#187 - Foresight is a Wonderful Thing
The one-minute healthtech roundup
Hi friends,
This week: just the tonic for the overworked clinician, a new front in the war against fax machines, and it’s time we got serious about mental health apps.
News Bites 🥪
🥃 Porto-based health tech Tonic App raises €10.85 million Series A to enter the UK and Germany – If we’re honest, Pigeon had something else entirely in mind when we read that investors had invested in tonic for doctors. Not that we’re against a generative AI solution that brings together everything clinicians need in one app, but — not gonna lie — we’re a little disappointed.
🔖 NHSE ‘reviewing contracts’ over supplier’s racist comments – The fallout from TPP founder Frank Hester’s comments regarding Diane Abbott MP continues, as pressure mounts on NHS England to activate whatever clauses may exist within supplier contracts that might enable some form of censure, and force suppliers working across the NHS to take DEI seriously as a commitment.
💬 What ‘Digital Transformation’ Means to 3 Health System Execs – On more than one occasion, clinicians have told Pigeon that they don’t really understand decisions made by healthcare executives. The opinions of these three are perhaps not statistically relevant, but by sharing them, Pigeon hopes we can get one step further to closing the gap in doctor-exec understanding.
🍂 Report: Digital Diabetes Management Tools Fall Short - Several (not all) tools to help patients manage their diabetes don’t show a significant clinical impact and actually increase the cost of providing care, says the Petersen Health Technology Institute (like NICE, if the board was full of venture capitalists). We don’t see reports like this very often, which is probably an indication that the sector is by-and-large doing something right (or at least, not doing something horribly wrong).
📠 This AI Startup is Trying to Make Fax Machines Work Better for Health Care – Despite the best efforts of some of healthcare’s finest brains (and Matt Hancock), the fax machine simply refuses to die (longevity specialists may wish to investigate further). Tennr’s taking a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach, by using generative AI to read faxed documents and take the necessary steps to seek out any missing info.
🥰 Here's How Cherish Health Raised $26 Million Without Venture Capital – As a startup founder, whether or not to accept VC funding is entirely up to you and guided by what you believe is right for your business. While raising $26m without VC involvement is impressive, Pigeon can’t help but feel the alternatives here of ‘millionaires and billionaires’ and ‘Accenture colleagues’ are unlikely to be applicable to the average founder. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting case study.
🔮 AI tool could predict a patient’s future health conditions, study finds – Could an AI read your patient record and tell you what health condition you might develop and when, before you developed it? Funny you should ask…
💉 Healthcare professionals demonstrate immunity to AI — As Benjamin Franklin once said, the only certainties in life are death, taxes and articles trying to predict the timeline for widespread uptake of generative AI in healthcare. Everything else — especially those timelines — is uncertain. We’re not going to stop asking people though. After all, we’ve got a podcast to fill.
🍨 California paid 7 Cups millions for a mental health app. It wasn't safe – Getting mental health support right is difficult. Whether it’s connecting people to someone who can listen, or trying to mimic the experience of someone listening, tech has a role to play in closing the gap in access. But it’s clear to Pigeon that not every technology (nor perhaps, the regulations in place to prevent harm) is delivering the intended result.
Tech, AI feature in new White House order to advance women's health research – After centuries of ignoring women’s health, we’re one step closer to addressing the gaps in research and outcomes, thanks to a White House executive order that will instruct agencies to prioritise funding said research. What the timeline for the funding is — or indeed what the penalty for not prioritising it might be — is, for now unclear.
What to listen to 🔊
🐦 The Healthtech Pigeon Podcast — Join Jessica and James as they examine the week’s healthtech news and views, with help from Hassan Chaudhury and Victoria Betton, the team behind the Digital Health Equity Charter.
🔊 The Healthtech Podcast #343 Breaking into healthtech without a health background, with Caitlin Baltzer, CEO of MYndspan — we throwback to when James met Caitlin from Myndspan, who shared her unconventional journey in the healthtech industry and highlighted the importance of a passion for knowledge to achieve success in a new industry.
Events 📅
LBS Healthcare Conference 2024
🕣 April 3-4
📍 London Business School
MedTech World Berlin Roadshow
🕣 April 8
📍RCKT Office, Berlin
HPN North
🕣 April 23-24
📍 Manchester
Digital Healthcare Show
🕣 April 24-25
📍 ExCel London
LSX World Congress
🕣 April 29-30
📍 Business Design Centre, London
Visit the SomX events page to see all of the best upcoming healthtech, biotech and healthcare events.
Opportunities 🕵️♀️
📲 Consultative Business Development Manager - UK Health Systems, Orcha – The UK’s premier organisation looking to ensure healthcare apps aare safe for use in healthcare is looking for someone to drive sales. Take a leading role in driving their continued growth.
💊 Digital Health Pharmacist, Abtrace – Primary care has its fair share of problems, many of which could be eased if we streamlined the systems and workflows in place to manage care. Abtrace are helping to make that happen. If you’re a pharmacist looking to get involved, apply now.
🤖 Product Associate, (AI), Peppy – What role for AI in driving better employee health outcomes across a range of complex and underserved areas, including fertility and menopause? The answer could be up to you. If you’re an entrepreneurial graduate with a passion for AI, Peppy want to meet you.
💽 Senior CRM Manager, Hertility Health – Reproductive health pioneers Hertility Health are looking for a database wizard with an eye for strategy and expertise in Braze to help them take their CRM system to the next level. Sound like you?
🧱 MedTech Venture Builder Collaborative Centre of Excellence — The UK has its first medtech venture builder, as the London Institute for Health Engineering gets moving on its plans to build innovative medtech companies. Want to accelerate the development of your medical technology into a robust, investment-ready healthcare venture? And receive £20,000 to do it?
👣 Summer internship, Mindstep — For all the brainiac med students, psych-enthusiasts and scholars of the cerebellum! If your limbic system pulses at the thought of diving into datasets and your ventral tegmental area fires faster for academic writing, Mindstep has the perfect cerebral celebration for you this summer! [Disclosure - with a job spec this puntastic, Pigeon hit crtl+C, crtl+V and is now concerned it might be out of a job. Bravo Mindstep team.]
Got news, jobs or events you think is worth coo-ing over? Let us know! Email us: news@healthtechpigeon.com
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