save IT resources by avoiding independent vendor integration.

The Takeaway

As health systems pursue innovation, they’re presented with an abundance of disjointed products with specialized use cases, creating the need for a platform that allows physicians to prescribe and monitor these solutions within a single cohesive workflow.

Xealth’s services are already available to over 100k physicians, and the company states that care teams are seeing improved patient engagement metrics as a result of measuring outcomes across a health system’s entire virtual solution ecosystem.

Aggregators that improve usability of existing solutions have emerged as success stories in other industries such as business collaboration software, and Xealth is looking to replicate this success within the digital health landscape.

Unlocking Value With Digital Patient Monitoring

Posted on by Jason Barry

New research from Deloitte and Harvard CBE highlights the value of digital patient monitoring, which provides benefits not only to patients, but also to healthcare systems, hospitals, and governments.

Digital health monitoring covers a wide class of technologies that enable patient follow-ups outside of conventional care settings, including remote care platforms, mHealth apps, and wearable devices.

A whitepaper of the findings released through MSD Connect details the value as it relates to each stakeholder group:

Patients

  • Increased level of health information exchange and patient engagement
  • Improved medication compliance and disease management
  • Improved health outcomes, safety, and quality of care

Healthcare Systems

  • Optimization of HCPs workflow due to reduced no-shows and administrative burden
  • Improved informed decision-making strengthened by longitudinal patient data
  • More personalized care delivery based on real-world data and evidence

Hospitals

  • Reduced hospital (re)admissions, follow-up visits, and length of stay
  • Improved efficiency leading to increased hospital capacity and reduced costs
  • Diminished risk of employee burn-out

Governments

  • Increased value of healthcare services offered through better budgeting
  • Improved population health by better allocation of health resources
  • Improved accessibility and equity of care

The Takeaway

The thread connecting the benefits across all stakeholder groups is clear: better data leads to better outcomes. Digital patient monitoring gives all parties a clearer view of individual healthcare journeys, which in turn leads to more efficient systems built on top of this data and improved health for the entire population.

Pandemic Lessons Led to Google Health Shakeup

Posted on by Jason Barry

The recent dismantling of Google Health following the departure of its chief, David Feinberg, MD, could easily have been interpreted as evidence that the company was retreating from healthcare.

To clear up any confusion, Google Chief Health Officer Karen DeSalvo, MD, spoke with Bloomberg about the search giant’s reorganization. She revealed that the changes reflect a shift in focus related to Google’s work during the pandemic, and that the company is in no way “retrenching on health.”

For Google, the pandemic was an unexpected crash course in health sector operations, expediting many of the lessons that could otherwise have taken years.

Dr. DeSalvo stated that the company’s work on services ranging from contact tracing to population mobility tracking played a large role in the decision to restructure its health unit.

  • Google’s old strategy revolved around consolidating the company’s wide ranging healthcare efforts, such as disease detection and clinical decision support, into a centralized product unit to be commercialized. Dr. Feinberg was hired in 2019 to lead the new division, Google Health, but his team members were disbanded into research and wearables units shortly after his departure.
  • Google’s new strategy is an effort to embed healthcare initiatives into its core products, such as Search and YouTube, rather than launching independent commercial services. This strategy is designed to have a wider influence on health by meeting consumers where they already are.

Industry Impact

With a majority of Google’s revenue coming from advertising, working with sensitive health data quickly attracts attention from regulators. One of Google Health’s early projects under Feinberg got particularly messy when a search tool created for the Ascension hospital network prompted a federal inquiry over data privacy concerns.

Although the Ascension search tool is still operational and secure, Dr. DeSalvo admits that the company must tread carefully when navigating the healthcare space, but believes that the reorganization will help to deliver superior medical care and human outcomes.

Invitae Acquires Ciitizen to Make Genomics Accessible

Posted on by Jason Barry

Genetic testing leader Invitae recently acquired consumer health tech company Ciitizen for $325m, split between $125m and approximately 7m shares of Invitae stock.

