CareSignal CEO Blake Margraff on the ROI of chronic condition management.

Remote Care

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.

Telehealth

Ro Rumored to Be Acquiring Dadi

Direct-to-consumer health company Ro is rumored to be in talks to acquire at-home sperm storage startup Dadi, according to recent reporting from TechCrunch. 

Ro, which was valued at $5b when it raised a $500m Series D in March, is reportedly pursuing a $100m transaction for the men’s fertility startup, a healthy multiple for a seed-stage company (no pun intended) with $10m in total funding.

• Dadi provides an at-home fertility test / sperm collection kit, designed to encourage men to become more aware of their reproductive health and contribute to family planning conversations. The company allows men to go from testing to sample storage without stepping foot in a clinic, an approach that could improve the patient experience for a stigmatized issue.

• Ro has roots in male health, focusing on erectile dysfunction products that still account for half of the company’s revenue. The search for growth beyond its flagship product has led to three acquisitions over the past year, including Workpath (at-home health software), Kit (at-home diagnostic tools), and Modern Fertility (female fertility).

• While the home-care theme is apparent in the Dadi rumors and Ro’s overall strategy, TechCrunch reports that the rapid pursuit of acquired revenue is leading Ro employees to feel like many of the moves “came out of nowhere” with little integration into the company’s broader business.

Industry Impact

For Ro to overcome its growing pains, it’s aiming to create a more cohesive at-home care platform through acquisitions aligned with that goal, making the Dadi rumors seem more probable than not.

Ro is one of the most valuable privately-owned health tech startups, a title many suspect will change to “publicly-owned health tech startup” through an IPO in the not-too-distant future.

It’s closest competitor, Hims & Hers, recently unveiled a new mobile app to serve as a unified hub for the brand’s telehealth offerings and treatments, and Ro’s fast-paced acquisitions are seemingly positioning the company to pursue a similar long-term care model as it prepares to go public.

Explore Nuance’s Personalized Patient Experience

Personalized digital experiences drive better outcomes for patients and providers. Explore how Nuance is using AI automation to advance the quality of service across the care journey here.

The Wire

• J&J Decentralized Study: Johnson & Johnson’s SGLT2 inhibitor Invokana has been shown to have a significant effect on heart failure symptoms in a clinical trial that relied exclusively on patient-reported symptom monitoring using a smartphone app, the first study of its kind. The completely ‘virtual’ randomized controlled trial opens the door for applying the approach to the testing of other cardiovascular therapies focusing on health status.

• Keeps Hair Restoration Clinic: Early next year, direct-to-consumer telehealth company Thirty Madison will be opening its first brick-and-mortar hair transplant clinic in NYC, taking the brand equity built from its popular Keeps products and applying it to in-person treatment. The Keeps Hair Restoration Clinic will offer hybrid treatment options after hair restoration procedures, which the company says is part of a wider initiative to begin providing end-to-end treatments.

• Telemedicine Leads to Fewer Treatments: When patients meet with their primary care providers via video, they receive far fewer prescriptions and diagnostic tests. That’s from a pre-pandemic Kaiser Permanente study (n = 1.1m patients, 2.2 appointments) that found video visits were far less likely than clinic visits to result in prescriptions (38.6% vs. 51.9% of visits) or lab tests and imaging orders (29.2% vs. 59.3%). Although telemedicine visits were slightly more likely to require in-office follow-ups within 7 days (25.4% vs. 24.5%), they did not lead to more ED visits or hospitalizations.

• Notable Labs Pipeline: Predictive medicine pioneer Notable Labs announced that it is acquiring the rights to volasertib (PLK-1 inhibitor with demonstrated activity in acute myeloid leukemia) from Oncoheroes Biosciences as it begins to develop its therapeutic pipeline. Notable Labs will leverage its Predictive Precision Medicines Platform to identify volasertib-responsive patients prior to treatment in order to fast-track volasertib’s phase 2/3 clinical trials. Both Notable Labs and cancer patients stand to benefit greatly if the combination of expedited development and therapy ownership is successful.

• AppliedVR Approval: A lot can change in a week, and in the time between now and when we covered AppliedVR’s Series B round on Monday, the company’s flagship EaseVRx digital therapeutic has been granted de novo approval by the FDA for treating chronic lower back pain. EaseVRx is now the first VR prescription to receive approval for back pain management, and AppliedVR has a freshly raised $36m to help bring the solution to market.

• In-Home Health Evaluations: Signify Health CMO Marc Rothman, MD, recently wrote about the value of in-home health evaluations (IHEs) to supplement annual wellness visits, making the case that IHEs can provide clinicians with a better view into patients’ social determinants of health. Dr. Rothman points out that many health inequities (lack of food, transportation issues, etc.) are hiding in plain sight, but unobservable in an office setting, a gap that can be filled with an IHE.

• Employer Benefits Survey: KFF released its 2021 Employer Health Benefits Survey, which indicated that premiums for employer-sponsored plans rose 4% over the past year to an average $22k. One of the standout metrics from the report was that 39% of employers with over 50 employees made changes to mental health and substance abuse benefits since the beginning of the pandemic, highlighting why so many investors have been directing funds to those spaces.

• Concussion App: A new NIH study suggests that pupillary light reflex measurements performed with smartphone apps might be able to identify concussed patients, improving both diagnosis and treatment. The researchers analyzed data from patients who used the BrightLamp Reflex iPhone app, finding that patients with and without concussions had significantly different pupillary light reflex metrics (e.g. max & min pupil diameter, recovery time).

• Information Blocking: Deputy National Coordinator Steve Posnack has a new blog post that provides a clear overview of the Cures Act’s information blocking provision and its intersection with other laws. If you’re interested in exploring some nuances of the regulation, or want some concrete examples of information blocking exceptions (e.g. denying a patient’s access to their own data in order to reduce risk of physical harm), then the blog is worth a read.

• Nursing Home Telehealth: A new study out of the University of Missouri found that the rapid adoption of telehealth at US nursing homes during the onset of the pandemic had several benefits (reduced stress, improved access), but was not without its drawbacks. Nursing home administrators reported difficulty for residents with cognitive impairment, worsening social isolation, and a preference for in-person encounters, issues that the authors suggest addressing with mitigation strategies for affected patients.

• PillCam FDA: Medtronic’s unique PillCam gained FDA 510(k) approval for at-home endoscopy procedures. The PillCam SB3 @HOME kits are delivered directly to patients, allowing gastroenterologists to remotely examine patients’ small bowels. The FDA clearance adds endoscopy to the growing list of historically in-person procedures that are migrating to the home setting, improving convenience and access to care for a wide range of patients.