Baptist Memorial Health Care VP Tom Barnett on his pick for the most overused digital health term. Becker’s Hospital Review has the complete list from 19 execs.

Startups

Health AI, Unicorns, and Stretched Valuations

In recent years, digital health has been a hot-bed of innovation as companies tackle healthcare inefficiencies with new technology, but the rapidly climbing valuations are causing many to wonder: how much higher can they go?

Healthcare AI raises $8.5b in 2021.

According to a report from CBInsights, private healthcare AI companies have raised $8.5b through the first three quarters of the year, surpassing 2020’s full-year total of $6.6b.

• Q3 2021 was healthcare AI’s strongest quarter ever ($3.2b raised across 149 rounds)
• Top areas of focus include remote patient monitoring, decentralized clinical trials, and home diagnostics.
• AI startups account for approximately 40% of year-to-date digital health funding

Unicorns are no longer endangered.

The term “unicorn” used to indicate that a young company was a successful outlier with a $1b+ valuation, but has recently been diluted as more startups earn the designation.

• CBInsights now counts the total number of “unicorns” at 925 globally, including 13 healthcare AI companies that received the title just last quarter.
• When the term unicorn was coined in 2013, there were fewer unicorns than there are “decacorns” with a $10b+ valuation today (45).
• Devoted Health currently has the highest healthcare company valuation ($12.6b).

How much higher can valuations go?

Digital health companies scaled quickly during the pandemic by taking on outside investment to keep up with the surge in demand, which sent private valuations soaring. Many of these valuations were based on the size of the total addressable market, driven more by potential than current revenue. If these companies fail to capture share, or if health-tech adoption declines as the pandemic wanes, then these expectations might be hard to meet and we could start to see some moderation.

Mobile Apps

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.

Nuance’s Patient Engagement Must-Haves

Consumer demands are shifting, and they’re looking to get more out of their digital health technology. Nuance outlines the 5 must-haves for your patient engagement strategy here.

The Wire

• Platform Preference Study: According to a new survey published in JAMA Network Open, 53% of the 2,080 respondents prefer in-person care to telehealth when expenses are equal. Among those who preferred in-person visits, only 24% would switch to a video visit if in-person care was more expensive. For those who initially preferred a video visit, 62% would switch to in-person visits if video visits were more expensive, highlighting the price-sensitivity of telehealth users.

• Zoom + Cerner: Zoom announced the beta launch of its integration with Cerner’s EHR, which allows providers to perform telehealth visits directly within the platform. The integration aims to help providers more easily engage with patients through in-meeting features, including notifications, test result sharing, and the ability to invite other participants such as family members or interpreters to active sessions.

• Best Buy Strategy: On Best Buy’s recent Q3 earnings call, the company laid out details surrounding its healthcare strategy following its acquisition of Current Health. CEO Corie Barry stated that Best Buy is aiming to “create a holistic care ecosystem” centered around consumer health, active aging, and virtual care, while also revealing the previously-undisclosed financial terms of the Current Health acquisition: $400 million.

• Payvider Survey: A survey of over 100 hospital executives by the Healthcare Financial Management Association found that nearly two-thirds of health systems plan on becoming “payviders” by 2022. The survey found that a majority of health systems are looking to enter into risk-based Medicare Advantage models (59%), employer-based risk contracts (52%), and managed Medicaid services (36%), arrangements that could allow them to capture a larger share of risk premiums.

• Playback Partnership: New York State’s largest healthcare provider Northwell Health announced a multiyear partnership with Playback Health to provide patients with care plans and medical information via clinician-created videos, audio, and text. Playback’s patient engagement platform is designed to allow patients to rewatch and share their care plans with family members or additional providers, a solution that Northwell has been piloting since investing in Playback in 2018.

• Federal Aid: The Biden administration is allocating $1.5b from the coronavirus aid package to address the health care worker shortage in underserved communities. The funding will be directed towards the National Health Service Corps, Nurse Corps, and Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery programs, reportedly impacting over 22k providers.

• Pre-Visit Notes: A recent study by OpenNotes found that involving patients with pre-visit note generation and agenda-setting leads to higher clinician and patient satisfaction, as well as improved engagement during appointments. The study found that 97% (72/74) of providers and 92% of patients thought incorporating shared notes was a good idea, while both groups suggested that adding notifications to the process would improve the experience.

• Ieso Series B: UK-based virtual therapy startup Ieso raised a $53m Series B round ($78m total funding) to advance the development of its digital therapeutics for mental health conditions. Ieso offers text-based CBT for anxiety and depression in addition to therapist-guided treatment for other conditions. The company stated that the new funding will help it create more AI-enabled autonomous therapeutics, which are currently seeking regulatory approval ahead of a US launch.

• Remote Ophthalmology: A study out of Brazil compared the TeleOftalmo ophthalmology telehealth service to in-person visits within the Brazilian public health system, finding that there was no difference in patient-perceived utility between the two groups. The researchers noted that TeleOftalmo could operate with 31% lower expenses than in-person visits once the solution was fully implemented, demonstrating the viability of telehealth for ophthalmology and serving as a possible template for other regions.

• Braid Health & Walmart: Braid Health announced a new partnership with Walmart, providing Walmart Health patients with real-time access to their diagnostic results through the Braid platform (primary care, dental, optometry, radiology, pathology). Braid will be integrated into Walmart’s Epic platform and launch across Walmart Health locations in early 2022.

• Philips Integrates MedChat: Philips integrated MedChat into its Patient Navigation Manager platform, adding MedChat’s live chat and chatbot services to the platform’s existing communication methods (SMS, email, voice). Philips’ recent launch activity reveals a growing focus on helping providers improve their communication and administrative workflows, including Philips’ openDoctor integration earlier this year (imaging appointment patient self-scheduling).