#257 The data at the end of the rainbow
The one-minute healthtech roundup, brought to you by SomX.
Hi friends,
This week: It’s a battle of the wearables with one brand coming out on top (for now), an at-home blood test transforming the health of hundreds and AI under scrutiny.
Get in on the conversation with The Healthtech Pigeon podcast ➡️ SomX’s Hollie Ruda, Amy Thomas and Jessica Somauroo are chatting this week. Available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
News Bites 🥪
🩸9 out of 10 Brits changed their lifestyle after clinically-guided at-home blood tests, new study finds – Nearly 500 Brits took an at-home blood test, got some personalised health advice, and did more than just talk about getting healthier; they walked the walk! Literally. Despite initial worries about cost and finger-pricking, most found it worth it, thanks to high-quality, REGULATED testing standards. Yes, Pigeon is still cheeping on about that old thing.
🍯 How to turn NHS data into ‘gold’ – The NHS is sitting on a goldmine of health data, but can’t actually use it. It’s like owning a Ferrari without the keys, the Mona Lisa tucked away in a shed or seeing Pigeon out in public and not snapping a pic! We digress. Past attempts, like Care.data, crashed over privacy fears, and today’s £200 million Secure Data Environments (SDEs) still struggle with messy formats and anonymisation headaches. Enter OMOP, the global data standard that finally makes health data play nicely together. Now everything will be excellent, forever.
🤖 Beyond the AI buzz: Nina Capital’s critical view on healthtech hype – If you’ve been around here for long enough, you’d know that Pigeon loves talking about AI. It gets the people going! However, it’s just not moving Nina Capital in the same way and that sounds like it might be a good thing. In fact, they’d rather back founders who tackle real healthcare problems, even if the tech isn’t shiny...which is kind of… fair?! They say too many slap an “AI” sticker on run-of-the-mill software to impress investors, missing the point entirely. In short, they’re all for betting on boring if boring saves lives, and that’s something Pigeon can get behind. Let’s save the sequins for Taylor’s next tour…
💍 Has Oura Just Beaten Apple, Samsung, and Whoop to the Punch on Women’s Health Tech? – Oura just one-upped the wearables crowd with smarter Pregnancy Insights and a Perimenopause Check-In, turning heart rate, temperature, and symptom data into reports you can show your doctor. It’s a rare combo of science, practicality, and life-stage honesty, far beyond basic cycle tracking. Apple, Samsung, and Whoop, your move…
👯 Therapists Leverage AI For Mental Health By Delving Into Virtual Digital Twins Of Their Clients And Patients Minds – Therapists are exploring AI “digital twins” of clients to safely test therapy techniques before real sessions, because why not practice on a virtual you?! Privacy and legal considerations are key when feeding client data into such systems, but these AI personas can provide useful insights. However, they’re still far from perfect and shouldn’t replace human (or avian) judgment, obviously.
🩻 Efforts to put health data at patients' fingertips ramp up – Speaking of Apple, HealthEx has launched an “Apple Wallet for health records,” letting patients securely pull, view, and share their complete medical data without portal-hopping, and it’s among the first to achieve true end-to-end interoperability. The goal is to give patients full control over their data, whether they want to share it with doctors, digital health apps, or even AI tools, all while keeping privacy protections airtight. Finally, some interoperability that puts patients in the driving seat and MIGHT actually work… Pigeon is impressed.
🚺 AI tools risk downplaying women’s health needs in social care – New research found that Google’s AI model “Gemma” tends to describe men’s social care needs as more serious than women’s, even when the cases are identical. In over 29,000 tests, men’s files were more likely to feature words like “disabled” or “complex,” while women’s needs were softened or skipped entirely. It’s bias like this that could affect who gets help. Researchers (and Pigeon) warn that without transparency and rigorous bias testing, AI could quietly reinforce inequality in care decisions. C’mon now…how are we STILL having this conversation?!
🥼Doctors are leaving the NHS for tech start ups - that's not a bad thing – We’re seeing a big exodus of doctors, but it's not as bleak as it sounds, Pigeon’s honour. Many are exploring new ways to make an impact through healthtech and innovation. By collaborating with colleagues still in the NHS, they bring ideas to life faster than the system could on its own. They’re tackling healthcare from all angles and altitudes!
What to Listen to 🔊
Events 📅
World Conference on pharma industry and medical devices
⏰ Aug 23-24
📍 London
Intelligent Health, Basel
⏰ Sept 1
📍 Switzerland
The King’s Fund 10 Year Health Plan Event
⏰ Sept 9
📍London
LSX World Congress USA
⏰ Sept 16 - 18
📍Boston
BMJ Future Health conference - Early bird discount
⏰ Nov 6-7
📍 London
Visit the SomX events page or subscribe to SomX’s events roundup to see all of the best upcoming healthtech, biotech and healthcare events.
Opportunities 🕵️♀️
👩⚕️ Online Clinic Manager, Vira Health – Are you a driven, proactive, and enthusiastic Clinic Manager? A little birdy told Pigeon that Vira Health are on the hunt for someone to join them in their mission to deliver exceptional care to women across the UK. Sounds like your kind of role? What are you waiting for!
🧑⚕️ Clinical Deployment Nurse, Sanome – Want to be the face of the UK’s first Class IIb certified AI Clinical Decision Support tool, guiding its safe rollout into everyday clinical practice? Think of yourself as a champion for digital change? Love navigating regulatory frameworks? And maybe… tired of answering Pigeon’s questions? Fair enough. Apply to join Sanome today!
✏️ Clinical Engagement Lead, Open Medical – If you are a doctor with some commercial know-how and ready to leverage your medical expertise to drive business goals and make a real impact on the future of healthcare, oh does Pigeon have the perfect opportunity for you.
👨💻 Senior Product Manager, Accurx – Accurx is looking for someone skilled in defining and delivering product strategies with a long-term vision to help shape the future of communication between patients and healthcare professionals. Sound like you? You know what to do.
👷 Senior Platform Engineer, Birdie – If words like 'strategy’, implementation’, ‘DevOps’ ‘Kubernetes’ and ‘CI/CD pipelines’ pique your interest, this avian opportunity could be the perfect nest for you. Cheep cheep!
Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Let us know! Email us: news@healthtechpigeon.com
Healthtech Pigeon is curated and produced by SomX, the 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.