Senan Ebrahim, MD, PhD

Someone broke down the estimated costs of a $15 Sweetgreen salad. We need these cost graphics for digital health to help future founders. Especially for tech enabled cos, the greatest cost is labor. Much of the "value created" is in curation and matching, which means the gross margins are reliant on labor arbitrage. Pay someone $X, but get paid $X+Y% per visit. The challenge with healthcare is that you often have to pick one of two business models: 1. specialized, low volume, high cost, low gross margin % 2. generalized, high volume, low cost, high gross margin % I'd argue founders should focus on gross dollars over the lifetime of the customer (like Jeff Bezos said) instead of gross margin %'s, but we'll leave that for another time. The challenge is that many tech enabled digital health cos have high cost of goods sold (labor) and moderately high product, design, and engineering budgets. We must build differentiated solutions for patients, clinicians, and clients to be out incumbents, however, we're realizing that companies are ultimately valued on the discounted value of future cash flows. And the high SG&A costs at most organizations might be inbalanced to the unit economics of the business. I'm not sure the math pencils out for everyone unfortunately. But I'm just a guy on the internet, would love to hear the thoughts from those smarter than I (you!). Comment below. --- p.s. I have no idea the accuracy of the graphic and not an investor in Sweetgreen. Cheers. Credit: David Crowther

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Fresh off the press: Bright news on the Digital Health/mHealth space! The Catalan Public Health System is creating a framework to make apps and digital services accessible to its 8M+ lives. This includes their own relational apps (read: your chart, appointments, prescriptions, etc) but also therapeutic apps created by 3rd parties. Today they have published the Best Practices Guide to Develop Health Assets for the Public Health System (Guia de Bones Pràctiques per desenvolupar actius digitals per a la ciutadania). Link in comments The guide provides a framework with the requirements to have apps and other digital services integrated (and covered!) by this public payer. All of us in Digital Health understand the need for structure and transparency when dealing with payers. Carme Pratdepàdua Bufill and team at TIC Salut Social Foundation, and Joan Guanyabens Yolanda Portero Elisenda Serra Masip thanks for your leadership in delivering this exhaustive and necessary work. This spirit of ecosystem and partnership is rare in this industry. Can't wait to see the impact this will make in providing equitable access to health and better outcomes for the citizens of Catalunya. #healthequity #accesstohealth #DTX #digitalhealth #publichealth

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I’m a lucky man - I get to talk about stuff I care about with people that feel the same way, but know how to approach it in fresh ways. This chat with Josh Au Yeung goes into another area I think needs much more attention - leadership. NHS providers recently published data showing only around a third of NHS CEOs have a clinical background: https://lnkd.in/givrbU_p . When evidence suggests that expert leadership is strongly associated with better outcomes, happier staff, and greater productivity, we need to work harder to identify, train, and support current and future clinical leaders. The burning question is this: when it comes to #HealthTech , who is the expert leader? A technologist? A clinician? A hybrid? Would love to hear your thoughts on this (and the podcast, naturally)

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What is it like to witness a health tech startup grow from seed stage to a $72M Series C? I joined Two Chairs as a founding team member in 2017. We had no clinic, no clinicians, and no clients. Just 4 people in a co-working space dreaming big. Not all mental health tech companies are made equal. This one was made different. Two Chairs was made with a keen eye towards both the client AND the therapist experience. Across the years, I feel most proud of the therapists who have brought the company to where it is today. - I think of Nathan Greene, Psy.D. who wrote Two Chairs’ first ever clinic manual because he wanted all clinicians to have a seamless transition into their role at the company - I think of Anna Sapozhnikova, Ph.D. and Hannah Klempner, PsyD who designed and scaled the matching model to ensure clinicians and clients had excellent experiences in care - I think of Nassim Bickham, LMFT who successfully secured APA accreditation for clinicians’ continuing education. - I think of Namrata Doshi who challenged me to reconsider how we think about clinician utilization - I think of every one of our clinical directors who built the clinical care foundation while we scaled - I think of Nick Forand, PhD, ABPP who is leading a team focused on enhancing clinical innovation - I think of Colleen Marshall who is working day in and day out to create the best clinician culture across a nationwide team Two Chairs is different because it was designed by therapists. The clinician experience was always a part of Alex Katz’s vision and I feel honored to have helped bring this vision to life. If you are a therapist, I encourage you to get in touch with the Two Chairs team and learn more about how clinicians experience Two Chairs. Alicia Eggen, LMFT Allyson Holmes-Knight, Ph.D. Justin Davella, Psy.D. Christy Lusareta, MA, LMFT Baaba Hawthorne, M.A., LMFT Will Alexander, LMFT Zlatena Theodore,Psy.D. Sona Trivedi, LMFT Victoria Bangieva, PhD https://lnkd.in/gT3UVfpP

