Roberto Rodriguez

One key reason why healthcare technologies like AI, telemedicine, and software haven't structurally lowered costs or broadened access for the entire system after decades of experimentation (excluding pure financial engineering of payer contracts) is the limited reimagining of care delivery itself, with asynchronous telemedicine as a notable exception. In the same way that digitizing physical paper failed to exploit the capabilities of a new computing medium for word processing, hosting physician-patient conversations over video does not transform the actual delivery of care. In telemedicine, many of the inputs (e.g., clinician time) and therefore cost structures of in-person care persist, which is why we often see fee-for-service telemedicine companies struggle to achieve economies of scale (i.e., growing revenues non-linearly while growing costs linearly). Until we deconstruct the components of a medical appointment – from intake and triage, to chart review, history gathering, physical examination, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up – we will continue to be underwhelmed by the disconnect between the transformative potential of these technologies and real-world patient/system impact. I’m optimistic that the emergence of reliable and performant medical AI agents will urge us to perform this deconstruction and redesign the fundamental building blocks of a “medical appointment.”

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Here's another fundraising roundup spotted in the healthcare wilds 👀 🍃 ✅ Sword Health raised $130M (new valuation: $3B). ✅ Better Health raised $14M to deploy expanded payer partnerships. ✅ Alzheon, Inc. | Preserving Future Memories raised $100M Series E to advance development & commercialization of its Alzheimer’s treatment. ✅ CinRx Pharma raised $73M to continue its ‘Hub and Spoke’ model of startup formation. ✅ Eko Health raised $41M to scale AI-driven heart and lung disease detection. ✅ Anterior (formerly Co:Helm) secured a $20M Series A to unlock admin efficiencies for healthcare payers. ✅ SamaCare raised a $17M Series B to scale specialty drug prior authorization platform. ✅ Plenful secured a $17M Series A to streamline pharmacy operations with AI-powered workflow automation. ✅ Grayce raised a $10.4M Series A led by Maveron amid a caregiving crisis. ✅ Stitch Employment Services Inc PEO raised $8.75M in seed to support independent medical practices. ✅ Posterity Health secured $6M to fund expansion and technology acceleration. ✅ Sware raised $6M to accelerate life sciences innovation by automating FDA-mandated software validation. ✅ Keragon raised $3M, as announced in @Conno Christou’s LinkedIn post. As always, if I missed you, let me know! Each week I'm spotlighting an innovative healthcare startup. I just ask for a bit more transparency. All submissions are confidential; submit yours here 👇 https://lnkd.in/gF4DrAvJ Looking for more fundraising roundups, alongside healthcare industry news and analysis? Subscribe to Hospitalogy, my 2x/week newsletter. Join 33K+ other investors, executives, and healthcare professionals: https://lnkd.in/g-nfRqW6

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As the discourse shifts from models to compound AI systems / agents, we need better AI benchmarks to evaluate multi-modal and multi-step task performance, especially in healthcare and life sciences. When we wrote the first paper demonstrating ChatGPT's performance on the USMLE, we chose the US Medical Licensing Exam as a benchmark for accessibility, speed, and ease. This benchmark was never intended to represent AI model performance on real-world clinical tasks. Today, I still see so many research teams and startups using benchmarks (like the USMLE) that are ill-fitted for assessing the true clinical or scientific performance and utility of the models they are developing for real-world contexts. Benchmark development may be seen as a "less sexy" area of research, but it is of paramount importance. Years after the rise of the transformer, we still lack adequate benchmarks for so many single-step tasks in biomedicine. With compound AI systems (i.e., architectures that integrate multiple AI models to perform complex tasks) emerging, we need new benchmarks for agentic behaviors. I'd argue that developing an agent with novel capabilities without at least proposing a companion benchmark (if an industry standard does not yet exist) may hinder the adoption of said agent, especially for high-stakes workflows. Designing more benchmarks that capture/simulate real-world clinical and scientific workflows will help us mitigate the major discrepancies observed between in silico and in vivo performance and better support safe + effective deployment of AI in biomedicine. There are already brilliant people focused here, and we need more. DMs are open if you're researching or working in this area of multi-step/multi-modal benchmarking in healthcare and life sciences! #healthcare #ai #artificialintelligence #generativeai

