Andy Chu is the SVP of Product and Technology at Providence’s innovation unit. They have launched four companies in recent years (Wildlfower, Xealth, Dexcare and just this week Praia). Andy talked a little about Praia, and more about both how Providence comes up with solutions and gets them through their process, and also the inverse, how his group helps new companies get into Providence (not easy!). I also asked him about how big the impact of those hospital innovation groups actually is. And how AI will roll out. Also not easy!–Matthew Holt
THCB Spotlight: Dexcare CEO, Derek Streat
According to their press release, “Dexcare is a care-access platform to manage the logistics of digital-care delivery. The platform enables healthcare systems to forecast and predict demand and manage how and where care is merchandized to consumers – throughout the digital ecosystem”. What does that mean? How does it compare to a bunch of other digital health companies trying to manager consumer operations inside providers? And having been incubated not that long ago at Providence, how has this demand generation and management service grown so fast. And why has Iconiq Growth just pushed another $75m worth of chips onto the poker table in front of them?
Derek Streat has been around digital health for a while, having founded and sold an early Health 2.0 favorite, Medify. I took him through his market and what Dexcare does in a lot of detail, so hopefully you’ll find this look very educational, not only about Dexcare but also about the consumer market environment health systems are operating in. Matthew Holt
Health Care Execs Behaving Badly
BY KIM BELLARD
In the midst of a pandemic during which health care workers proved themselves to be very bit the heroes we like to think of them as being, it’s sobering to be reminded that the system they work in is filled with perverse incentives that work against patients’ best interests. Four pieces of excellent journalism – two from The New York Times, and two from Kaiser Health News — this week brought that front and center.
If you haven’t read them yet, I urge you to do so, but, while you might enjoy the writing, don’t expect to enjoy their content.
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