While a medical genetics business and a digital record compiler share few similarities at first glance, the strategy behind the deal comes into focus when looking at the driving themes behind each company.

  • Ciitizen is a patient-centric platform that enables users to organize their medical records in order to optimize their own care or contribute the data towards a different goal, such as rare disease research. CEO Anil Sethi founded Ciitizen in 2017 after having a difficult time accessing his sister’s health records while she was battling cancer. 
  • Invitae is on a mission to bring comprehensive genetic information to mainstream medicine. The company is attempting to aggregate global genetic test results into a single user-friendly service that makes the information accessible to anyone with patient consent.
  • Both companies share a common goal that might be better served by working together: data accessibility. Whether unstructured health records or disjointed genetic test results, each business is seeking to improve the utility of hard-to-reach data.

The Takeaway

As genomics transitions from a laboratory testing-based industry to an information industry, Invitae is aiming to develop a platform that allows patients to make use of their data. The acquisition of Ciitizen gives Invitae the ability to create a centralized hub for genomic and clinical information, a dynamic dataset with the potential to drive better research and health outcomes.

K Health Acquires Trusst, Sets Sights on Mental Health

Posted on by Jason Barry

Digital primary care provider K Health announced its acquisition of text-based therapy app Trusst for an undisclosed sum, expanding its services into the rapidly growing online mental health arena.

  • Trusst offers a proprietary mobile platform that has the look and feel of regular text chats, adding a layer of familiarity to sensitive conversations with a therapist. To use the service, patients download the Trusst app and fill out a short questionnaire about their symptoms before being connected to a licensed therapist.
  • K Health provides a public symptom checker that funnels users into an AI-guided assessment of their health concerns, then allows them to connect to a physician via a telehealth call or explore treatment options through its paid service.

Both companies share a similarly lightweight digital-first approach to healthcare, providing services without the cumbersome overhead of many competitors, and expanding access to mental health professionals who would otherwise be prohibitively expensive or difficult to reach. K Health intends to fold Trusst’s services into its existing offerings, which include 24/7 access to primary care providers and prescriptions for as low as $12/month.

The Hottest Space in Digital Health

According to Rock Health’s H1 2021 digital health funding report, the virtual mental health space attracted over $1.5b during the first six months of the year, making it the leading clinical focus for new digital health capital. 

That definitely seemed true last week. The K Health acquisition took place one day before  Headspace and Ginger’s blockbuster merger, and the timing is far from a coincidence.

With so much investor attention on the space and a limited number of mental health service providers, companies are quickly staking claims through M&A activity, and K Health is betting that Trusst’s text-based therapy could be the answer to meeting the growing demand for accessible mental health services.

Verily Aims to Build GPS for Patient Care

Posted on by Jason Barry

Mayo Clinic and Verily, Alphabet’s life science division, recently announced a two-year strategic partnership to develop a clinical decision support (CDS) tool that caters to a patient’s individual needs. 

Although physicians generally do not love their EHR flashing advice at them, the collaboration aims to sidestep the one-size-fits-all approach of traditional CDS tools with AI-generated recommendations relevant to the patient in the room.

  • The Partnership – Mayo Clinic will provide curated clinical content and deidentified health record data while Verily will apply advanced analytics and user-centered design to deliver insights within existing point-of-care workflows.
  • The Roadmap – The tool will initially focus on cardiovascular and cardiometabolic conditions at Mayo Clinic, but will use open standards to enable integration with multiple EHRs for possible expansion to other use cases for Verily’s health system partners.

The Takeaway

While announcing the partnership, medical director of Mayo Clinic’s Center for Digital Health Bradley Leibovich MD stated that he hopes the tool can be used as “a GPS for patient care.”

The companies cited the exponential growth in medical discovery and knowledge as making it  nearly impossible for caregivers to keep up with the latest advances in their fields, creating a need for a tool that offers clinical support. 

Verily and Mayo Clinic are betting that their combined expertise in clinical informatics and data science will be the solution to creating a patient-relevant CDS that clinicians actually want to use.

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