Portfolio News

Coronavirus Home Tests: How They Work, What They Cost, and How Accurate They Are

The shortage of COVID-19 tests has become an ongoing problem in the U.S. The shortages of test kits and testing supplies, combined with lack of access to physical testing sites, contributed to the lack of coronavirus testing nationwide and the spread of infection throughout the country. Even now, with improved testing infrastructure, experts say we’re still not testing enough to contain the spread of the virus. In response, both startups and established companies have created an influx of home COVID testing kits on the market, bolstered...

Rock Health’s COO talks digital health funding, M&As and ‘Teladongo’

At HIMSS’ recent Accelerate Health event, Rock Health Chief Operating Officer Megan Zweig gave participants some insights on how digital health has behaved during the pandemic and the resulting volatile economy. Rock Health statistics point to a record-breaking year. “We’ve already surpassed $7.5 million in funding and are on track for this year to be the biggest funding year yet in terms of U.S.-based digital health companies,” Zweig told the audience. The easing of federal regulations governing Medicare payments for telehealth visits and what platforms are used...

Time-crunched doctors are relying on remote-working scribes to take notes via video call

Medical scribes first appeared in the 1970s, when they began serving as note-takers for ER physicians. But after the federal HITECH Act motivated healthcare providers to adopt electronic health records, scribing really took off. EHRs were supposed to simplify patient record-keeping, but instead they had the opposite effect, with physicians needing to enter visit data and notes into a cumbersome and time-consuming electronic record. Thus, scribing became a fast-growing field in the U.S. The COVID-19 pandemic has also increased the need for remote scribes because note-takers...

Telemedicine startup Hims closing in on deal to go public: 4 details

Hims, a direct-to-consumer telehealth startup, is close to securing a deal to go public through a merger with special-purpose acquisition company Oaktree Acquisition Corporation, according to a September 25 report in Bloomberg. According to people familiar with the deal, the merger could be announced next week and would place Hims’ value at around $1.6 billion. Oaktree is in talks with investors to raise $75 million to help fund the transaction. Representatives for the two organizations did not comment on the situation. Hims launched in 2017 with a...

2020 Precision Health Virtual Symposium

Evidation Health Director of Strategic Partnerships Bray Patrick-Lake was one of the speakers at the afternoon keynote address at the 2020 Precision Health Virtual Symposium, which focused on how health data is gathered and used in research and how the data is being used for patient care. Patrick-Lake started her talk by saying that some time back, she had a health event that led to a clinical trial, and that clinical trial did not go well, partly because it was designed without input from patients and...