Portfolio News

Kyruus CEO Shares Perspective on Digital Health in Massachusetts

Kyruus CEO Graham Gardner likens Kyruus's efforts to change healthcare to the way Oakland A's manager Billy Bean redefined baseball by focusing on the inherent value of his players in the book Moneyball. The KyruusOne software platform, according to Gardner, helps health systems connect patients with "the right provider the first time." It's a centralized provider database that includes information on medical conditions, procedures, insurances, languages, and scheduling rules so that patients and providers can find the best fit. Additionally, Kyruus's ProviderMatch search and scheduling applications, currently used...

How Science is Unlocking the Cancer Medicines of the Future

In the UK, more than 350,000 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2014, and there were 163,444 deaths from cancer. Nonetheless, the outlook for cancer patients is looking better, thanks to major advances in drug development, genomics, and immunotherapy. One example is CAR-T cell therapies, an immunotherapy program that helps the body fight back against blood cancers. In this procedure, scientists engineer immune cells to target specific types of blood cancer. Unlike traditional chemotherapy, in which around 50 percent of patients will relapse, CAR-Ts may...

Doctors Live-Streaming Patient Exams to Note-Takers via Google Glass

A 2016 study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that physicians spent 37 percent of their time on a computer during exams. This can frustrate patients because they don’t think they’re getting the doctor’s full attention. Not only that, but physicians spend one to two hours after work completing electronic health records (EHRs) and other “desktop medicine” requirements, according to the same study. Sutter Health Network has chosen to solve that problem by using Google Glass to stream audio and video of a patient to an...

A Start-Up Suggests a Fix to the Health Care Morass

Despite the drama in Washington, D.C. over the Affordable Care Act and its repeal or replacement, investors are still seeing a big future in the expansion of healthcare and the creation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) in Medicare. Perhaps the most interesting and groundbreaking company created in connection with the Affordable Care Act is Aledade, founded in 2014 by Dr. Farzad Mostashari, former national coordinator for health information technology at the Department of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration. Aledade, which has raised about $75...

Startup Aledade’s Ambitious Goal: Reduce Health Care Costs While Improving Care Quality

In a recent Morning Briefing, Kaiser Health News (KHN) touched on recent health policy coverage from major news organizations, including the following stories: The New York Times recently profiled Aledade, a McKesson Ventures portfolio company, and the progress it has made at two primary care practices in Kansas. Oscar, a health insurance startup focused on selling Obamacare plans, posted a smaller first-half loss than a year earlier, according to state regulatory filings. Shareholders of Sabra Health Care voted in favor of a proposed merger with...