TheCable

HeathTech no doubt is the future of what the world will expect to experience in the healthcare service provision space. Due to the tech leverage and artificial intelligence (AI), HealthTech can offer realtime service to tens of millions of people on an almost instantaneous automated process, while spotting demand trends and future possibilities. Also, very obvious in solving the space-time challenge, Internet Technologies and AI is totally redefining startups and how we share and use information.

The covid-19 pandemic came in to redefine how the entire globe is perceiving the human interactions as most organizations find how to deliver in the midst of the big change. Some healthcare providers offering leading insights in that category have been discussed in this article to further make available information on how globally-positioned organizations are engaging with people needs and requirements within and outside their domain of operation through tech best practices.

Tempus (www.tempus.com – raised a total of $1.1b in funding over 11 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on December 10, 2020) located in Chicago Illinois, is a technology company advancing precision medicine through the practical application of artificial intelligence in healthcare. They are ushering in an era of true precision medicine that revolutionizes how data is used to personalize and optimize treatments. Moreover, they have generated one of the largest structured clinical and molecular databases in the world to support the needs of individual therapy development pipelines that drives therapeutic innovation. Imagine a company, which claims to analyze nearly 1/3 of all U.S. cancer patients and a growing number of patients in other disease areas, including mental health, cardiology, and infectious disease.

In addition, Tempus is helping to transform drug discovery by breaking down information silos to link clinical, DNA, RNA, and whole slide pathology imaging data modalities together. With this structured data, they are resolute to be able to power AI and machine learning approaches in the acceleration of drug development for patients. So much in all of these that technology makes easier, especially with collation, analyses, sharing and storage.       

Flatiron Health (https://flatiron.com/ – raised a total of $313m in funding over 3 rounds with their latest funding was being on January 6, 2016 from a Series C round) is a healthcare technology company that aims to improve lives by learning from the experience of every cancer patient. They hinged their services on the acceleration of cancer research and improvement on the quality of care, which they believe requires the entire industry to work together. Their products connect community oncologists, academics, hospitals, life science researchers and regulators on a shared technology platform. Flatiron believes learning can happen from the experience of every patient as skills are aggregated through tech connection.

Kyruus (www.kyruus.com – raised a total of $148.2m in funding over 11 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on January 10, 2020) located in Boston Massachusetts, it delivers search and scheduling solutions for health systems to match patients with the right providers across the access points.They pride themselves as the only enterprise-wide patient access solution. Kyruus offers the trademarked ProviderMatch platform, which health systems use to unify and optimize patient access to enterprise-wide solutions with the same provider information appearing on website, call center and provider office channels. This aggregation leads to a better patient experience, which drives higher acquisition, conversion and retention. They have also identified that current journey of accessing care had become increasingly consumer-driven and digital – and a show-stopper for many is a disconnected health system (up to 60%) or not easily usable health plan website (for up to 52%).

VillageMD (https://www.villagemd.com/ – raised a total of $491m in funding over 4 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on July 8, 2020 from a Corporate round) is a healthcare company that provides primary care physicians with healthcare management services. They give patients the healthcare they deserve, while holding themselves accountable for their outcomes. They work through teams that live and work near their patients and understand their journey because they share same environments. No matter where patients receive their care, VillageMD providers give them personalized support and attention using their proprietary clinical protocol, technology platform, and insights. Together, patients and providers have a better interaction and user experience. This looks, in my opinion, like the Uber-model applied to healthcare service provision.

Collective Health (https://collectivehealth.com/ – raised a total of $719m in funding over 6 rounds. Their most recent funding was raised on May 4, 2021 from a Series F round) is a company providing an alternative to traditional health insurance. They pride themselves as the first integrated solution that allows self-funded employers to administer plans, control costs, and take care of their people. Their pitch to the corporate organizations is that investing in different vendors as a healthcare strategy is chaotic for their team. This confuses employees, and is also bad for the company’s bottom line. This gap is what Collective Health seeks to bridge. They replace the disjointed experience with one seamless system that drives more value for each organization’s total healthcare investment from one single platform.

Wellframe partners (https://www.wellframe.com/ – raised a total of $45.2m in funding over 6 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on 19 November 2019 from a series C round) offer health plans nationwide to reimagine healthcare relationships. They are creating new ways for care teams to support people with chronic or complex conditions, while helping them engage more members with the same resources on the care management side. On the advocacy part, they are redefining the way health plans guide all members to the right healthcare resources, while helping them get the most out of the healthcare plan they have. Impressive how technology helps individuals and organization achieve more with less while automating repetitive tasks in more standardized ways. Wellframe is trying to find meaningful ways to engage more people, more efficiently with their patented member mobile application and staff dashboard. Good thinking is good product every time and a good number of the aggregation models discussed allow for repeatability. More Nigerian entrepreneurs need to engage the dire healthcare need of the teeming millions in holistic ways using some of these aggregation models.

Headspace (www.headspace.com – raised a total of $215.9m in funding over 11 rounds) located in Santa Monica California, is a digital health platform that provides guided meditation sessions and mindfulness training. They offer a number of ways to ease off stress with hundreds of meditations. Imagine an organization that helps you unwind with sleep sounds and music while helping to get in the zone with focus music. So much to learn from these amazing companies and how they have positioned the services they render with simple and secure technology driven solutions and platforms that are continuously optimized for best customer experience.

In conclusion, the Nigerian healthcare domain has become more challenged in recent times due to the mass emigration of skilled medical practitioners and I suggest this is the best time for HealthTech startups entrepreneurs to dive in to bridge the evident gaps created due to the huge disconnects in the different arms (hospitals, test labs, health management organizations, academic, corporate user and government regulatory agencies) of the medicare operation in Nigeria. The technology connect definitely makes wonders and numbers possible and with a growing population, the ready-on-ground customer base will more than subscribe to almost any of the above-mentioned healthcare value offering or platform if well executed to precision. I welcome further deliberations on the foregoing and thank you for your time investment, yours in tech, Olufemi Ariyo.

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