McKinsey Predicts More Home Healthcare

In an effort to understand healthcare’s shift from the hospital to the home, McKinsey conducted a survey of physicians who serve the Medicare population, finding that $265B of care services could switch from traditional facilities to the home by 2025.

That figure represents a nearly fourfold increase in the amount of care being delivered in the home, which McKinsey thinks could be attainable without a reduction in quality or access. This chart provides an overview of how it might be possible.

McKinsey categorizes the services that can be delivered at home into three groups:

  • Services with capabilities in place that may benefit from scaling, such as primary care, outpatient-specialist consults, hospice, and outpatient behavioral-health visits. 
  • Services where capabilities exist that could be stitched together into a comprehensive offering, such as dialysis, post-acute care, and long-term care, and infusions.
  • Services with some capabilities but others that could be further developed, which includes a single service, acute care.

All of these services offer potential for growth within the home, although the pros and cons of transferring care outside of a traditional setting depends on the stakeholder (here’s a breakdown). Payors and providers will each have their own reasons for shifting care into homes over the next few years, but McKinsey points out that there’s one main driver behind the expected growth: more home care is good for patients.

ConcertoCare Raises $105M For At-Home Senior Care

Companies that deliver care outside of traditional settings are continuing to attract eye-popping amounts of fresh capital, with ConcertoCare recently raising a $105M Series B round to scale its operations across the US.

Concerto is a value-based provider of at-home comprehensive care for seniors “with unmet health and social needs.” The company’s model incorporates medical, behavioral, and social determinants of health to help improve outcomes from multiple angles

  • To help serve medically complex populations, Concerto enlists interdisciplinary care teams of physicians, pharmacists, behavioralists, and social workers to meet with patients either in-person or virtually.
  • These teams are equipped with a proprietary Patient3D decision support platform that assists with identifying the next best action for each patient, as well as a range of connected devices that enable the remote management of chronic conditions.
  • The Series B pushed Concerto’s funding total to $149.5M and will help it launch its Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) later this year while expanding into new US markets outside of the 8 states it already serves.
  • Alongside the funding news, Concerto announced the acquisition of Crown Health, a home-based primary care provider serving the Pacific Northwest. The move aligns with Concerto’s 2021 merger with primary care provider, Perfect Health.

The Takeaway

ConcertoCare’s differentiator is its full-stack approach to improving outcomes for the country’s most medically complex seniors. According to Concerto, less than 5% of patients accounted for half of US healthcare expenditures in 2018, and these are the same patients the company is seeking to help. Concerto’s value-based approach could be a piece of the puzzle for successfully managing this vulnerable population, especially with 88% of seniors preferring to receive care in their home.

Reimagine Care Secures $25M for Home Cancer Care

Home-centered care startup Reimagine Care recently raised $25M in Series A funding, its first round of outside capital that it hopes will help it live up to its namesake for US cancer patients.

Reimagine Care provides technology-enabled services that support oncologists in delivering value-based care remotely, while helping health systems, payors, and employers accelerate the shift to coordinated home-centered cancer care.

  • Taking inspiration from European models for home-based cancer treatment, the Reimagine Care platform gives patients access to a 24/7 virtual care center that allows them to view their treatment plan and communicate with their care team.
  • For providers, Reimagine Care offers remote patient monitoring and end-of-life care management solutions that have been shown to reduce ER visits and inpatient admissions.
  • For payors and employers, home-centered care is “a lever for value,” improving member satisfaction while reducing adverse events such as hospital-acquired infections that drive expenses.
  • The funding follows a survey that found that 66% of healthcare executives believe home-centered cancer care offers significant potential to grow their organization, and that 60% are concerned that their organizations may fall behind if they don’t make the shift to home-centered cancer care in the near future.

The Takeaway

With the pandemic as a catalyst, cancer patients and their families have begun seeking not only the best treatments, but also the best experiences. Reimagine Care believes that health systems that are first-movers in home-centered care will have a strong advantage over those who fail to make the leap, which rings true, but time will be the judge. The company has yet to begin taking patients, and its success will hinge on the ROI that they deliver when they’re fully operational later this year.

Medically Home Gains $110M Strategic Investment

The hospital-at-home space continues to pick up speed as Medically Home announces a new $110M round and a fresh set of strategic partners.

