There’s room at the (innovation) table

This holiday season, investors and health systems are joining together to establish real-world testing grounds for digital health solutions. Andreessen Horowitz recently teamed up with rural health system Bassett Healthcare Network to serve as a pilot site for a16z’s investments. Meanwhile, General Catalyst continued its hospital partnership streak by announcing 15 health system partners for its Health Assurance Ecosystem. The initiative’s goal is to create an aligned testing ground for new and existing portfolio companies to tackle health systems’ thorniest problems. Just in time for cuffing season, these alliances could deliver big benefits to all parties. Funds help portfolio companies prove out clinical and economic outcomes, health systems get preferred access to the product roadmaps of promising startups, and startups get a broad canvas to prove out real-world impact. Of course, these announcements are just the beginning—the real work comes with delivering meaningful outcomes across these new innovation ecosystems.

Headlines

Epic Designs Version Of EHR More Accessible To Apple Users
A new era of compromise between health data’s major players Axios

Elation Health Integrates Ribbon Health's Provider Directory Data
Partnership with port co Ribbon will streamline the referral process for 24,000 clinicians Fierce Healthcare

A CEO's Plan To Monetize Health Data Rescued From IBM Watson
There’s always money in the banana stand (aka health data) STAT

Apple Watch App For Monitoring Parkinson’s Symptoms Earns FDA Clearance
A new wearable use case: you love to see it MedTech Dive

Continuous Glucose Monitor Startups Still Have To Prove Their Worth
It’s early days yet for glucose management research The Verge

Recent Funding

  • Care.AI secures $27M for clinic-based ambient monitoring and workforce augmentation
  • Capitol lands $10M for its AI-supported data analytics and insights solution
  • Wearable-based at-home sleep lab Wesper reels in $9.6M
  • RedBrick AI finds $4.6M to develop its clinical imaging annotation and aggregation solution