Things & Thinks-Issue XL
This is the 40th edition of my newsletter! I haven’t been able to publish for the past two months so there is a lot to catch up on- some interesting research in digital health, the usual news round up and the monthly Mental Model, Longread, Tweet and Chart of the Month sections. Wishing everyone a peaceful, healthy and happy 2023!
Research Digest
ML Interventions in Healthcare
Plana et al reviewed evidence gathered via randomized clinical trials for machine learning interventions in healthcare. Their findings were interesting-
- Trials were most often conducted in the US (37%) or China (32%) and 6 studies (15%) were conducted across multiple countries. In terms of qualities associated with generalizability, 20 RCTs (49%) were conducted at multiple sites, and 21 RCTs (51%) were conducted at a single site.
- No RCT met all the criteria listed in CONSORT-AI standards. A total of 13 RCTs (32%) met at least 8 of 11 criteria. The most common reasons for lack of guideline adherence were not assessing poor-quality or unavailable input data (93%),not analyzing performance errors (93%), and lack of a statement regarding code or algorithm availability (90%).
Leveraging electronic health records for data science
This article, by Sauer et al, nicely summarizes common pitfalls with studies using EHR data for machine learning applications and suggest relevant solutions.
Digital Healthcare News
Tech in Digital Health
Fitbit and Google Cloud launched Device Connect for Fitbit, allowing patients to make their Fitbit data available to providers, giving patients control over who they share their information with and for what purpose.
Rite Aid and Google Cloud announced a new multiyear partnership where Google Cloud will provide Rite Aid with technological insight to make its pharmacies more data-driven and personalized.
Medical group Desert Oasis Healthcare will pilot Google Health’s clinical software Care Studio, a clinician-facing search tool that harmonizes healthcare data from different sources.
NVIDIA announced a new partnership with Harvard and MIT’s Broad Institute, bringing advanced analytics tools to the institute’s Terra cloud platform and the more than 25,000 life science researchers who use it.
Biopharma/Device Brief
Sanofi and TrialSpark partnered to accelerate tech-driven drug development.
GSK announced a three-year agreement with a $70 million initial payment to expand its access to Tempus’ AI-powered data library, including its de-identified patient data.
Regulatory/Policy Brief
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released new guidance stating that some artificial intelligence (AI) tools should be regulated as medical devices as part of the agency’s oversight of clinical decision support (CDS) software.
Seer Medical received FDA 510(k) clearance for its at-home electroencephalograph (EEG) system, Seer Home, which helps providers diagnose epilepsy.
Tasso received FDA 510(k) clearance for its patch-like blood collection device, the Tasso+.
Funding, Deals, Mergers & acquisitions
SubjectWell, a provider of an engagement platform matching patients with chronic health conditions, raised $35M in Series B funding.
Rippl, a new mental health startup focused on seniors, launched with $32 million in seed round funding.
Eyenuk raised $26M for diabetic retinopathy screening AI.
Wearable health technology company Katalyst raised $26 million in series A funding.
XP Health, a company developing a digital-first vision benefits platform, raised $17.1 million in Series A funding.
Population health technology company Color Health acquired Mood Lifters, a mental health program for groups of adults and youth.
Other News
GE Healthcare and AMC Health are partnering to offer remote patient monitoring technology to patients after they’ve been discharged from the hospital.
Mental Model of the Month
A simple but effective mental model explanation from my favorite illustrators-sketchplanations!
Longread of the Month
This blogpost by Next Ventures examines how innovation within primary care models can drive patient adoption and unlock savings benefits downstream. I especially liked this image-
Tweet of the Month
A really interesting conversation about nature of healthcare business
Chart of the Month
The chart below, by the Evaluate team, looks at the combined NPV of each group’s novel molecules as compared with the value of all their marketed products.
