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Category: WTF Health

Young Health Leaders Unite! | Alex Maiersperger & Antwan Williams, Advancement League

BY JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

While the “healthcare ecosystem” sounds like a nice place to begin a career, the day-to-day can often make it feel like the industry is about survival of the fittest — especially for young professionals who are just starting out. Enter The Advancement League, an organization-slash-support-system for young leaders and entrepreneurs. Co-founders Alex Maiersperger and Antwan Williams started the organization as a way to unite bright-eyed, up-and-comers from health systems, health plans, and startups who not only want to build big careers in health, but who also want to apply their youthful optimism, new ideas, and tech to changing the experience of healthcare for the better. How can you get involved? Tune in for all the details about the organization’s events, especially their “big one,” the Young Health Leader’s Summit.

Filmed at HLTH 2019 in Las Vegas, October 2019.

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Fertility Predicting Wearable Expanding into Birth Control, Menopause | Lea Von Bidder, Ava Science

BY JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Ava Science is a FemTech company best-known for their fertility-predicting wearable device that collects biometric data from a woman’s wrist in order to track ovulation. The device predicts fertility with 89% accuracy (according to published clinical trial data) and is among one of the most well-funded FemTech startups out there, having raised a cumulative $47M. So what’s next? Lea von Bidder, Ava’s CEO, explains the data-driven vision for the company, which is currently one of the few medical device wearables that is approved for collecting digital biomarkers. The startup is eager to capitalize on that first-mover advantage in the women’s health space, and is looking at other ways to use their data. Lea talks through her plans for exploring a full-range of women’s health applications, from non-hormonal birth control to new products that might appeal to women during pregnancy or menopause.

Filmed at HLTH 2019 in Las Vegas, October 2019.

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Getting Healthcare Providers Paid in Real-Time. FOR REAL. | Seth Cohen, Ooda Health

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BY JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Disruption of the healthcare payment model? We’re IN! Meet Ooda Health a two-year old startup that is working to change the way healthcare is paid for by changing WHEN it’s paid for: BEFORE the patient leaves the hospital or doctor’s office. How can we possibly live in a world without EOBs? We’re dying to find out. Seth Cohen, President & Co-Founder of Ooda Health, talks about the launch of the startup’s first service, Ooda Pay, which just went live with BCBS of Arizona, Blue Shield of California, and care provider, Common Spirit Health. How did it go? We may be closer to disrupting healthcare billing (and it’s paperwork and admin expense) than we thought.

Filmed at HLTH 2019 in Las Vegas, October 2019.

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What Makes a Digital Health Startup a Winner? | John Sharp, Personal Connected Health Alliance

BY JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

What separates successful digital health startups from the pack? John Sharp, Director of Thought Advisory for the Personal Connected Health Alliance (a HIMSS organization) has watched digital health ‘grow up’ over the years as an industry analyst focused on health IT, consumer health, and health tech. Want to know what it takes to win? Who does John think is poised to dominate the digital health space? (Hint: It’s a chronic condition management startup and it’s probably not the one you expect!)

Filmed at the HIMSS Health 2.0 Conference in Santa Clara, CA in September 2019.

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This Video Game App is Really Remote Monitoring for Eye Diseases | Stephanie Campbell, OKKO Health

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Keep your eyes peeled for OKKO Health, the startup that has created an AI-driven app game to make sure that your eyes are healthy. Founder-and-optometrist Stephanie Campbell explains how the game works to help clinicians to remotely monitor patients with eye diseases that would otherwise require frequent hospital visits to manage; think diabetic eye disease or age-related macular degeneration. Can we really look to gaming as a way for remote patient monitoring? OKKO certainly sees it that way!

Filmed at Bayer G4A Signing Day in Berlin, Germany, October 2019.

