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Matthew’s health care tidbits: Is Covid over for the health care system?

Each week I’ve been adding a brief tidbits section to the THCB Reader, our weekly newsletter that summarizes the best of THCB that week (Sign up here!). Then I had the brainwave to add them to the blog. They’re short and usually not too sweet! –Matthew Holt

I am beginning to wonder, is COVID over? Of course no one has told the virus that it’s over. In fact infection rates are two to three times where they were in the post-omicron lull and new variants are churning themselves out faster and faster. We still have 300 people dying every day. But since we went past a million US deaths, no one seems to care any more.

For the health care system, COVID being over means a chance to get back to normal, and normal ain’t good. Normal means trying to get rid of that pesky telemedicine and anything else that came around since March 2020.The incumbents want to remove the public health emergency that allowed telemedicine to be paid for by Medicare, re-enforce the Ryan Haight act which mandates in-person visits for prescribing controlled Rx like Adderall for ADHD, and make sure that tortuous state license requirements for online physicians are not going away. This also means restrictions on hospital at home, and basically delays any other innovative way to change care delivery. Well, it was all so perfect in February 2020!

But there is one COVID related problem that doesn’t seem to be going away. People. They’re just not going back to work and nurses in particular are resisting the pull of the big hospitals. I don’t know the end game here, but there is a clue in the “return to office” data. Basically every large city is below 50% of its office space being occupied and companies are having to figure out a hybrid model going forward, no matter how much Elon Musk objects.

Hospitals aren’t going willingly into the night. The big systems still control American health care, and are prepared to fight on all fronts to keep it that way. But like office workers, nurses and doctors want a different life. The concept of virtual-first, community-based, primary care-led health care has been around for a long while and been studiously ignored by the majority of the system.

If hospitals can’t get the staff and keep losing money employing the ones they have, there will be new solutions being offered to clinicians wanting a different life-style. We just might see a different approach to health care delivery rising phoenix-like from the Covid ashes.

#HealthTechDeals Episode 36| Sana Health, Sesame, Bardavon, Peerwell, Aidoc

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It’s the scandal inside the scandal, and we’ve got the scoop! Check out this episode of Health Tech Deals to learn more about Facebook, health data, and American Hospitals. Is someone stealing someone else’s activity and not getting rewarded for it? What about HIPPAA violations? All these questions and more are answered, along with some new deals: Sana Health raises $60 million; Seasme raises $27 million; Bardavon Health Innovations buys Peerwell; AIdoc raises $110 million.

-Mathew Holt

Global Warming and Disease

BY MIKE MAGEE

A study eight years ago, published in Nature, was titled “Study revives bird origin for 1918 flu pandemic.” The study, which analyzed more than 80,000 gene sequences from flu viruses from humans., birds, horses, pigs, and bats, concluded the 1918 pandemic disaster “probably sprang from North American domestic and wild birds, not from the mixing of human and swine viruses.”

The search for origin in pandemics is not simply an esoteric academic exercise. It is practical, pragmatic, and hopefully preventive. The origin of our very own pandemic, now in its third year and claiming more than 1 million American lives, remains up in the air. Whether occurring “naturally” from an animal reservoir, or the progeny of an experimental lab engaged in U.S. funded “gain-of-function” research, we may never know. What we do know is that viruses move at the speed of light, or more accurately, at the speed of birds.

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#HealthTechDeals Episode 35 | CapitalRX, EnsoData, CareAcademy, Inne, and Boulder Care

Hear the big news? Not only has Oracle bought Cerner, but Larry Ellison says “Interoperability! What interoperability? Oracle has fixed it!” Some new funding deals: CapitalRX raises $106 million; EnsoData raises $20 million; CareAcademy raises $20 million; and Inne raises $10 million; Boulder Care raises $35.7 million. Check out the AHIP Conference 2022 taking place in Las Vegas! We’ll be there! Tickets are $100 off with code THCB.

What’s Up, Docs

BY KIM BELLARD

Here’s how I’ll know when we’re serious about reforming the U.S. healthcare system: we’ll no longer have both M.D.s and D.O.s.

Now, I’m not saying that this change alone will bring about a new and better healthcare system; I’m just saying that until such change, our healthcare system will remain too rooted in the past, not focused enough on the science, and – most importantly – not really about patients’ best interests.

Let me make it clear from the outset that I have no dog in this hunt.  I’ve had physicians who have been M.D.s and others who have been D.O.s, and I have no indication that there have been any differences in the care due to those training differences. That’s sort of the point: if there are no meaningful differences, why have both?  