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Thanks Girls Into VC for inviting me to be your 1st #startupfounder guest on your podcast 💓 I chatted about some of the following topics: 1️⃣ Founders should get really good at prioritizing rather than chasing “shiny things” that may not be as productive at the current stage of your startup.   2️⃣ Travel and consumer spending is picking up and surpassing pre-COVID levels, and Wander Health is innovating right in the middle of it. 3️⃣ Time is currency and how you spend it matters more than you think. Listen below 👇 #startupjourney #travelhealth #womenfounders #globalhealth

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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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Hot off the pre-print server – an important publication authored by the Atropos Health team exploring the performance of LLMs in answering real-world clinical questions. LLMs excel at summarizing and contextualizing existing literature, but cannot generate de novo medical evidence today. The results of the study highlight performance gains attributable to injecting novel, relevant, and up-to-date medical evidence into LLM-powered clinical decision support systems. Brigham Hyde Nigam Shah Saurabh Gombar Read the study here: https://lnkd.in/ecuU25Pq

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Want the inside story on what AI tools are being piloted at ScionHealth? This week I chatted with VP of Strategic Operations & Initiatives, Sarah Hughes, MSHA, MBA about how they’re using Eon, LUMINARE, and Operait Health to build out their AI toolkit. — 🟩 Q: What are your biggest tech-related priorities for 2024? 1) Workforce support—How can we deploy technology solutions that make our staff’s lives and daily work easier and more efficient? For example, we are currently deploying a technology platform, M7 Health, which has built a dynamic nursing workforce management system to help us understand and optimize each nurse’s work-life preferences with regard to scheduling and career goals. 2) Patient activation and engagement—How can we better engage and activate patients on both the front end (i.e., scheduling appointments and interacting with our organization) and the back end (i.e., continuing to engage with us to manage their health)? 🟩 Q: Where are you currently exploring AI-driven solutions? We’re running pilots to address a few different administrative and operational efficiency use cases: Incidental findings on radiology reads—We’re working with Eon to automatically scan radiology reads to identify and manage patients with incidental findings, and proactively reach out to them to schedule follow-up care. Sepsis early detection—We’re currently testing LUMINARE's platform, which implements the hospital’s sepsis protocols by automating intervention, streamlining communication, and simplifying reporting and analytics. Operating room scheduling—We’re also looking at a vendor called Operait Health which has built an AI-first solution to optimize surgical demand and right-size OR staffing by forecasting gaps in the OR schedule and placing cases unrestrained by blocks. 🟩 Q: Which areas are you most excited about the potential for new solutions? We’re excited about the potential for virtual remote care in the home on the long-term acute care (LTAC) side. We’ve already seen success with these models in our community hospitals, and we believe there’s potential to similarly deliver a better patient experience at lower cost by bringing care into the home for a subset of our LTAC patients. 🟩 Q: Any general advice for healthcare IT leaders out there? It can be easy to underestimate the legacy IT “tax” of bringing in any new vendor, given that any new solution must work with our existing tech stack. Vendors need to factor this in when discussing implementation timelines, and health systems need to ensure they include all the right internal stakeholders, including operational leaders, early in the conversation to appropriately plan for integrating and deploying solutions into day-to-day operations. — p.s. I loved this conversation because of all the practical wisdom Sarah shared. We're on the lookout for similarly insightful health IT leaders to feature. Who should talk to?

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I recently sat down with Michael Batko, CEO at Startmate and Founder of Puddle Pod for Episode 11 of Insane Ambition. Startmate has invested in 230+ startups, much of it under Michael's leadership, and now has $3.5b in value across its portfolio companies. In this episode, we discussed: - Michael's journey from consulting, then living in the Amazon rainforest, to leading Australia's biggest startup accelerator - The future of Australia's startup ecosystem - The labour government's very stupid plan to make it harder for people to qualify as sophisticated investors (now thankfully shelved) - Startmate City! Startmate's plan to build Australia's first startup city. Probably the most ambitious idea I've ever heard from a startup accelerator. - The balance between visionary thinking and traditional startup advice (think Elon Musk's plan to colonise Mars, vs Y Combinator's problem/customer obsession) - "The Courage to Be Disliked", and its influence on Michael's approach to life and business. Links in the description below 👇