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Glen Tullman’s Advice for Health Startups | Glen Tullman, Livongo

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

A must-watch for any startup looking to make it big in the digital health world. Glen Tullman, Chairman of Livongo, shares his best advice for new and emerging startups seeking to disrupt healthcare. On the heels of his company’s IPO, and just after closing the company’s biggest contract to-date with the US Federal Government, Glen talks closing deals, building a great team, what it’s like to navigate the contracting process with a big org like the US government, and more. Entrepreneurial spirit abounds at the Bayer G4A Signing Day event in Europe. Does that mean that Livongo will be jumping into the European market any time soon? Tune in to find out!

Filmed at Bayer G4A Signing Day in Berlin, Germany, October 2019.

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Scaling Health Insurance Disruption | Ali Diab, Collective Health

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Ali Diab, CEO & Co-Founder of Collective Health, wants to talk about healthcare affordability and the fact that consumerism doesn’t really exist when it comes to healthcare because we don’t really have a functioning market. The “Real” buyers — from the federal government to large employers — have no idea what things cost in traditional health plans and are making healthcare purchases for their constituents without full price transparency. So, what has he and Collective Health learned now that they’re 6 years into trying to offer these buyers an alternative to that traditional health plan experience? Nothing is more complex than health insurance innovation, but Collective Health is making significant headway and, according to Ali, has made it past the “homicide phase” of being a digital health startup.

Filmed at HLTH 2019 in Las Vegas, October 2019.

Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt.

Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health. 

Will ‘Digital-First’ Health Plans Usher in Telehealth At-Scale? | Danielle Russella, American Well

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Is healthcare on the way to ‘telehealth at-scale?’ We checked in with American Well’s Danielle Russella, President & GM of Health Plan Solutions, to rumor-check the buzz we’ve been hearing about “digital-first health plans” and what that means for the future of health plan coverage for telehealth services. From provider uptake and payment parity to patient awareness and utilization, Danielle weighs in on the state-of-play of telehealth/health plan relations and how digital health seems to finally becoming part of payer strategy talks within the C-suite. At American Well, that’s meant more growth in last 2 years than in the previous 8 years, says Danielle. Is that why we’re hearing those IPO rumors? Tune in to find out if there’s any merit to that chatter.

Filmed at HLTH 2019 in Las Vegas, October 2019.

Whole Genome Sequencing Heads for Consumers – Rodrigo Martinez of Veritas Genetics

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

DNA testing companies like 23andMe and Ancestry have made DNA testing mainstream, with adoption skyrocketing among consumers. Meanwhile, health tech startups like Veritas Genetics are starting to push the trend even further – from genotyping to whole genome sequencing. What’s the difference? Well, genotyping looks at less than half of 1% of your genome, while whole genome sequencing looks at over 99% of your genome.

Veritas is betting that consumers are ready for what’s revealed by looking at more than 6.4 billion letters of DNA and are promising that the value of that information will only get richer as time goes on and the science that makes sense of our genome achieves new breakthroughs.

In fact, Veritas is positioning their $999 test as “a resource for life” and Rodrigo Martinez, their Chief Marketing & Design Officer who I chat with here, shares a vision for the future that includes asking Alexa to scan your genome before taking medications or risking allergic reactions to foods.

This is fascinating proposition for the future of health (investors are jazzed too, having poured $50M into the company), but ethical questions abound. How do you make this information useful and actionable? How do you handle situations where major health issues are reveled? And what about data privacy? This is about as personal as personal health information can get. Rodrigo weighs in…

Ridesharing Startup Cuts Medical Costs with Innovative Service | Mark Switaj CEO of RoundTrip

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

The future of healthcare includes ridesharing, according to startup CEO Mark Swita of RoundTrip. 1 in 5 patients misses or delays care due to transportation issues, which creates costly problems that are much more expensive to treat later. RoundTrip is disrupting the medical transportation industry by providing on-demand medical transportation for hospitals, healthcare organizations, transportation organizations, and health plans.

Filmed at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, CA, January 2019.

Jessica DaMassa is the host of the WTF Health show & stars in Health in 2 Point 00 with Matthew Holt.

Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.