Clear Arch Health SVP of Growth Bill Paschall

Despite the rapid rise of remote patient monitoring during the pandemic, many key ingredients of a successful RPM program are still overlooked by organizations deploying their own solution. Tune into the latest Digital Health Wire Show with Clear Arch Health SVP of Growth Bill Paschall to learn the secrets to success for remote patient monitoring, and to stay ahead of the biggest trends shaping the space.

Digital Health

Transcarent Lands $126M Series D

Although Transcarent was already a unicorn, it might be about to grow another horn after landing $126M in Series D funding at a $2.2B valuation.

The Transcarent platform makes it easy for employees to access all of their care needs using a single convenient interface – their phone – while also simplifying how employers provide and track that care.

• The platform connects members to comprehensive experiences including Everyday Care, Pharmacy Care, Surgery Care (through partnerships with health systems and ambulatory care providers), and Behavioral Health Care.

• At a time when point solution fatigue is crippling employers and telehealth companies are imploding due to a lack of downstream revenue from other services, Transcarent’s approach definitely has a few things going for it.

The fresh funding will be used to accelerate Transcarent’s AI capabilities, support commercialization, and more than likely acquire other companies (plus the customers they bring along with them).

• Transcarent apparently had upwards of $100M in the bank before closing the latest round, but it would appear that $226M is a more comfortable starting point when you’re looking to build-out your AI and sign some new partnerships.

The reason behind the AI push is the interconnected nature of the platform itself, which has already enabled several AI features that are harder to pull off with a more narrow approach.

• For example, if a doctor on Transcarent’s platform reports that a patient has sinus pain, the AI will flag their seasonal sinus infections in their medical history, and can then pull the prescriptions they’ve used in the past – expediting both diagnosis and treatment.

• If Transcarent’s last phase of growth was about reaching the scale to make that happen, the next phase will revolve around rolling out as many of these features as possible.

The Wire

If you needed any more proof that the market is looking for platforms instead of point solutions, Transcarent’s valuation should give you plenty. Both employers and consumers want a single platform to manage healthcare, and it turns out that providing one leads to good things.

Bridge Remote Care Gaps With RPM + PERS

Head over to our Q&A with Clear Arch Health CEO Robert Flippo to see how combining remote patient monitoring and PERS into a turnkey solution that’s easy to implement for both patients and providers can help more people remain independent as they age in place.

Clinical Support, Whenever It’s Needed

connectRN makes working and staffing in Home Health even more flexible, empowering clinicians to decide when to work and supporting staffers with talented clinical help whenever it’s needed. Secure talented and qualified clinical support with connectRN.

Glooko Outcomes Using Real-World Data

Modern diabetes management requires personalized, always-on, and connected care. Explore Glooko’s latest clinical studies to see how remote patient monitoring is making real-word improvements across multiple glycemic outcomes.

The Wire

• Withings + LifeMD: A new partnership with Withings Health Solutions made LifeMD the first virtual primary care provider to elevate its GLP-1 program with real-time home monitoring for blood pressure and body composition. By leveraging Withings’ in-home monitoring devices like the Body Pro 2 scale and the BPM Connect Pro BP monitor, LifeMD can provide clinicians with quickly actionable patient data to help drive compliance (and enhance clinical decision making) – addressing a common blindspot for many weight management programs.

• Ro Operating System Unveiling: Ro took the lid off its new Ro Operating System (ro.OS), a tech platform purpose-built to enable direct-to-patient care. ro.OS vertically integrates telehealth, lab, and pharmacy services powered by a suite of applications geared toward helping patients reach their health goals: 1) Patient App (single stop for messaging providers, tracking progress, and medical records); 2) Care Delivery App (provider homebase for delivering and monitoring care); 3) Pharmacy App (gives pharmacists real-time patient insights); 4) Lab App : The Lab App (connects patients with testing options and results).