  • The round was led by medtech company Baxter International and mobile care provider Global Medical Response, joining Cardinal Health, Mayo Clinic, and Kaiser Permanente who added to previous investments. Each investor is now a strategic partner in Medically Home, a strong sign of confidence in the company’s expansion plans.
  • Medically Home’s platform enables in-home care for high-acuity patients through the use of RPM devices, emergency response systems, and durable medical equipment installation. Providers use these tools to continuously monitor and communicate with patients from a customized “command center.”
  • The new strategic partners strengthen Medically Home’s care delivery model. GMR’s network of 30k deployable clinicians will provide quicker response times, while Baxter’s involvement will give care teams access to a wider set of therapies for critical conditions.
  • Although the funding’s purpose was not explicitly stated in the press release, it’s clear that Medically Home is intent on expanding its capabilities, and $110M is a healthy amount of capital to begin scaling its services nationwide.

The Takeaway

Medically Home operates at the intersection of several key trends. The pandemic has made brick-and-mortar settings dangerous for the type of high-acuity patients that Medically Home treats, many hospitals are operating at or near capacity, and consumer preferences are increasingly shifting towards comfortability and in-home care. Medically Home’s services address each of these directly, and judging by its growing partner roster, many companies share a belief in the care model.

Babylon Accelerates US Expansion With Higi Acquisition

Babylon Health finalized its acquisition of Higi, which manufactures Smart Health Station kiosks frequently found in pharmacies and grocery stores.

Babylon became a strategic investor in Higi in mid-2020 before it began integrating its symptom-checking and care navigation solutions into the company’s kiosks, a pilot test that appears to have been successful. 

  • Babylon helps patients through two primary services: Babylon 360 (AI-enabled value-based care) and Babylon Cloud Services (cloud-based data analytics suite). The company’s AI platform is designed to improve provider decisions surrounding triage and symptom assessment, while also helping patients navigate their care journeys.
  • Higi’s network of over 10k FDA-cleared kiosks can be found within five miles of 73% of the US population, providing screenings for blood pressure, weight, and body mass index. The company pairs these stations with at-home devices and a nationwide clinical network to assist healthcare organizations with remote monitoring.
  • The acquisition follows Babylon’s $200M funding round in October, which was led by sustainability-focused firm AlbaCore to help the company provide care to under-served populations. The new capital was earmarked for expanding Babylon’s US member base and value-based care applications, and the Higi acquisition checks both boxes.

The Takeaway

Meeting consumers where they are has been one of the biggest digital health trends following the onset of the pandemic, and acquiring Higi’s large kiosk network is an on-theme way to kick off Babylon’s US expansion. Babylon can now extend its care platform to millions of existing Higi customers, while gaining a foothold in retail healthcare to serve as a new entry point to its care ecosystem.

Oxygen Saturation Monitoring for COVID-19 Patients

A new study published in Sage Digital Health found that at-home oxygen saturation monitoring helps identify early signs of clinical deterioration in COVID-19 patients, enabling them to seek appropriate care before the disease escalates.

  • Methods – Stanford researchers recruited 49 patients with a recently positive COVID-19 test in the outpatient setting, preferentially selecting for those with underlying comorbidities. Participants were mailed pulse oximeters and enrolled in a symptom-monitoring app (AIRx), which provided a daily questionnaire for clinicians to review.
  • Results – Of the six patients who required hospitalization, five sought care as a result of low pulse oximeter readings. Nearly all patients found the pulse oximeter useful, with 96% of those who did not require hospitalization reporting that the device gave them the confidence to stay at home. 
  • Impact – Keeping COVID-positive patients at home has the potential to reduce the spread of disease while preventing unnecessary strain on the healthcare system. The researchers recommend targeting this intervention at patients with a high risk for deterioration given the difficulty of obtaining and mailing pulse oximeters.

The Takeaway
While there have been several studies on the effectiveness of remote patient monitoring for COVID-19, few have assessed the patient experience. Although this study is limited by its small sample size and selection bias, the high levels of engagement and patient satisfaction suggest that pulse oximeters could be a simple intervention for COVID-19 monitoring if implemented on a larger scale.

Nomi Raises $110M for Direct Healthcare

Direct healthcare provider Nomi Health recently closed a $110M Series A round to help advance the company’s mission of addressing care gaps, a huge sum for a company that got its start in 2019.

  • Nomi currently serves 30k daily patients across 10 states, providing care for those that prefer not to go through traditional payor / provider channels.
  • The company deploys mobile care units to locations such as universities and local businesses to deliver on-site services including vaccinations, COVID testing, and preventative screenings.
  • The direct healthcare model allows Nomi to bypass many of the operational inefficiencies faced by larger incumbents, lowering overall expenses for recently added offerings such as COVID-19 vaccines and monoclonal antibody treatment.
  • The latest funding will help Nomi deliver more services to “care deserts” such as rural areas and prisons, while also expanding its direct healthcare acquisition business. 

