HISTalk’s Dr. Jayne

Startups

b.well Closes $40M Series C to Unify Patient Data

Patient data unification startup b.well Connected Health cut through last week’s tradeshow noise with $40M in Series C funding to advance its mission to solve healthcare’s fragmentation problem.

b.well was founded in 2015 by a former UnitedHealthcare exec whose daughter suffered a near-fatal medical error when two EHRs weren’t connected, and has since raised just under $100M to make sure patients have one-stop mobile access to their data.

b.well’s FHIR-based platform unifies health data, solutions, and services into a single solution, enabling healthcare organizations to offer customizable experiences powered by longitudinal health records and proactive insights.

• The white-labeled solution integrates data across healthcare providers, payors, labs, and devices, which lets its clients create personalized user flows while allowing patients to access all of their health data within a single interface.

• b.well then provides tailored content that guides patients to specific actions, using behavioral nudges and plain language explanations to engage them.

The Series C arrives on the heels of a partnership between b.well and Samsung, which gave Galaxy smartphone users control over their longitudinal records and easy access to care from a provider network that includes Walgreens, ThedaCare, and Rise Health.

• The partnership could also open up a huge market for b.well, considering that Samsung Health recorded 64M monthly users in 2023.

• As a kicker, Samsung’s former Head of Digital Health joined b.well’s board of directors through the investment, after playing a key role throughout the integration.

The Takeaway

For all of the healthcare industry’s talk about meeting people where they are, it’s still rare that patients know what services are available, let alone how to access them. b.well now has $40M to help it unify health data in a way that makes these experiences possible, while also empowering organizations to stand out in a market where value is increasingly defined by choice and transparency.

Selecting Your Drug Database and CDS Solution

Do your providers need easy access to real-time drug knowledge and clinical decision support? Explore Synapse Medicine’s complete guide to drug database advantages, use cases, challenges, and factors to consider when selecting the right solution for your organization.

Master the Art of Provider Credentialing

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The Best Partner for Sustainable Staffing

Delivering the best care requires a partner who understands the current staffing challenges. See how connectRN empowers its partners to deliver sustainable staffing through tools and resources designed to enable the best care possible.

The Wire

• Change Outage Update: Change Healthcare revealed that the ongoing cyberattack that first knocked its systems offline on February 21 could drag on for weeks, leaving thousands of doctors and pharmacists scrambling to find ways to get patients what they need. Another new development was that Change-parent UnitedHealth Group acknowledged cybercrime organization ALPHV/Blackcat as the perpetrator of the attack, and a memo from the group said that it was able to get its hands on 6 terabytes of patient information through the breach. The group quickly removed the post, prompting speculation that ransom negotiations are underway.

• DOJ Investigates UHG: As if one of the worst cyberattacks in US healthcare history wasn’t enough to keep UnitedHealth Group’s PR team busy this week, the Wall Street Journal broke a story on the Department of Justice’s active investigation into the conglomerate. The DOJ has yet to allege any wrongdoing, but has its crosshairs on UHG’s spree of physician group acquisitions and their potential to promote anticompetitive behavior. Although UHG hasn’t addressed the investigation publically, its annual report should be filed sometime this week, and it would be surprising if it didn’t include a briefing on the situation to give investors some clarity.

• Over a Billion Now Have Obesity: Global obesity rates have more than tripled over the past three decades, translating to over a billion people worldwide. A new study in The Lancet found that 1 in 8 people now have obesity, dramatically raising the risk of conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Between 1990 and 2022, the global rate of obesity doubled among women (8.8% to 18.5%), nearly tripled in men (4.8% to 14.0%), and quadrupled in adolescents (6.9% in girls and 9.3% in boys). Although new drug classes could play a role in the solution, the WHO stresses that prevention is still preferable to treatment.

• Medallion One-Day Credentialing: Medallion launched its new one-day credentialing solution to help healthcare organizations expedite their credentialing process without sacrificing quality. The new solution integrates into Medallion’s provider data management platform to provide instant primary source verifications (gives automatic results and flags non-compliant providers), automated quality assurance (reviews all PSV evidence to ensure it accurately matches a provider’s profile), and NCQA compliance (enforces requirements while flagging missing elements).