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One of my proudest moments as an investor occurred today as Alaffia Health announced its series A because it shows how the Aperture® Venture Capital vision of multi-level, multi-generational #impactinvesting is succeeding in the marketplace. Here’s the model in its most basic form : ✅As diverse fund managers with meaningful capital to allocate, we are changing the VC landscape every day just by doing our day jobs. ✅As Black/Brown investors with ~40 years experience collectively, Aperture GPs have access to talent /excellence that others do not, so our portfolio *organically* is more inclusive by race, gender and geography even while optimizing for financial outcomes (all about the alpha). ✅Our most successful portco’s are using financial #innovation to solve market problems that impact underrepresented demographics and underserved communities. Alaffia Health is a shining example of the impact portion of our overall fund thesis, and we couldn’t be prouder of TJ Ademiluyi and Adun Akanni, MPH, PMP - the dynamic brother-sister founder duo whose vision we have steadfastly supported on their journey. Congratulations to TJ and Adun from William Crowder and myself, as well as the whole Aperture team- Marjorie King Philip McKenzie Yves Louis-Jacques Tanvi Lal Michelle Dhansinghani Lisha Bell Katie Kelly Amy Chung Cindy Chong, CFA Brian Fernandes-Halloran Monroe France Jayden Pantel Darren Herman Evan Wladis Neal Triplett Thomas Scriven Peter Ammon Irina Bit-Babik Tim Milanich Rob Rahbari

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I am excited to share that our community continues to grow and gather!  Since the beginning of the year, we are 15% stronger and have a full calendar for May, including more Dine & Develops and Helpful Hours.  Beyond these events, I have an ask and an offer… 🙏DM if you are interested in helping with the operations of the community.  There’s so much to do in marketing, growth, sales, support, coordination, low-code and high-code tooling, and more! 💡DM if you want to be featured for a Dine & Develop.  I am looking for experts in job positions, functional areas, company types, and problem spaces who want to dine with peers and develop professionally! Furthermore, don’t forget to register for the other upcoming April gatherings – 4/18 Helpful Hour.  🥳 Links in the comment! #CommunityGrowth #NetworkingEvents #ProfessionalDevelopment #VolunteerOpportunities #EventMarketing #CommunityEngagement #CareerDevelopment #BusinessNetworking #SkillBuilding #OperationalExcellence #ProfessionalNetworking #CommunityBuilding #GrowthHacking #PeerLearning #IndustryExperts

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Transforming Healthcare System: How Supply Chain Innovation Drives Health Equity and Bridges Disparities — Bright Chimezie Irem In the ongoing effort to bridge health disparities, reduce health gaps/inequities while increasing health equity, optimizing health and pharmaceutical supply chains emerges as a crucial strategy. Bright Chimezie Irem looked into how these supply chains, integral to healthcare delivery, can be effectively managed to enhance health equity, particularly in the last-mile population & hard-to-reach regions. In my work on - https://lnkd.in/dT-2A748 - I began by examining the challenges in health and pharmaceutical supply chains and their direct impact on #healthequity . Inefficiencies in these systems often lead to medicine shortages and inaccessible healthcare, disproportionately affecting marginalized communities. Highlighting the role of government and policy-making, I explored how governmental interventions, through policy frameworks and regulations, can streamline supply chain processes and foster public-private partnerships. These collaborations are critically essential in leveraging private sector efficiency for public health benefits. A focal point of my presentation is the innovative model of AfriPharm Medicals Group, which exemplifies how private sector strategies can address public healthcare challenges. AfriPharm's approach in tackling supply chain inefficiencies showcases a scalable and sustainable model, emphasizing the importance of collaboration in enhancing health equity for better health outcomes. Furthermore, I discussed the strategies for successful last-mile delivery, ensuring that essential healthcare services and products reach the most remote areas. This is vital for achieving true health equity. Measuring the success and impact of these initiatives is crucial. I looked into various #metrics and methods used to evaluate #supplychain optimizations, highlighting their significance in continuous improvement efforts. Looking ahead, I discussed future directions and innovations in #supplychainmanagement, emphasizing the role of emerging technologies and digital transformation. Optimizing health and pharmaceutical supply chains is a collaborative journey. By integrating innovative strategies, governmental support, and private sector efficiencies, we can significantly advance towards equitable healthcare access for all. #Read my full article on: https://lnkd.in/dT-2A748 Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity #ExchangeAlumni - Alumni Affairs - State Dept.#ExchangeAlumni U.S. Department of State | Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy Mandela Washington Fellowship YALI Network #HealthEquity #SupplyChainOptimization #PublicHealth #Pharmaceuticals #HealthcareInnovation #DigitalTransformation #GlobalHealth #HealthPolicy #SustainableHealthcare #LastMileDelivery