• AI Shown to Reduce Mortality: A landmark study in Nature Medicine marked the first large-scale randomized trial for medical AI to use mortality as the primary endpoint. After randomly assigning 16k patients to either have their physician get an AI alert of red flag ECG results or conventional care, the AI group saw a staggering 17% reduction in all-cause mortality at 90 days – suggesting the AI performed as well as many standard of care treatments (e.g. statins). It’s worth noting that the study didn’t determine the precise mechanism of benefit, but the AI alerts frequently led to ICU transfers and greater risk awareness.

• Apple’s Trial-Ready AFib App: The Apple Watch’s atrial fibrillation history feature just became the first digital biomarker approved for use in clinical trials, after its addition to the FDA Medical Device Development Tools (MDDT) program. The Apple Watch AFib history feature reports estimated AFib burden, and is now qualified for use as a secondary efficacy endpoint in cardiac ablation clinical trials, while potentially paving the way for the use of other sensor-based digital health technologies in clinical trials.

• Maternal Mortality Finally Improves: The latest CDC data shows that maternal mortality took a much needed nosedive in 2022, down nearly 50% to 22 deaths per 100k live births compared to the year prior. The amount of people who died while pregnant or within the next six weeks had been increasing steadily since 2018, then saw a concerning spike at the start of the pandemic. All eyes will now be on this year’s numbers to see if we return to the upward trend or continue to improve, but some researchers are worried that new abortion restrictions will only hurt maternal outcomes.

• Avel eCare Acquires Horizon: Clinician-to-clinician telemedicine company Avel eCare acquired Horizon Virtual, a Minnesota-based virtual hospitalist services provider. Horizon will allow Avel to help more critical access hospitals and medical facilities address staffing challenges while maintaining appropriate physician coverage in their hospitalist areas. The move marks Avel’s third acquisition in just over a year as it continues its aggressive growth strategy, fueled in part by the quick expansion of the hospitalist service.

• Mental Health Market Primer: Alex Muir kicked off Mental Health Awareness Month by putting out a really well done primer on startup activity in the mental health space. A whopping 400 companies are included in the blog post, which breaks them down by end users and service lines to see who’s competing with who. Market maps galore.

• Osmind Teams Up With APA: Osmind is teaming up with the American Psychiatric Association to improve the adoption of measurement-based care and precision treatment in psychiatry. The collaboration will see Osmind integrate APA’s PsychPRO clinical data registry within its EHR, enabling the collection / analysis of clinical data to advance quality improvement efforts and accelerate research. The APA’s diagnostic and outcomes measures of interest will be added to Osmind’s library of 40+ measures already available to psychiatrists at the point of care.

• ACO Primary Care Flex Spotlight: A great editorial in Health Affairs unpacked the many pros and cons of CMS’ recently announced ACO Primary Care Flex Model, which will test monthly prospective primary care payments for MSSP ACOs in lieu of FFS reimbursement directly to PCPs (the ACO is then responsible for distributions to PCPs). The article explores the potential for the model to help shift US healthcare away from the FFS chassis, as well as the design elements that could prove to be serious drawbacks – namely CMS’ decision to limit participation to ACOs that are classified as “low revenue.”

• Pfizer Preps DTC Play: Pfizer is reportedly prepping to launch its own direct-to-consumer telehealth service to help “improve access” to its drugs like the antiviral Paxlovid and Nurtec migraine treatment. The upcoming program will allow people to schedule virtual appointments with independent physicians who will evaluate their symptoms and recommend treatments, so Pfizer isn’t technically dispensing the drugs itself. If this is sounding familiar, it’s probably because Eli Lilly made a nearly identical move earlier this year.

The State of Payor Enrollment and Credentialing

We’re on the brink of a new era in healthcare. From AI-enabled chatbots to GenAI, Medallion’s latest report sheds light on how healthcare organizations are prioritizing automation, actively shaping their future with it, and hoping it can live up to its promise. Get the full report here.

Meet Nabla at Reuters Digital Health

Nabla will be in Digital Health Wire’s backyard in San Diego for Reuters Digital Health on May 14-15! Make sure to swing by Booth #4 to meet the team and learn more about ambient AI deployment for health systems.

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.