• Keeping Up With AI Regulation: Most health systems aren’t giving much thought to the regulatory environment as they embrace AI, with only 40% of the 150 systems surveyed by Berkeley Research Group reporting that they’re up to speed on AI guidance ahead of rolling out the tech. Three-quarters of respondents believe AI will be widespread in the industry within three to four years, but few organizations are organized in a way to manage these initiatives. BRG’s report did a great job laying out why health systems should be investing in AI talent and building internal teams to manage AI products.

• HealthSnap Closes $25M: HealthSnap closed $25M in Series B funding to help providers better care for a rapidly aging population through proactive remote patient monitoring. The HealthSnap platform includes disease-agnostic RPM and chronic condition management, as well as AI-guided care coordination, virtual care delivery, and population analytics. Partnership expansions with UnityPoint Health and Prisma Health fueled significant growth over the past 18 months, while also providing solid clinical outcomes data for hypertension, obesity, and Type 2 diabetes.

• Outpatient Mental Healthcare Increase: A study in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that serious psychological distress increased significantly during the early days of the pandemic, leading to a significant increase in outpatient mental healthcare. Between 2018 and 2021, the rate of psychological distress increased from 3.5% to 4.2%, while outpatient mental care usage increased from 11.2% to 12.4%. Usage increased most in young adults and the employed, but not in other age groups or among the unemployed.

• Lyra Complex Care: Mental health benefits platform Lyra Health rolled out a new program aimed at treating members with complex conditions like severe depression and substance use disorders. The Lyra Complex Care solution is the company’s latest step along the path from its core offerings (EAP employee assistance programs, therapy, coaching) to higher acuity areas, such as medication management for bipolar disorder and dialectical behavior therapy for patients with suicidality.

• AI’s Inconsistent Medical Answers: AI chatbots offer uneven performance when responding to medical questions, according to new research presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ annual meeting. Researchers asked various LLMs to answer 45 questions across several categories (Bone Physiology, Referring Physician, Patient Query), and answers included the most critical salient points in 77% of cases for ChatGPT, 33% for Google Bard, and just 17% for BingAI. Each model was also limited in its ability to provide clinical management suggestions, often deviating from the standard of care.

• Sharp Launches Apple Vision Pro Project: Sharp Healthcare is opening a Spatial Computing Center of Excellence that will focus on developing novel ways to use the Apple Vision Pro augmented reality headset in patient care settings. The research team will evaluate the impacts of spatial computing across various roles and look to identify potential use cases from the operating room to the bedside, working closely with caregivers to determine the workflows that could best be enhanced by the Vision Pro

• Pot Smoking’s Heart Risks: Survey results from 434k US adults warned of cannabis smoking’s cardiovascular risks, while suggesting that patients should be screened for cannabis use. Overall, daily cannabis use put people at higher risk for coronary heart disease (+16%), myocardial infarction (+25%), stroke (+42%), and a composite of these conditions (+28%). Risks were even more pronounced in respondents who had never smoked tobacco, as their daily cannabis use came with far higher risks for MI (+49%), stroke (+116%), and the CV composite (+77%).

Patient-Centered Design for Diabetes Care

Glooko’s recently overhauled Mobile App makes it easier than ever for diabetes patients to organize, log, visualize, and share their data. Head over to this conversation with Glooko’s product and design team for a behind-the-scenes look at how patient-centered design is improving diabetes outcomes.

Mankato Clinic Shares Lessons From AI Implementation

Ambient documentation solutions have arrived in a big way, and they’re generating a lot of noise in the process. To help cut through that noise, Mankato Clinic CMO Dr. Andrew Lundquist shared the biggest lessons from his team’s implementation of Nabla Copilot, along with advice for other clinics seeking their own ambient AI solution. Make sure to check out Nabla’s full interview with Dr. Lundquist here.

Discover Clear Arch Health’s RPM Platform

With ready-to-use devices, data-driven dashboards, and integrated analytics, Clear Arch Health’s turnkey RPM platform is designed to meet the evolving needs of care delivery. Find out how Clear Arch Health can help keep your providers connected to their patients and equipped with the actionable insights they need to improve outcomes.