Transcarent CEO Glen Tullman

Digital Health

ViVE 2023 Recap and Major Announcements

Over 7,500 ViVE Nashville attendees are packing up their cowboy boots and heading home after a beautiful few days in Music City, U.S.A.

The generative AI hype cycle was almost loud enough to drown out the live musicians scattered throughout the venue, but it didn’t stop other stories from breaking through the noise, such as the brightening outlook for digital therapeutics in the wake of AppliedVR’s newly issued reimbursement code.

ViVE stayed true to form and kept the spotlight on the vendors, so we’ll follow their lead and dive right into some of the biggest announcements from the show.

• Atropos Health unveiled its Atropos Evidence Network that allows physicians to surface answers to their clinical questions from the most appropriate data set across dozens of partner organizations such as ASCO CancerLinQ and Mayo Clinic.

• AvaSure and Equum Medical showcased their virtual monitoring collaboration that combines AvaSure’s room monitoring hardware / software with Equum’s staff / monitoring services hosted from a new Virtual Care Collaboration Center in Nashville.

• Amazon Web Services announced the 23 startups participating in its latest healthcare accelerator that provides mentorship to companies tackling problems across three core areas in dire need of new solutions: retention, deployment, and training.

• Brightside Health detailed the findings of its recent study which found that patients who supplemented psychotherapy with video lessons based on the Unified Protocol saw significantly greater reduction in both depression and anxiety symptoms.

• DiMe and Moffitt Cancer Center are teaming up to lay the foundation needed to meet the Cancer Moonshot’s ambitious goal of cutting the death rate from cancer by at least 50% over the next 25 years – big news that we’ll circle back on in the coming weeks.

• Infermedica is expanding its API capabilities to include AI-driven patient intake workflows that initiate medical data collection prior to consultations to improve clinician efficiency and personalize the patient experience.

• Notable is deploying its intelligent automation platform across Wisconsin-based Marshfield Clinic Health System’s entire organization (1,200 providers, 60 clinics, 11 hospitals) to create a better overall experience for 310k+ patients.
• Philips debuted its comprehensive Virtual Care Management solution that combines condition-specific protocols with connected devices and engagement tools to deliver data / insights that enable timely interventions and workflow efficiencies.

• Propeller Health and UC Davis Health announced a collaboration that will offer personalized treatment for high-risk patients with asthma and COPD by leveraging Propeller’s RPM sensors, mobile app, and targeted support. 

• Transcarent is incorporating Care Journey’s quality and cost insights to equip patients with digestible provider profiles, cost benchmarks, and quality measures across specialties such as orthopedics, cardiology, gynecology, primary care, and pediatrics.

• Trilliant Health released its health plan price transparency solution that blends its proprietary provider directory and market analytics with data from payor transparency files to reveal the negotiated reimbursements between health plans and providers for any service.

• Verana Health launched its first Data-as-a-Service product, Qdata Anti-VEGF Market Tracker, which tracks real-world usage of anti-VEGF therapies in de-identified patients with retinal conditions while providing granular market segmentation.

Special thanks to all of our readers who were at the show and caught us up on the latest and greatest. For those of you holding onto more announcements for HIMSS, we’d love to connect in Chicago. Hit reply and let’s set something up!

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The Wire

• Gravie Raises $179M: Insurtech startup Gravie raised a colossal $179M growth round to expand its Comfort health plan beyond the 1,200 businesses it already serves. The Comfort plan helps give employees cost certainty over their coverage by offering zero copays on common services like office visits, labs, imaging, prescriptions, and mental health visits.

• Travelers Prefer Telehealth: A recent KeyCare survey (n=400) suggests that patients prefer telehealth services while traveling, especially when they can connect with their usual care team. Nearly 7 in 10 (68%) people who needed minor medical services while traveling reported utilizing virtual visits with their regular care teams. These travelers listed speed and convenience (52%) as their top priority, followed by the ability to receive care from their regular care team (27%) and cost (19%).

• Love.Life Acquires Plant Based TeleHealth: In what might be the story with the most entertaining company names we’ve ever covered, Whole Foods co-founder John Mackey’s new startup Love.Life acquired Plant Based TeleHealth to bring holistic care virtual visits directly to consumers. Patients looking for concierge nutrition and wellness advice can book 30 or 60 minute appointments for $175 or $350.

• Social Media’s Physician Influence: More than half (57%) of physicians in the US alter their view of a medication or treatment based on social media content, and 41% have changed their prescribing practices due to information seen on social platforms. That’s from a recent survey (200+ physicians, 50+ pharma marketers) conducted by Sermo and LiveWorld. Unsurprisingly, 90% of the surveyed pharma marketers are leveraging social media and 50% anticipate a greater portion of their budget will go toward social advertisements in the coming year.

• EHRs Overlook Vulnerable Patients: Popular EHR systems are designed to flag patients who are at risk of a variety of SDOH factors, but a research letter published in JAMA found that these screenings often miss vulnerable patients. Based on feedback from 826 patients, EHR questionnaires successfully highlight patients battling food insecurity, but frequently fail to flag those experiencing housing instability or financial strain. 

• Ribbon Launches Scheduling Features: Ribbon Health rolled out new scheduling features that leverage its partnerships with leading booking marketplaces to let patients easily search for available providers that fit their needs then book appointments across primary, specialty, or mental healthcare. The Ribbon platform offers real-time availability data from provider orgs and direct partner integrations, giving physicians, navigators, and payors a “single source of truth” to direct patients to the right care.

• PCP Shortage Leaves Americans Vulnerable: A new report from NACHC and HealthLandscape found that over 100M Americans face obstacles in accessing primary care, with the number of medically disenfranchised Americans doubling since 2014. The authors warned that the PCP shortage poses a significant public health risk, leaving roughly one-third of the population susceptible to preventable chronic illnesses and infections. 

• Amwell Partners With Dario: Amwell is partnering with chronic condition management platform DarioHealth to add a cardiometabolic program to its suite of digital offerings. Amwell’s clinicians can now refer diabetes and hypertension patients to Dario’s program that combines connected devices (BP monitors, glucometers, smart scales) with a data dashboard and coaching support. The partnership is Dario’s second within the past month, building on a collaboration with Dexcom that integrated data from continuous glucose monitors with Dario’s platform.

• Privacy Measures Boost Patient Confidence: A survey of more than 3,500 US adults revealed that patients are more willing to share digital health information when privacy protection measures are in place. The presence of consent, data deletion, oversight, and transparency each made patients more comfortable sharing their data.

• Letter Calls for AI Halt: AI innovation is moving fast, maybe even a little too fast for comfort. A letter signed by a number of technology leaders including Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk, and Max Tegmark is calling for a halt to training AI algorithms more powerful than GPT-4. The letter claims that AI that’s competitive with human intelligence “can pose profound risks to society and humanity.”

• Remote Monitoring Improves HF Risks: A meta-analysis of three trials (CHAMPION, GUIDE-HF, and LAPTOP-HF) found that remote hemodynamic monitoring could reduce hospitalizations and all-cause mortality in patients with systolic heart failure. The monitored patients had a mortality rate up to 25% lower than the controls at two years, highlighting RM’s potential to help doctors proactively adjust treatment plans before the disease worsens, potentially saving lives.

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