#177 - The Warm Embrace of Health AI
The one-minute healthtech roundup
Hi friends,
This week: Empathetic AI, big raises come thick and fast, and calling out healthtech innovation in both Northern and Southern hemispheres.
News Bites 🥪
🧠 Mental health tech unicorn SonderMind lays off 17% of its employees – Redundancy is never a good thing, and the news of layoffs at a healthtech unicorn inevitably gets the gossip mill turning – especially after the big disasters of 2023. But the facts as reported point to consolidation post-acquisition, rather than a sign of impending doom.
🦘 Australia's digital health pipeline in 10 years – Pigeon’s taking a trip down under, where the new health initiatives set to be delivered over the next ten years have been announced. Some of these, like establishing Genomics Australia, may sound a tad quaint for those in the UK – but there’s real forward-thinking here on EHRs, joint data sharing, and care record management.
💻 Digital Medicines Transformation Portfolio publishes first annual review – Can Wales leap ahead with a new approach to digital medicines. If the findings of this review are anything to go by, we could be looking at a unified, digital system across Wales by Q2 this year. That’s if all goes well of course…
🤖 Google Claims Healthcare AI More Empathetic, Accurate Than Real-Life Doctors – Genuinely interesting and impressive (although yet to be peer-reviewed) findings from the Google team about empathy and accuracy in their healthcare AI, named AMIE. Although let’s see if any AI continues to be empathetic when it’s done a 12 hour shift, its hospital has declared a critical incident, and it’s still waiting for a payrise.*
💸 Forta Announces $55 Million Series A to Build AI Healthcare – The healthtech company is developing an exciting step forward in using AI in autism therapy, with investment and backing to make it happen.
🔖 2024 Could Be Women’s Health’s Long-Awaited, Much-Needed Standout Year – The first of two deep-dives into the women’s health industry, its drivers and trends lays out some key challenges yet to be overcome and some opportunities that need to be seized so we can add ‘...to date’ to the article title.
🌎 Closing the women’s health gap: A $1 trillion opportunity to improve lives and economies — The second, from McKinsey’s Health Institute outlines the scale of the opportunity if we can overcome barriers and, critically, how essential the success of the women’s health market will be to long-term global prosperity…
🌱 ‘There’s been no innovation in continental Europe’: Menopause tech startup Omena raises seed round – On the other side of the Atlantic, Omena’s founder has a more critical take on the state of menopause innovation in Europe, as the company secures a €800k seed round.
Need a little help with DTAC?
Working with the NHS, or planning to? There’s a good chance you’ve already encountered the Digital Technology Assessment Criteria. Maybe you’re confident you’ve got it covered. Maybe it lost you around the QMS part. Either way, DTAC experts Acorn Compliance are launching DTAC Squirrel, an automated platform to help you get compliant and stay there. Check it out at the Squirrel launch this Thursday.
What to listen to 🔊
🐦 The Healthtech Pigeon Podcast — Join James, Jessica and nen’s Francesca Wuttke as they take a deep dive into the week’s healthtech news and views.
🔊 The Healthtech Podcast #334 How to bootstrap a massive, impactful healthtech company with Harry Lykostratis from Open Medical — James is joined by Harry Lykostratis — software developer, start-up founder and practising orthopaedic surgeon, to discuss his interest in all things digital, specifically designing effective and safe care pathways, data analysis and AI.
A special event needs special guests…
After 300+ episodes, the Healthtech Podcast comes to BFI Southbank on 29th February for its first ever public live recording, and we’ve got some super special guests …
We’ll be joined by Dr Helen O'Neill, CEO and Founder of Hertility and Dr Karan Rajan, myth-busting social media star and Number 1 Sunday Times Bestseller.
Book your ticket now and don’t miss the conversation. Use code ‘COOCOO40’ for a special pigeon discount.
Events 📅
Mastering the Art of Bid Writing in Healthcare: Expert Tips & Tricks
🕣 6 February
📍 Online
London Biotechnology Show
🕣 20 February
📍 Olympia West, London
Bringing Software as a Medical Device to Market - HDR UK x Hardian Health
🕣 21 & 22 February
📍 Wellcome Trust, Euston Road, London
HETT North
🕣 28 February
📍 Manchester
HealthTechX Summit 2024
🕣 28 February - Use HTX24SMITH for 30% off your ticket
📍 The Hurlingham Club, London
Digital Health Rewired
🕣 12-13 March
📍 The NEC, Birmingham
Opportunities 🕵️♀️
🎓Associate Professor, Digital Health Policy, University College London — Got a passion for digital health, a PhD in a relevant subject, and (more than) a knack for research? The UCL Global Business School for Health are looking to add someone just like you to the team.
🛜 Senior Community Manager, Digital Health — Think of yourself as a big network builder? The Digital Health Intelligence team some of the biggest network of NHS digital and clinical data professionals out there, and they’re looking for someone to manage that ecosystem for a while. Pretty exciting job if you ask Pigeon.
4️⃣ Senior Consultant, Interoperability, EY — Want to solve healthcare interoperability challenges while being paid the big bucks? This is a big role for a big four consultancy.
📲 Digital Clinical Lead, Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust — Which is harder to implement in a hospital trust? An electronic patient record or Microsoft365. If you get the job, report back!
🚚 Compliance Delivery Lead, Acorn Compliance — Fluent in the DTAC? Know your way around a compliance project? The Acorn Compliance team is growing and needs someone to deliver compliance projects - Apply now!
*presumably this is what they mean when they say it hasn’t been tested in real-world settings yet.
** No, us neither.
Got news, jobs or events you think is worth coo-ing over? Let us know! Email us: news@healthtechpigeon.com
SomX is a communications and creative agency for healthcare. We are clinicians, scientists, creatives and communicators dedicated to serving our healthtech, biotech, pharma and public sector clients with services across strategy, content, PR, design, events and media production. Get in touch to learn more.