Hydrogen Health CEO Allon Bloch

Primary Care

Hydrogen Health Begins Primary Care Roll Out

When Hydrogen Health launched in April of this year, it set out to bring new digital health tools to consumers and employers, a goal that is coming into fruition with the announcement of the nationwide rollout of its Virtual Primary Care offering.

• Hydrogen Health is a joint venture between K Health, Anthem, and Blackstone, offering payors and employers a platform to integrate text-based chats and telehealth visits into their existing services.

• K Health is Hydrogen’s flagship product, leveraging AI to provide patients with personalized information about how their symptoms compare to others experiencing similar symptoms, while collaborating with affiliated clinicians to improve outcomes.

• Virtual Primary Care was originally piloted by Anthem over the summer, but Hydrogen is now expanding to other large employers and health plans to help reach an additional 10M people by the end of 2022.

The Next Generation of Virtual Primary Care

Virtual Primary Care advances Hydrogen’s strategy of building continuous primary care relationships, complete with end-to-end diagnosis and management of chronic conditions without a reliance on in-person visits.

The approach combines K Health’s digital-first platform with a recently expanded affiliated clinician network, addressing issues with traditional care models such as low doctor availability and long wait times.

If a patient requires a referral to specialty care, a board-certified clinician will help navigate them to appropriate providers, creating an easy way for consumers to transverse digital and in-person care.

You’d be hard pressed to find a digital health startup that isn’t talking about removing friction from healthcare, but Hydrogen Health clearly plans to be a leader among those walking the talk.

Digital Health

Cerebral Raises $300M for Digital Mental Health

Online mental healthcare provider Cerebral announced the close of its $300M Series C round, raising the company’s valuation to $4.8B within two years of its launch.

• Cerebral is a “one-stop shop” for comprehensive digital mental healthcare and wellness, offering support for depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder among other illnesses.

• Monthly subscription plans give members access to Cerebral’s team of over 2,000 clinicians, lowering barriers to care through its virtual platform combining therapy and medication management for full-service support in the home setting.

• The funding will be invested in new services such as schizophrenia management expected to launch in 2022, as well as strategic partnerships and international expansion.

• Advancing partnerships with employers and payors is another priority for the funds, with Cerebral’s new Chief Impact Officer, Simone Biles, enrolling to help on this front after withdrawing from the Tokyo Olympics to focus on her own mental health.

Industry Impact

In-person mental health facilities were heavily impacted by the pandemic, experiencing capacity constraints that frequently led to month-long wait times to see a provider. This created a window for digital providers to address the care gap, with Cerebral reporting that the wait times for its  “instant live” visits are now just over five minutes.

Large amounts of capital continue to be directed towards the mental health space, and more M&A announcements from its well-funded startups are likely to follow as companies like Cerebral aggressively compete for contracts with employers.

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The Wire

CB Insights DH150: CB Insights released its annual Digital Health 150 rankings of the most promising global digital health startups, over half of which were new entrants to the list this year. The DH150 companies underscore many of the biggest trends in healthcare, including the rise of digital therapeutics and virtual care. Mental and behavioral health companies accounted for 24 of this year’s companies, compared to 10 last year, a reflection of the space’s strong momentum heading into 2022.

Bright Health + Cigna: Bright Health announced a $750M capital raise led by Cigna to help its mission of aligning care delivery with financial assistance to drive better outcomes in the consumer retail market. Although Bright Health and Cigna are competitors within the Medicare solutions arena, the new partnership opens the potential for both companies to begin offering services to each other’s clients at a time when many payors are eyeing collaborations with doctor’s groups.

Early COVID Detection: A study published in Nature revealed that an algorithm may be able to alert smartwatch wearers of infections such as COVID-19 before the onset of symptoms. Researchers fed the algorithm with smartwatch data from over 3k participants, successfully detecting COVID-19 in 80% of cases where a patient tested positive. The median alert time was three days prior to the onset of symptoms, and 73% of participants found the frequency of alerts acceptable, suggesting potential for the technology as a mass-market solution.

Robin Series B: Robin recently closed a $40M Series B round ($65M total funding) to bring its Robin Assistant to new markets and expand support for existing users. Unlike the software-first strategies of competitors like Suki, the Robin Assistant is an egg-shaped device that sits in the exam room and ambiently generates the documentation during patient visits, offloading administrative tasks for providers while ensuring compliance with all current regulations.

Clinician Burnout: A report from KLAS Research found that both physicians and nurses are reporting higher levels of burnout than ever before, with an all-time-high 33% of clinicians reporting some degree of burnout (up from 25% pre-pandemic). Not only is burnout increasing, but the rate of increase has also accelerated as the Delta variant applied pressure to health systems throughout the second half of the year, causing nearly 20% of clinicians to cite COVID-19 as a top contributor to burnout.

connectRN Funding: Tech-enabled healthcare staffing company connectRN raised $76M to help expand the reach of its scheduling platform that allows nurses to find and apply for shifts while networking with other clinicians. Home care provider Amedisys invested in the funding round and will adopt the platform for its clinician network, which connectRN expects to result in 240% organic revenue growth for 2021.

Telehealth Privacy Concerns: A Kaspersky survey of 389 health-IT executives found that 81% of respondents have data privacy concerns surrounding telehealth, with over half reporting cases where patients refused to complete a virtual appointment due to mistrust of the technology. The researchers suggest taking a proactive approach to issues such as unpatched vulnerabilities and weak email security to prevent reputational damage to organizations and telehealth as a whole.

CVS Primary Care: At CVS Health’s first investor day since the beginning of the pandemic, CEO Karen Lynch outlined the company’s plans to integrate its pharmacy, home care, and digital solutions with its soon-to-be-launched primary care clinics. While it remains unclear how many brick-and-mortar clinics CVS intends to open, Lynch stated that the goal of the strategy is to center care around consumers while capturing a larger share of downstream healthcare revenue.

Chatbot Study: A study of 237 adult patients out of the UK found that chatbots were viewed as unacceptable as a consultation source for severe health issues, although the acceptability was significantly higher for stigmatised issues where sensitive personal information needs to be disclosed. For low stigma health issues, physicians were reported as the most acceptable consultation source, followed by doctor-chatbot combinations, with the authors calling for further research to establish a set of health topics most suitable for chatbot-led interventions

Alexa Together: Amazon announced the launch of its new Alexa Together elder care service that expands the functionality of Echo devices with new features such as fall detection and emergency assistance. For a $20 monthly subscription, Alexa Together allows family members to receive notifications through the Alexa app whenever a loved one falls or calls for help, while also enabling remote assist features such as setting reminders or creating checklists.