August Digital Health Newsletter

What’s in This Month’s Newsletter

• ? Fueling Founders: If you’re not familiar with the term “platform companies”, it's a hot term for a type of co. that continues to gain traction with investors.
• ? Healthie Highlights: New marketplace partners including Zocdoc ! Plus healthtech happy hour tonight Thursday 8/15 ?in NYC.
• ?? Healthie Customers in the News: Dreavita is boosting mental health screening compliance with Healthie & Kintsugi.
• ?? Infrastructure Corner: Epic makes it easier for patients to access their own medical records.
• ??: Unwinding the Bubble: Walgreens considers selling its $5B acquisition of VillageMD from 2021, which incurred a $6B loss in Q2 ‘24 alone.

? Fueling Founders

Summit Health Partners recently released a free report highlighting the opportunity for “platform companies” in healthcare services/digital health. Put simply, platform companies is the new term for network effects: companies whose value prop grows stronger the more supply/demand passes through their platform.?

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Why this matters:

?? The evolution of a term reflects the evolution of a market. Post-Covid and 12+ years into the digitization of healthcare records, we are in a world where there’s (1) enough data ?? and (2) enough digital connections ?? to make platform companies viable.

There are fads in terms of value creation in healthcare - for example, there was a time when VBC (Value-Based Care) was new and everyone was trying to take Patient Risk ??, even if they weren’t qualified. Learning when to ride the wave ?? and when to stay away is a key skill.

Healthcare business life cycles typically evolve in similar ways (e.g., software companies getting into services) ??. We’ll start to see more companies include “platform” plays in their life cycle.

Healthcare lingo evolves every few years ?? so it’s good to know the latest, even if you’re not fundraising. Remember when “Payvider” ??, “SDOH” (Social Determinants of Health) ??, and other terms were new on the scene?

? Healthie Highlights

Fun updates from our end

Healthie partnered with Zocdoc! ?? Now, provider availability is pushed in real time to Zocdoc increasing transparency and patient access.?

Key Benefits of Our Integration:

• ?? Real-Time Availability: Automatically updates provider availability on Zocdoc, allowing patients to view and select from available appointment slots with ease.
• ?? Seamless Syncing: When appointments are booked through Zocdoc, the details are instantly transferred to the provider Healthie calendar, keeping everything synchronized and current.

More from Healthie Marketplace:?

• Healthie added One Body, a verification benefits company, as a new Harbor partner. One Body uses a combination of phone calls, AI and automation to provide you with the most comprehensive verification reports.
• Anaphero, a physician-led company building AI voice assistants for medical clinics also joined Healthie Harbor. With Anaphero you can create custom assistants to answer the phone and call patients on behalf of your clinic to book appointments, answer basic questions, or collect information ahead of an appointment.

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Healthie API ??

• As an API-first platform, Healthie serves as business critical, care critical infrastructure for the next generation of healthcare. Check out our July API News & Roadmap for updates on what’s gone live, upcoming API releases, and the introduction of a new methodology for our GraphQL - Versioning.?
• Our 2024-08-01 Version includes GraphQL standardization for dates and IDs and can be opted-in by any Healthie user.?

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If you’ll be in NYC tonight Thursday 8/15, join us for HealthTech Happy Hour at Apollo 360 Health! We’re collaborating with Healthcare Homies and health haus to bring together an incredible group of healthtech innovators, founders, and operators. Come for the food and drinks, stay for the conversation. Save your spot.?

??? Healthie Customers in the News

Dreavita Counseling, Coaching, and Consulting has seen impressive results by integrating Kintsugi voice analysis tech into their EHR, Healthie. The impact? 100% patient compliance with depression screenings, improved patient satisfaction ??, and happier providers ??.?

Why this matters: Voice analysis tech like Kintsugi's is transforming how mental health assessments are conducted, making them more accessible and consistent. Dreavita’s success ?? shows how third-party integrations can enhance both patient experience and provider workflows.?

What to watch for: How will Next Gen healthcare leverage modern digital health screening and assessment tools like Kintsugi? As tech integration becomes more seamless, we might see a broader shift in how mental health services are delivered.

Provider Insight: Andrea Piazza, LMHC, Founder & Owner of Dreavita, says, “The frequency and consistency of patient screenings have improved notably. The API ensures that every patient undergoes the same rigorous screening process, which has standardized our assessments and reduced variability.” -?? Read the full case study here.

?? Infrastructure Corner

“Health-care software vendor Epic Systems on Thursday announced that individuals will be able to release their health data to apps of their choice, giving them more direct control over their medical information.” CNBC Article

Why this matters:

• It’s been 15+ years of interoperability work by the government; after the milestone of HIE launches, TEFCA represents the next big leap forward ??. QHINs like Epic are starting to accelerate this broader TEFCA adoption simply because of their size.? Need a primer on the lingo here? Check out Elion’s blog post.
• As Brendan Keeler points out, this meaningfully makes it easier for patients to get their own data ??
• If you think of our government’s interoperability efforts as a Call Option … it's been a long time coming, but things are certainly starting to pay off!?

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What to watch for:?

• How will the industry follow? ?? It’s one thing for patients to get/authorize data access in a B2C format, but will there be any follow-ons in terms of B2B data release??

• Rebuttal: Oracle seems to think that Epic is the biggest interoperability blocker ??. It remains to be seen.?

• ?? It’s been 15+ years of interoperability work by the government; after the milestone of HIE launches, TEFCA represents the next big leap forward. ?? QHINs like Epic are starting and will accelerate this broader TEFCA adoption simply because of their size. ??

?? Unwinding the Bubble

In this new section of the newsletter, we look at business moves made during the 2020-2022 Healthcare investment bubble, and how those are faring today

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?? “After Billions in Losses, Walgreens Doesn’t Want to Own VillageMD” - Forbes Article

Context:

• Walgreens made a $5B+ investment in VillageMD in October 2021, when capital was flowing ???
• In November 2022, VillageMD purchased Summit-CityMD for $8B+ (fyi in 2019, CityMD (urgent care chain) merged with Summit Health (multi-specialty group), so it got even larger)
• In Q2 2024, Walgreens took a $6B hit ?? from its VillageMD investment

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Why this unwinding matters:

• At its peak ?? (before closing locations), Walgreens owned more than 680 provider locations in 26 markets. The conventional thinking at the time was that retail healthcare was poised to take off, and that retail-based healthcare could even take on risk (i.e., participate in value-based care)
• Those bets have not paid off. It’s not just Walgreens - Walmart announced in April this year that Walmart Health was closing and they will no longer operate health centers.?
• While drugstores ?? and every-day healthcare items are purchased in retail settings, true healthcare turned out to be a headfake. Yet many of us thought this would be a future for the industry!?
• We’re always in some kind of bubble (e.g., AI right now). One of the benefits of our industry is that it moves slowly and deliberately - it’s a feature not a bug. Be wary of domino investment patterns.

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That's all for this month!

Team @ Healthie