The Takeaway

Nomi’s Series A makes it the 63rd company to raise over $100M this year, although the size of the round is more in line with a Series C for a company further along in its life cycle. 

The funding total not only reflects the boiling hot state of broader digital health investment, but also the size of the market that Nomi has set its sights on.

Expect some acquisition news from Nomi in the near term – $110M is a large war chest, and when they’re done picking up vans, they’ll likely add some competitors to their Christmas list.

Solv Expands Into Lab Testing

Appointment-booking solution provider Solv is expanding into the lab testing space with the introduction of its new Test Finder service aimed at helping consumers discover and schedule local health tests.

  • Test Finder currently includes 25 lab test services such as blood panels, drug testing, and STD testing. Solv reported that the service will expand in the coming months based on the search volume recorded for early users.
  • Lab tests used to require physician orders, but regulation changes have allowed direct access to many tests for consumers. Solv stated that it hopes its new service will help to address the problem of patients deferring testing to avoid an in-person visit.
  • Solv raised a $45m Series C round in September, and has been busy putting the funding to work. So far this year, the company has added EHR integrations to its suite of apps, as well as advanced patient management features and in-app test results. 
  • Testing services have seen a boom since the beginning of the pandemic, and not just for COVID-specific tests. DTC healthcare company Ro recently acquired Workpath to enable in-home blood draws, while Cue Health announced that it plans to use the proceeds from its November IPO to expand its on-demand test offerings.

The Takeaway

Patient expectations of on-demand healthcare are rising quickly, and Solv’s app-based solutions center around creating a smooth experience on familiar mobile technology. The expansion from appointment booking to lab testing is a natural move for the company, giving providers more ways to reach their patients, while giving consumers an easy way to find local services.

Lightbeam Health Solutions Acquires CareSignal

There’s been a lot of talk in the digital health space about the potential of wearables to improve remote patient monitoring. However, with most companies focusing their attention on introducing new devices to the home, Lightbeam Health Solutions is setting itself apart by adding a “Deviceless RPM” service through the acquisition of CareSignal.

  • Lightbeam offers end-to-end population health solutions for payors and providers looking to manage risk. The company generates patient cohorts for over 42m lives to bring health data “into the light” and provides proactive insights that ensure patients receive the right care at the right time.
  • CareSignal’s Deviceless RPM service uses a combination of automated text messages and IVR calls to gather self-reported patient data for over 30 conditions, identifying actionable moments for care delivery while allowing value-based organizations to sustainably scale care teams without sacrificing engagement.
  • The acquisition makes sense for Lightbeam on many levels. Integrating scalable patient monitoring and engagement into the company’s core population health offering improves the cohort creation at the center of the service, while also allowing risk-bearing partners to manage chronic conditions in a cost-effective manner.

The Takeaway

The success of chronic condition management solutions involves not only the improvement of patient outcomes, but also the ability to demonstrate a meaningful return on investment within a reasonable time horizon.

Lightbeam is addressing both of these metrics by acquiring CareSignal, and doing so at a time when healthcare personnel bandwidth is in great need of relief.

Papa Raises $150M for “Family-on-Demand”

“Family-on-demand” platform Papa recently raised a $150m Series D round ($241m total funding) to extend the reach of its solution that provides companionship to older adults and other vulnerable populations. 

This funding pushes Papa into “unicorn” status with a $1.4b valuation, highlighting the continued investor enthusiasm for products that address social determinants of health such as loneliness and isolation. 

  • Papa connects seniors with “Papa Pals” to provide companionship or assistance with daily tasks such as transportation and housework, with the backend of the platform handling everything from logistics to compensation.
  • Standard visits last an average of three hours, enough time to not only drive someone to a grocery store or doctor’s office, but also enough to help them unload bags or keep them company in a waiting room.
  • Papa Pals are matched to requests through the Papa app and serve as a friendly middleground between an on-demand service worker, such as an Uber driver, and a traditional caregiver, which usually focus on functions such as mobility and hygiene.
  • Papa’s services are offered as a covered benefit through employers and health plans rather than as a direct-to-consumer offering. According to Papa, lonely people have been shown to use the hospital 60% more due to mental health and behavioral stressors.

The Takeaway

Against a backdrop of pandemic-related isolation, Papa is addressing the care gap for seniors who don’t require a full-time caregiver but still need companionship or assistance, and its climbing valuation shows that VCs see big potential for this type of care.

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