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LSI, BioscienceLA, #LAMedtechweek, and HLTH's #VIVE2024 event resulted in the latest GTM Pulse Check offering which has successfully taken off! As a result, I am continuing on last week's series of go-to-market tactics. Crafting a robust marketing plan is essential for medical device companies to thrive in today's world. By leveraging these outlined sections, organizations can optimize their marketing strategies and drive meaningful impact.This post takes a step back to outline the sections of a marketing plan. Read on 👇🏼 Looking for support in creating your marketing plan?  Let’s chat! Book here 👉🏼 https://lnkd.in/g92YA9WK _____ P.S. Enjoying my content? ⚕️Follow me for more tips on medical device commercialization and repost to share with your network. #medtech #gotomarket #medicaldevices #healthcareinnovation

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Should you sell your practice to a VC-Backed MSO Startup? tldr: - new VC-backed startups are forming MSOs to roll up independent practices - The pitch is physicians receive early liquidity from the roll up and are granted ESOP shares that can be used for retirement - Problem is the use of ESOPs with independent practices is not a new concept and has been used with large group practices since the 70's - ESOPs do not grant full ownership and in order for the shares to be valuable for retirement, the practice needs to run the same if not better post roll up - With VC-backed startups being primarily operated by non-physicians with zero clinical or medical practice experience, the likelihood of this happening is extremely low making the entire concept high risk However, there is a viable path for continued ownership + liquidity for independent practices. Check out the article to learn more. ⤵ https://lnkd.in/gmGvTYwP

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Investing in companies that fill needs for health systems is a growth opportunity for both delivery organizations and start ups. Some systems are jumping in on their own, while others are partnering with like minded systems or with established VC firms. While this is a relatively new trend for systems, health plans have been making similar bets for many years. The benefits of becoming a health system portfolio company can be significant. Data, access to beta populations and real world coaching can be extremely beneficial. Start ups get mentoring and systems have to ability to leverage outside resources to solve relevant business problems. I predict a booming business!

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Blue Health Intelligence, a data analytics and software company, undertook an evaluation of almost 170,000 unique GLP-1 users for weight loss, notes less than half of those prescribed stay on the medication for 12 weeks or more. Younger adults were less likely to continue the drug, whereas those who were prescribed the medication by an endocrinologist or obesity medicine specialist were more likely to continue for longer. Indeed, this data states 30% of patients dropped out of treatment after the first four weeks, and 58% at 12 weeks. Those who dropped out are unlikely to achieve clinically meaningful weight loss.  The likelihood of continuance was further exacerbated for those with health inequities or who lived in underserved health regions. The data comes from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association members participating in Plans that provided coverage of these products, from 2014 through to end of 2023. Razia Hashmi, vice president for clinical affairs at Blue Cross Blue Shield wants to ‘…paint a clearer picture of what makes somebody successful.’ The missing piece here is why the patients stopped – side effects, failure to achieve initial weight loss, stigma and discrimination, or coverage issues related to cost and access. My longtime friend, colleague and bariatric surgeon at Stanford University, Dr. Dan Azagury rightly states ‘…The goal is for patients to stay on this for a significant amount of time. Most likely… beyond 12 weeks.’ https://lnkd.in/ediQskQx

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🚨 Attention all Health Tech Founders, Product Leaders, and Investors! 🚨 ​ The ZIRP era is long gone. ​ Growing revenue and attracting investment in healthcare has shifted dramatically. The new currency for healthcare product companies is undeniable proof that your product delivers results. So what should every healthcare product company have on their roadmap? ​ 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐬. ​ The problem is that this process has previously been super confusing to understand. If you wing it, it’s costly to execute. And usually it’s usually explained in a way that's dry and overly academic. ​ We believe generating evidence is so important for healthcare companies that we have boiled down the 80/20 of what you need to know, into a highly actionable 1-hour workshop called ​ 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬-𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬 ​ 🔬 This workshop will teach you: How to generate the RIGHT type of evidence How to do it COST-EFFECTIVELY How to leverage this evidence to boost your revenue ​ 🎤 Leading the workshop is 𝐃𝐫. Ben Rosner, MD, PhD—a luminary in digital health research who has successfully applied these strategies in real-world product companies. Dr. Rosner not only understands the science but also the practical business implications, making him the perfect guide. ​ 💡Don't miss this opportunity to learn how to generate evidence that creates revenue. 📆 Date: May 2, 2024 ​ ​ Time: 3PM ET💡 ​ Spaces are limited, Get your spot today 👇🏻

