Things & Thinks-Issue L

After wrapping last year on the 49th edition, happy to provide this year's first round up in the 50th edition of Things & Thinks. The first month of the year has already been quite busy and a lot has happened over the last few weeks on the digital health front. Here are some interesting happenings-

??Research Digest

How AI Could Turn Data From the Best Medical Systems Into Better Care for All

This perspective in the Journal of American Medical Association, by Atul Butte, provides interesting insights into gathering real-world evidence using diverse datasets that are getting available and advancements in machine learning.

• He thinks there is near 100% deployment of electronic health records in the United States, but in general, nobody’s looking at any of that data.
• He believe that outcomes from real-world data are worthy of study to ensure that all of our patients are benefiting from all these magical devices and drugs the same way they did in the trials. These are simple questions to ask, but incredibly hard to get answers for.
• He uses a recent study in JAMA Network Open as an example-

We looked at all secondary therapeutics past metformin for type 2 diabetes. We were able to run a massive comparative effectiveness study across all of those, pair-by-pair, looking at each category of second-line therapeutics to figure out what are the advantages and disadvantages to each.

Health systems risk being reduced to their core

This assessment by Gist resonates quite a bit with decentralization of healthcare, at least from a US perspective. They make some interesting points-

• Beyond inflation and high labor costs, health systems are struggling because competitors—ranging from vertically integrated payers to PE-backed physician groups—are effectively stripping away profitable services and moving them to lower-cost care sites.
• The tandem forces of technological advancement, policy changes, and capital investment have unlocked the ability of disruptors to enter market segments once considered safely within health system control.
• While health systems’ most-exposed services, like telemedicine and primary care, were never key revenue sources (although they are key referral drivers), there are now more competitors than ever providing diagnostics and ambulatory surgery, which health systems have relied on to maintain their margins.
• Moving forward, traditional systems run the risk of being “crammed down” into a smaller portfolio of (largely unprofitable) services: the emergency department, intensive care unit, and labor and delivery.
• Health systems cannot support their operations by solely providing these core services, yet this is the future many will face if they don’t emulate the strategies of disruptors by embracing the site-of-care shift, prioritizing high-margin procedures, rethinking care delivery within the hospital, and implementing lower-cost care models that enable them to compete on price.

??Digital Healthcare News

#GenAI and #BigTech in #Healthcare

In a recently released pre-print on arxiv, Google researchers claimed that AMIE (Articulate Medical Intelligence Explorer), a Large Language Model (LLM) based AI system optimized for diagnostic dialogue, demonstrated greater diagnostic accuracy and superior performance on 28 of 32 axes according to specialist physicians and 24 of 26 axes according to patient actors.

NVIDIA and Amgen will build artificial intelligence (AI) models on the AI model-building platform, named Freyja, at the deCODE genetics headquarters in Reykjavik, Iceland. The system aims to analyse extensive human datasets for drug targets and biomarker discovery, facilitating diagnostics for disease progression and regression.

Tech in Digital Health

Quest Diagnostics is partnering with Google's Fitbit in a pilot study-Wearables for Metabolic Health (WEAR-ME)-that will combine Fitbit's behavioral and biometric data with health information from Quest Diagnostics' lab tests to garner insights on assessing metabolic health and possibly preventing disease.

At JPM24, Amazon announced plans to expand individuals' access to digital health benefits, tapping chronic care management company Omada Health as a partner.

Amazon Pharmacy will pilot A consultation program to provide pharmacy consultation services to One Medical providers, specifically for those that see high risk and complex care patients through initiatives like the One Medical Seniors at Home program.

Uber Health will use Socially Determined's analytics data to help Medicaid, Medicare Advantage and commercial insurance patients access food, prescriptions and transportation.

Samsung Electronics rolled out a new Medications tracking feature on the Samsung Health app to help users manage their medications and improve adherence that helps keep track of their prescription and over-the-counter medications.

Pharma/Device Brief

Eli Lilly launched digital health experience LillyDirect that promises to give patients with diabetes, migraines and obesity access to care providers and home delivery of Lilly medications via third-party vendors.

Caris announced collaboration with AbbVie and Flatiron to bring AI-powered genomic database to drug development

Funding, Deals, Mergers & acquisitions

SmithRx, a digital first pharmacy benefits management (PBM) company, raised $60M.

Elephas, an oncology-focused diagnostics platform that aims to predict a patient's response to immunotherapy using metabolic imaging.?raised $55M.

Artisight, an AI-powered platform designed to help streamline hospitals workflows, raised $42M.

Turquoise Health, selling software to reduce the complexity of healthcare pricing data, raised $30M.

AiCure, an AI and advanced data analytics company focused on clinical trials, raised $16M.

Oxford Medical Simulation– providing VR healthcare training – raised $12.6M.

Consumer Digital Health & Other News

Headspace started integrating its mindfulness content and its clinical mental health services into one platform , after its merger with Ginger 2.5 years back.

Diagnostics player Qvin received FDA clearance for its menstrual blood testing product for women's health.

??Longread of the Month

WHO recently released a lengthy report-'Ethics and governance of artificial intelligence for health: Guidance on large multi-modal models', going into details for several use-cases in healthcare for LLMs.

??Tweet of the Month

This tweet thread about issues with 23andme's recent handling of data breaches was quite informative!

??Chart of the Month

This chart from a recent report by McKinsey Health Institute and World Economic Forum on Closing the Women’s Health Gap is an eye-opener about the wide gap between men’s health and women’s health and its impact by age group.

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