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Matthew’s health care tidbits: Hospital shooting reveals so much

Each week I’ve been adding a brief tidbits section to the THCB Reader, our weekly newsletter that summarizes the best of THCB that week (Sign up here!). Then I had the brainwave to add them to the blog. They’re short and usually not too sweet! –Matthew Holt

In this edition’s tidbits, the nation is once again dealing with an epidemic of shootings. Now a hospital joins schools, grocery stores and places of worship on the the recent list. I was struck by how much of the health care story was wrapped up in the tragic shooting where a patient took the life of Dr. Preston Phillips, Dr. Stephanie Husen, receptionist Amanda Glenn, 40; and patient William Love at Saint Francis Health System in Tulsa.

First and most obvious, gun control. The shooter bought an AR-15 less than 3 hours before he committed the murders then killed himself. Like the two teens in Buffalo and Uvalde, if there was a delay or real background checks, then these shootings would likely have not happened.

But there’s more. Hospital safety has not improved in a decade or so. Michael Millenson, THCB Gang regular, has made that plain. And that includes harm from surgery. We know that back surgery often doesn’t work and we know that Dr Phillips operated on the shooter just three weeks before and had seen him for a follow up the day before. Yes, there is safety from physical harm and intruders–even though the police got there within 5 minutes of shots being heard, they were too late. But there is also the issue of harm caused by medical interventions. Since “To Err is Human” the issue has faded from public view.

Then there is pain management. Since the opiate crisis, it’s become harder for patients to get access to pain meds. Was the shooter seeking opiates? Was he denied them? We will never know the details of the shooter’s case, but we know that we have a nationwide problem in excessive back surgery, and that is matched by an ongoing problem in untreated pain.

And then there are the two dead doctors. Dr. Husen, was a sports and internal medicine specialist. Obviously there are more female physicians than there used to be even if sexism is still rampant in medicine. But Dr. Phillips was an outlier. He was black and a Harvard grad. Stat reported last year that fewer than 2% of orthopedists are Black, just 2.2% are Hispanic, and 0.4% are Native American. The field remains 85% white and overwhelmingly male. So the chances of the patient & shooter, who was black and may have sought out a doctor who looked like him, having a black surgeon were very low in the first place. Now for other patients they are even lower.

The shooting thus brings up so many issues. Gun control; workplace safety; unnecessary surgery; pain management; mental health; and race in medicine. We have so much to work on, and this one tragedy reveals all those issues and more.

Republican Health Policies Disproportionally Harm White Citizens in Their States

BY MIKE MAGEE

“As I’ve said before, I believe Dr. Ladapo is an anti-science quack who doesn’t belong anywhere near our state’s Surgeon General office, let alone running it. But now that he’s been confirmed, it’s my sincere hope that he and Governor DeSantis choose to focus on saving lives and preventing unnecessary illness instead of continuing their absurd promotion of conspiracy theories and opposition to proven public health measures — but I’m not going to hold my breath.”

If you identified these as the words of the former governor, and now Congressman Charlie Crisp, currently running to retake the office he once held, you’d be wrong. These are the words of another state Democrat who is running a distant 2nd in the Democratic primary battle set for this summer.

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#HealthTechDeals Episode 34 | Carebridge, Nava Benefits, Bicycle Health & LeanTaas

Matthew has been out at the Going Digital Behavioral Health reception meeting all of Jessica’s fans, and discovering what they like about the show! Meanwhile a big funding round for Carebridge ($140m), with more $$ for Bicycle Health ($50m probably not to be spent on bikes) & Nava Benefits ($40m). Plus LeanTaas gets bought by private equity group Bain Capital.

#HealthTechDeals Episode 33|Aledade, Tripp, Socially Determined, and Digital Diagnostics

The question of the day: does 25 people leaving a several 100-person company REALLY count as a “mass exodus”? In this episode, Jess and I find out! Hey – it’s the startup world, things explode all the time. Some new deals: Aledade raises $123 million; Tripp raises $11 million; Socially Determined raises $22.7 million; Digital Diagnostics raises $46.3 million.

-Matthew Holt

#HealthTechDeals Episode 32| Hint Health, Moxe Health, uMotif, Fairtility, Circles

Shots have been fired. Hear the crickets? Maybe it’s the chirping from health technology twitter, particularly on the lack of deals? NO! That sound you hear is the stunning silence from our epic burns this episode. Shoutout to our new sponsor AHIP – check out the AHIP Conference 2022 taking place in Las Vegas! Common (the rapper) will be there. Tickets are $100 off with code THCB. Some deals: Hint Health raises $45 million; Moxe Health raises $30 million; uMotif raises $25 million; Fairtility raises $15 million; Circles raises $16 million.