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In a recent report, only ~20% of healthcare executives claimed that they fully trust their data. At Fullsteam Health, we think that % is way too low. We're committed to reversing this trend with our automated data curation platform which was initially developed at Duke to address this very issue and allow for fast access to data that is needed and that has been cleaned, grouped, and continually monitored. https://lnkd.in/epWvPTDV

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Digital Health: Countervailing Forces… Consider this: over the past five years nearly $78 billion has been invested in digital health companies and yet just this past year over 20 million Americans were taken off the Medicaid rolls. Certain policy changes can be very damaging, to say nothing of other human-induced factors like pollution, climate change, wars, inadequate housing and education, and hunger which have staggering implications on health. At times it can feel like bailing water out of a sinking ship.    The overall venture capital activity in 1Q24 was a relatively muted $36.6 billion across 2,882 companies for an average round size of $12.7 million, as compared to $51.6 billion and 4,026 companies in 1Q23. Notwithstanding that the level of investment activity in the healthcare technology sector has receded from the $30 billion highwater mark in 2021 to a more manageable $10 – $12 billion annual pace, the opportunities to “transform the business of healthcare” remain obvious and acute. Arguably, the 2021 hangover still lingers in the healthcare technology sector as companies that raised too much capital at too high a price work to sort out challenging cap tables. Out of the 2021 mosh pit of too many companies, it appears that the sector is in an “Emerging Winners” phase that will drive companies with narrow and/or incomplete offerings to combine or shut down.   Thoughts on what to expect for the remainder of the year… https://lnkd.in/egy7Afhg Flare Capital Partners #digitalhealth

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Exciting news from Monica Chopra, Jeffrey De Flavio, MD, Samantha Adelberg, and the rest of the Auxa Health team as they officially announce their $5.2M Seed round. The team's deep industry expertise and drive for change have led them to solve critical infrastructural friction to providing quality healthcare and adoption of value-based care. Auxa's AI benefit navigation platform is simplifying the complexities of healthcare by streamlining all of the fragmented and siloed data and information to make it actionable in real-time for healthcare organizations. For the 70% of Americans who aren't getting access to the health and social care benefits they deserve, Auxa's solution will be pivotal in enabling equitable care. We're thrilled to partner with co-investors Zeal Capital Partners, AlleyCorp, Laconia, and Chaac Ventures on this journey and look to share many more milestones ahead. Cc K50 Ventures, Ryan Bloomer, Daniel Vásquez, Nick Talwar, Stefanie Ng https://lnkd.in/dPDY7-Db

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Today’s healthcare policymakers are focused on their favorite boogeymen: physician compensation, biopharma, and new medical technologies. The real villains are ‘benefit managers’ and administrators’ who lurk in the shadows extracting 25 cents of every healthcare dollar. The reality is, in fact, in plain view if you look: administrators have grown 3200% while physicians have grown 200% over the last two decades; physician compensation is down, net of inflation. Admin comp is up, way up. PBM (pharmacy ‘benefit’ ‘management’) revenue has outstripped Pharma revenue growth in the last 20 years. Pharma extends life and improves quality of life, and extends working lives of taxpayers. PBMs - who knows… People grasp onto things they understand like doctors and drug companies. ‘Administrators’, ACOs, VBC, VBC, PBMs, spread pricing are more challenging to grasp and are allowed to obsfucate people about what they do from the shadows. America’s healthcare landscape is burdened by ‘administrators’ and ‘managers’ who extract rents from an otherwise highly innovative system. https://lnkd.in/gK3mCme4 https://lnkd.in/gPC9vKB9 DocVader puts it aptly: ‘thoughts and prayers’ https://lnkd.in/gUfnSXGV Technology is one answer. Physician and nurse leaders are another. If your company is about literally decimating administrative costs in the back office or front office of healthcare, I applaud you. As Americans we need this. Return care to the people and shrink administration and management bloat across the system. Medicare deserves this and so do the commercially ‘insured’.