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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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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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💛 this! The Wonder Woman Collective is a stellar example of how collaboration should revolutionize an industry—specifically women’s healthcare. This powerhouse alliance, formed by five innovative companies—Paloma Health, Neura Health, LEVY Health, Seven Starling, and Origin—is making waves by targeting the significant and often overlooked gaps in women's health. Their approach is multifaceted and strategic, focusing on improving healthcare outcomes, advancing health equity, reducing healthcare costs, and boosting productivity for women. What’s super cool about this collective is how they exemplify the four key principles needed for impactful change: 1.  Working in Tandem: These companies aren’t just sharing goals; they're integrating their expertise to provide comprehensive care, which includes clinical decision support and integrating electronic health records. Their joint efforts are a testament to the power of partnership in driving forward healthcare innovation. 2.  Mutual Accountability: By collaborating, these companies hold each other accountable to prioritize evidence-based, compliance focused, women-centric healthcare solutions, ensuring that they keep the focus on what truly benefits women’s health. 3.  Speed and Efficiency: They understand that in healthcare, time is often of the essence. Through their collaboration, they've accelerated the process of innovation and implementation of healthcare solutions, avoiding the redundancy of working in silos. 4.  Elevating Women’s Health as Healthcare. Period: This collective boldly declares that women's health issues deserve the spotlight and are integral to the broader healthcare narrative. Their actions and outcomes are making it clear that women's health is essential healthcare. It’s not just about better health outcomes—it’s about setting a new standard where women's health is given the priority, innovation, and respect it deserves. Let’s hear it for The Wonder Woman Collective. Rock on, ladies! Femtech Insider https://lnkd.in/eJBr7dB2 #womenshealth #femtech #collaboration

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My second post on AI for health equity. This time with tools and frameworks I think are helpful to address the challenges I shared. Also sharing information about coalitions, alliances and partnerships (some good once in a larger soup of coalitions). 1️⃣ First challenge I pointed out was the risk of bias. 🛠️ FRAMEWORKS and TOOLS Health equity across the AI lifecycle (HEAAL) - a framework to mitigate the risk of AI solutions worsening health inequities https://lnkd.in/gHKyD9Zr Considerations for addressing bias in artificial intelligence for health equity https://lnkd.in/gNReUH22 8 decision points to consider when implementing an AI solution by Health AI Partnership https://lnkd.in/gbUcczSm Toward Equitable Innovation in Health and Medicine: A Framework by The National Academies https://lnkd.in/gxWsbmhS 🤝COALITIONS and ALLIANCES Coalition to end racism in clinical algorithms https://lnkd.in/gZcW4GAK Coalition for Health AI: intends to develop a framework with Health Equity in mind, aiming to address algorithmic bias. https://lnkd.in/gKtiHfrh Women Defining AI: my main source of inspiration from fantastic women https://lnkd.in/gR4nm8Cc 2️⃣ The second challenge I pointed out was the urgent need to invest and build capacity among providers serving historically underinvested communities. here are some opportunities trying to do exactly that. Most deadlines are now in June/July‼️ Health AI Partnership is supporting healthcare delivery organizations in the US interested in implementing an AI solution. If you join the network, you get to work with an incredibly talented team https://lnkd.in/gaXSyPdV AIM-AHEAD Consortium Development Program (CDP) focuses on Innovation for Equity in Low-Resource Settings and provides funding to catalyze multi-disciplinary research projects to plan and pilot Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) algorithms or tools to address health disparities. https://lnkd.in/g4YAy3d2 LEAP: The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has Interest in Projects to Develop Innovative Ways to Evaluate and Improve the Quality of Healthcare Data Used by Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in Healthcare and Accelerate Adoption of Health Information Technology in Behavioral Health. https://lnkd.in/gZt4BBmC

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🔥Tune In to the Latest Fireside Chat with a VC in Healthech🔥 What percentage of VCs are former founders? 30% maybe more? I'd think a fair amount, yet how *exactly* does that transition happen and what perspectives change *radically* afterwards? Sigvards Krongorns shared exactly that - his journey from PwC consultant to Healtech founder, to a VC shaping the future of Healthtech startups. What we talked about: ✨ Sigvards' transition from a PwC consultant to founder to a VC ✨ What steps are necessary to bring innovative medical devices from concept to market ✨ How being a founder can prepare you for a role in venture capital ✨ What strategies help navigate the regulatory landscape in healthtech startups ✨ The right way to engage with VCs for startup funding ✨ What future trends in venture capital and Healthtech look like #HealthTech #VentureCapital #Innovation #StartupJourney #HealthcareInnovation #Entrepreneurship #FiresideChat #VentureCapitalInsights Full conversation can be found here:

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Couple of weeks ago had the pleasure of sharing my story to Alexander Benkendorf about starting CastPrint and later moving on to join Verge HealthTech Fund and the learning along the way. Some topics we discussed: 💡What does it take to bring innvation in healthcare 💡How did my startup background help me better prepare for VC work 💡How founders can better engage with VCs and what are the tips and tricks from the "other side" Thanks Alexander for having me!

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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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