#166 - A Pain in the Proverbial... 🔙
#166 - A Pain in the Proverbial... 🔙
The one-minute healthtech roundup
Hi friends,
This week: tech can treat your back pain, augmented reality can help people with neurological disorders, and roll-up! roll-up! the NHS has something to tell us about data…
News Bites 🥪
👂 New AI can screen for diabetes in seconds by listening to your voice – Wait….what does someone with diabetes sound like? Who discovered this? Is this why a Doctor dropped into Pigeon’s DMs this week asking for a call? Have they listened to the podcast and discovered something Pigeon doesn’t know?….So… many… questions….
🪽 Close AI ‘confidence gap’ to make it a powerful force for good, say experts – There’s a lot of data in this public attitudes survey from the British Standards Institute, and we’ll forgo the snarky comment about confirmation bias in surveys like these. But regulation and standards for AI could be useful to bring the 51% who don’t support AI in health on-side, as could a plan to actually inform people what the use of AI in health looks like. Speaking of which…
🗓️ NHS England plans "large-scale engagement events" to gather public views on digital and data – Pigeon imagines a series of drop-in events at Wembley Stadium, each attended by 18,000 unwilling participants and led by an NHS bureaucrat yelling ‘NEXT SLIDE PLEASE’ on a presentation about EHR convergence and inter-ICS data sharing. Anything less will be a disappointment.
🛑 Digital health tech for back pain recommended for NHS use – Excellent news: people suffering from pain in their back have access to 7 new technologies on the NHS. Sadly, health economics consultants are still waiting for a treatment for that pain in their a**e they experience when submitting evidence to NICE.*
💰 Digital therapeutics software developer for Parkinson's disease gets £2.1m investment – Augmented reality could help improve the treatment and rehabilitation for neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease… and Strolll have picked up a nice cash injection to make it happen.
⌚️ Wearables Track Parkinson’s Better Than Human Observation, Study Finds – Your infrequent reminder that wearables aren’t just there to tell you you’re doing less exercise than this time last week.
🤝 US mental health startup Headway raises $125 million at $1 billion valuation – Pigeon thinks there has to be more to Headway’s offering than is explained here: A unicorn valuation for a solution that helps people find therapists their insurance will actually pay for. Congratulations to the team, and commiserations to consumers of US healthcare services.
🍟 HLTH ‘23: For Health Tech Firms, Eat Or Be Eaten? – Should a major venture capital firm build or buy a US health system? Pigeon has thoughts and feelings, but ultimately the real question is: ‘Would a major venture capital firm be able to resist applying the VC model to a health system it did buy?’ General Catalyst says yes, and that’s why they’re doing it. Just one of Forbes’ top takeaways from last week’s HLTH event.
⛲️ The rise — and fall — of Babylon – If you liked our hastily put-together podcast on what happened at healthtech’s most unfortunate example of nominative determinism, you’ll love this well-researched article from Sifted’s Kai Nicol-Schwarz.
What to listen to 🔊
🐦 Healthtech Pigeon - A Pain in the Proverbial – Join Huw, Jess and Adama as they take a deep-dive into the week’s healthtech news and views.
🔊 The Healthtech Podcast #325 Advising world leaders to world-leading AI, with Yonatan Adiri from Healthy.io - James is joined by Yonatan Adiri, founder and CEO of Healthy.io, the global leader in providing platforms and services that offer at-home clinical-grade digital health solutions, including transforming the smartphone camera into an FDA-grade medical device.
Events 📅
Opportunities 🕵️♀️
👨🏼🎨 Head of Product Design, DrDoctor - Pigeon loves what DrDoctor does — perhaps even more so since we saw it written down and realised they were saying ‘doc’ not ‘duck**. Apply now and take a leading role in shaping one this essential patient engagement solution
🎬 Clinical Operation Director, Heathily - Healthily are doing amazing things in the health information space (regular Pigeon listeners will know this). Join them as a Clinical Operation Director and help take them to knew heights.
📵 Digital Endpoint Lead, Novartis - No, the Digital Endpoint is now what happens when AI takes over and realises humanity is surplus to requirement….in case you were wondering.
🤯 Implementation Specialist - R&D Advisory, Syneos Health - Are you a specialist when it comes to implementing things? Also, are you remarkably smart? If you said yes to both…you’re probably not getting invited to dinner parties much, but at least you’re perfect for this job.
🧵 Senior Product Designer, ZOE - You love well-crafted experiences? Oh, ZOE loves well-crafted experiences, too! If you just happen to be a product designer too, then apply now!
*NICE is a worthy and essential organisation. But this joke was low-hanging fruit, and never let it be said Pigeon left a low-hanging fruit on the tree.
**Dear DrDoctor, we sincerely hope this pun didn’t disappoint.
Got news, jobs or events you think is worth coo-ing over? Let us know! Email us: news@healthtechpigeon.com
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