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Telemedicine is dead. Or is it? 📉🩺 We've seen the meteoric rise and fall of giants like Teladoc and other telemedicine companies. The pandemic era sparked unprecedented growth in virtual care, but what happened next? Declining stock prices, wavering investor confidence, and questions about the sustainability of this healthcare model. Don't equate a failed business model (Teladoc was cozy under the sheets with insurance companies and forget to take care of doctors) with a failure of telemedicine. So let's shift gears. 🚀 Telemedicine isn't just a trend—it's a powerful tool that should be synonymous with modern healthcare. 🌟 **The Benefits**: - **Accessibility**: Reach patients in remote areas with ease. - **Convenience**: Eliminate the need for travel and reduce wait times. - **Efficiency**: Streamline processes, from booking to billing. Imagine this: providing guidance to patients, offering second opinions, and educating the masses—all without the friction of traditional office visits. 🏥💡 Telemedicine is here to stay, evolving to meet the needs of our digital age. As we navigate its integration, we must focus on: - **Technology access**: Ensuring everyone can connect. - **Regulatory clarity**: Harmonizing laws across regions. - **Data security**: Keeping patient information safe. Let’s lead the charge in embracing telemedicine as a vital part of healthcare’s future. The fact remains we have an asymmetry between where doctors live and where patients have access to care. Until we train more doctors, make living and working in rural America more attractive, we are going to have to embrace alternative ways of providing care. Telemedicine is one of the solutions. Regardless of Teladoc's stock price. Together, we can create a more connected, efficient, and equitable system for all. 🌍💼 #Telemedicine #DigitalHealth #HealthcareInnovation #PatientCare #FutureOfHealthcare #telehealth #healthcare

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A whirlwind of activity last week at the America's Physician Groups conference. Lots of solid insights shared by health system leaders. Some notable thoughts: +++ Artificial intelligence is intelligent in different ways: By now, we all know ai has a diverse set of use cases, incorporated in different applications and tools. But there are fundamental differences in how the intelligence itself is brought to life. Examples include: - Predictive AI, used to forecast future outcomes by leveraging historical data. Shout out to UCLA’s CKD/ESRD early intervention protocol (Joycee Berin) and Diagnostic Robotics’ intelligence care post-dicharge journeys (Kira Radinsky) - Protocolized AI, used to automating a user’s administrative load by using a set of detailed, pre-defined rule sets. Thanks to ARC for sharing their experience using Elaborate 's automated outpatient lab summaries (Manish Naik) - Generative AI, used to create new content. Great overview of ambient documentation at MGB as well as Cedars’ Sinai talking through its medical ontology model powering acute triage (Caroline Goldzweig) Across system leaders and experts, there was clear agreement that the first step to implementing intelligence intelligently is defining the ���jobs to be done’. That way, internal and external stakeholders are clear on what they're solving for when they architect the solution.  +++ Scaling AI takes time and rigorous observation: Market leaders describe a phased pilot approach that allows clinicians to build confidence and system leaders to measure ROI before deploying systemwide. Loved hearing Rebecca Mishuris outline MGB’s novel approach of piloting two solutions against one another, to pressure test implementation, workflow, and value creation. +++ Proving ROI continues to be challenging: Lots of vendors using lots of different metrics to prove value, but the majority of leaders agreed that estimating the ROI of these new tools today is part science, part art. Demonstrating the ROI of the “soft” metrics around provider burnout and retention seemed to be a big opportunity, especially for investment in more efficient primary care and PCP wellbeing. After all, PCPs drive referrals to specialty-level care (and higher reimbursements) for health systems. Appreciated Anurang Revri's overview of how working team setup can also impact ROI estimates. +++ Value-based care = tools + humanity: VBC will require not only implementing tools to support clinical documentation, risk capture, upcoding, etc, but also humanizing interactions to engage patients. Countless examples, but one that made me smile was a depression focused chat bot responding in the following interaction: - Context: post-discharge check in Bot: Hi Freida, how are you feeling today after your surgery?  Patient: I’m having a tough time, am in a lot of pain.  Bot: Well, it can’t be that bad, I’m sure it will get better with a positive mindset!    🤣 🤣 🤣 Can't wait for next go-around!

