Takeaways from the Health Evolution Summit 2023

Written By John Asalone

I attended the Health Evolution Summit a few weeks ago, featuring 300+ CEOs of leading HCIT companies and national payors. 

I wanted to summarize a few key themes from the 3 day event.

Best,

John

 

US Life Expectancy

  • Big Picture. Several speakers highlighted that the US life expectancy has fallen two years in a row, an unprecedented decline. The US spends $4T (20% of GDP) on healthcare.

  • Why it matters?: Spending 20% of GDP to generate declining life expectancy is not sustainable, and will be a long-term competitive threat to the country. Reminder: the two leading causes of death in the US are heart disease and cancer.

Mental Health

  • Big Picture. Mental Health was the fastest growing marketplace category in a16’s Marketplace 100 list. There was general consensus that access has improved, but demand has outstripped supply of available therapists. There was also general consensus that the healthcare industry still lacks tools for tracking mental health outcomes effectively.

  • Why it matters? Payors have been aggressive signing up new marketplace companies (e.g. Alma, Headay, Path, Octave), with attractive rate cards and quick negotiations. However, none of these new entrants is offering the full suite of services payors seek, which will be an advantage to companies that can be a “full-stack” partner. Expect several large Series C/D funding announcements in 2023, an exception to the general fundraising trends in digital health.

Health Equity. 

  • Big Picture. Leaders in this space were very blunt that there are not strong financial models or incentives to improve health equity today. The best and most successful initiatives share one common thread: strong CEO or Board-level support who have issued a top-down mandate to their organizations. Where this exists, results have followed, but questions about scalability remain.

  • Why it matters?: This was disappointing to hear, as I believe that behavior follows incentives. My bet is that companies tackling patient access and engagement (e.g. Kyruus, Dexcare, K-Health) are best positioned to impact health equity by simply improving hospital and health plans engagement efforts, which do have clear financial models supporting these efforts. 

Healthcare AI

  • Big Picture. Companies large and small shared that they have an active internal AI initiative. Yet one major hospital system exec joked that AI still hasn’t replaced the radiologist, which was predicted long ago. Ironically, I heard two speakers mention Doximity’s DocsGPT fax offering, which once again proves that product-led digital health companies will continue to make meaningful incremental improvements, as big healthcare forms another committee to debate AI’s impact.

  • Why it matters? I expect the most meaningful impact of AI in big healthcare will be to replace back-office tasks. The healthcare industry has always under-indexed on offshoring, so AI is likely to reduce headcount in operations that skipped a generation of technology and outsourcing efficiency. 

Food as Medicine

  • Big Picture. Instacart’s health team has introduced tools for providers to prescribe food to patients. According to their internal data, 93% of food deserts can be accessed by delivery within 2 hours. This initiative will compete with legacy company’s like Mom’s Meals, the PE-backed (and profitable) delivery service that has 400+ payor contracts. 

  • Why it matters?: Medicare Advantage plans are actively competing for members using supplemental benefits -- 98% of plans cover fitness programs, and 71% offer a meal benefit. After Optum quietly purchased Solutran in 2021-- the largest directed spend vendor -- new entrants like Soda Health have emerged to provide health plans with more flexibility and targeting to optimize these benefits, including for medically tailored meals.

John Asalone