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Privia Health had a solid start to 2024 with continued growth and execution. One notable trend is Privia's pullback on capitation. Privia wants to be thoughtful about taking full risk - in markets and scenarios where it makes sense (and it's profitable of course). Flexibility is built into Privia's operating model, and you can see the levers being pulled in Q1 and in 2024 given significant MA headwinds. You can see the pullback in value-based care revenue in Q1 2024 in a chart below. By the way - what do you guys think of the new one-pager format?? If you like these, you'll love my newsletter. Subscribe here! https://lnkd.in/gniNmHvz

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Here’s your recap of last week’s health IT news 🗞️ 👇 🥼AI Clinician Assistant • Suki : The AI scribe announced an SDK and APIs enabling developers to integrate ambient documentation into their applications. • Apricot: The gen AI pre-seed startup focused on reducing documentation overhead for home health nurses launched. • Tampa General Hospital + Palantir Technologies: The health system and the software platform are partnering to develop an AI care coordination and decision support platform. ☎️ AI Contact Center • Mediktor + Sensely: The AI symptom triage solution acquired the conversational member engagement platform. 📋  Patient Administration • Oracle (Cerner) + Loyal: The EHR now offers integration with the patient engagement solution through its Healthcare Marketplace. • HubSpot: The CRM and marketing platform announced it will now offer HIPAA support and sensitive data tools. 🏥 Provider and Practice Administration • LeanTaaS: The AI-enabled facility management solution released updates including: mobile-first live view of OR schedule, predictive staffing automation, and a gen AI solution allowing decision-makers to glean staffing and scheduling insights. ⚕️ Clinical Operations • Keragon: The HIPAA-compliant automation platform launched out of stealth with a $3M funding round. 🧑‍💻 Virtual and At-Home Care • AvaSure + CLEW: The virtual care platform is partnering with the AI-powered remote patient monitoring and analytics company to improve patient outcomes. 🍎 VBC • Evolent + Machinify, Inc.: The VBC org acquired AI Authorization assets from the AI operating system platform.    • ProgenyHealth, LLC + Wildflower Health: The maternity and NICU case management solution is partnering with the women’s health VBC enabler to “help health plans fill gaps, collapse silos and integrate into existing clinical and operational workflows.”    • Health Catalyst + Carevīve: The population health data and analytics company has completed acquisition of the cancer care management solution. 🧠 Food for Thought: • This article provided an interesting look at Nebraska Medicine’s efforts to design a next-generation hospital room, including the four technologies they’ve selected to anchor their work. https://lnkd.in/em-u-a5v    • McKinsey released a survey of 200 global health system executives on their investment priorities. Among the notable findings, 88% listed AI as an area of high potential impact, yet only 40% have implemented any solution thus far and over 20% don’t have plans to invest in the next two years. https://lnkd.in/eK3CeqQ2

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Why Physicians Should Consider Investing in HealthTech Venture Funds As a physician deeply entrenched in the world of healthcare, I've observed firsthand the transformative impact of technology on our industry. From telemedicine to AI-driven diagnostics, the pace of innovation is staggering—and it’s only accelerating. Today, I want to share why we, as physicians, should consider investing in HealthTech venture funds 👇 - Driving Innovation: By investing in HealthTech funds, we're not just placing capital; we're actively propelling the future of medicine. Our investment helps fund the technologies that could one day revolutionize patient care and our daily medical practices. - Insider Expertise: Who better to understand the potential of a new medical technology than those of us in the field? Our clinical experience enables us to assess the feasibility and potential impact of innovations, making us well-suited to make informed investment decisions. - Spreading Impact Beyond Practice: While we impact lives daily through direct patient care, investing in a HealthTech fund allows us to extend our influence by supporting solutions that reach a global patient base, potentially benefiting millions. - Financial Returns: HealthTech is one of the fastest-growing sectors, and investing in this area offers a valuable opportunity for substantial financial returns. Diversifying our portfolios beyond traditional stocks and real estate into venture funds can offer a unique balance of risk and reward. - Personal and Professional Growth: Engaging with the startup and tech ecosystem exposes us to new ideas and business strategies, broadening our horizons beyond clinical practice. This can lead to professional growth and networking opportunities that may not otherwise arise. I encourage my fellow healthcare professionals to look into HealthTech venture funds as a way to participate in the broader spectrum of healthcare innovation. Our expertise and capital can play a crucial role in shaping the future of the industry. ---- To join our vibrant community of 2,000+ healthtech experts and thought leaders, click the link in my profile bio.

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