Kris Karson

One key reason why healthcare technologies like AI, telemedicine, and software haven't structurally lowered costs or broadened access for the entire system after decades of experimentation (excluding pure financial engineering of payer contracts) is the limited reimagining of care delivery itself, with asynchronous telemedicine as a notable exception. In the same way that digitizing physical paper failed to exploit the capabilities of a new computing medium for word processing, hosting physician-patient conversations over video does not transform the actual delivery of care. In telemedicine, many of the inputs (e.g., clinician time) and therefore cost structures of in-person care persist, which is why we often see fee-for-service telemedicine companies struggle to achieve economies of scale (i.e., growing revenues non-linearly while growing costs linearly). Until we deconstruct the components of a medical appointment – from intake and triage, to chart review, history gathering, physical examination, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up – we will continue to be underwhelmed by the disconnect between the transformative potential of these technologies and real-world patient/system impact. I’m optimistic that the emergence of reliable and performant medical AI agents will urge us to perform this deconstruction and redesign the fundamental building blocks of a “medical appointment.”

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Oracle Health, which acquired Cerner two years ago, just announced the launch of a next-generation electronic health record (EHR) platform in 2025, showcasing the company's latest advancements in cloud technology and AI capabilities. I wrote down a few thoughts. 1️⃣ 𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐦. After the big acquisition, nothing seemed to be happening. I even started thinking it was a $28B flop and that Oracle was simply moving on. Oracle stressed that the new platform is not a "refurbished Cerner EHR," but a reinvention of a digital medical record system: "You can’t bolt new innovation onto something built in the 1990s". 2️⃣ 𝐒𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 Even though the Tech is new, the philosophy remains the same. EHR incumbents will try to increase their (already too high) power in the hospital Tech stack. The solution won't come from incumbents. 3️⃣ 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐜 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐎𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 In May, an Oracle executive, Ken Glueck, executive vice president, wrote in a blog post that "Epic’s CEO Judy Faulkner is the single biggest obstacle to EHR interoperability." More pressure on Epic to open its system will always be a good thing. 4️⃣ 𝐖𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭-𝐄𝐇𝐑 𝐞𝐫𝐚 As Tomaz Gornik, co-chair of OpenEHR (non-profit community interest organisation that aims to enable clinical healthcare to advance by better use of information and IT): "Today's solutions tightly couple data to applications. As health and care data is for life, it needs to outlive applications, so there is a clear need to separate them." The Catalonia region in Spain is a frontrunner and is setting new standards with its digital health strategy and new information system model based on openEHR. 5️⃣ 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐨𝐧𝐞-𝐨𝐟𝐟 𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥 Hospital executives need to understand the new tech dynamics and create an operating model that lets them stay in control, leverage the best technology, and keep it manageable to maintain (yes, not an easy task). In Germany, some innovative hospitals are making steps into the right direction: ➡️ A big private hospital chain is building its own EHR ➡️ Another hospital chain aims to use the patient portal as the backbone for designing digitally-enabled care journeys (on top of the EHR) ➡️ A public hospital chain is building a vendor neutral interoperability layer #hospital #ehr #epic #healthcare #healthtech

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A few days ago I attended the strategy meeting of a portfolio #startup. Like all of our Synapse Partners portfolio companies, this one provides #AI solutions to #enterprise customers. Their initial success is in the medical devices industry. While reviewing the company’s sales pipeline and the progress of delivering the company’s solution to signed customers, several of the enterprise’s struggles with #generativeAI became evident. These struggles can be attributed to a lack of people with the right background and the state of the #enterprisedata.

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🌟 Generative AI and Healthcare Transformation: A New Era of Innovation 🌟 I am constantly asked about #AI applications for healthcare transformation. I continue to take people back to the pain points or problems being solved. The healthcare industry is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by the integration of generative AI. This revolutionary technology is currently reshaping the way we approach care management, early disease detection, and administrative tasks. Early Benefits of Generative AI: Enhanced Care Management: AI serves as a "co-pilot" for healthcare professionals, assisting in managing patient care more efficiently and accurately. This leads to improved patient outcomes and more personalized care plans. Early Disease Detection: AI's ability to analyze vast amounts of unstructured data enables early identification of diseases, potentially saving lives and reducing healthcare costs. It's a game-changer in preventive healthcare. Reducing Clinician Burnout: By automating repetitive administrative tasks, AI allows clinicians to focus more on patient care. This not only improves job satisfaction but also enhances the quality of care provided. Affordability and Efficiency: AI-driven processes streamline operations, making healthcare more affordable and accessible. From optimizing workflows to reducing operational costs, AI is paving the way for a more sustainable healthcare system. Challenges and Considerations: Ethical and Legal Frameworks: Ensuring AI is used responsibly requires robust ethical, legal, and policy frameworks. Trustworthy AI adoption is crucial for patient safety and health equity. Technology Infrastructure: Organizations need to update their technology infrastructure, including cloud capabilities, to fully support AI implementation. As we embrace these advancements, it's essential to stay informed and engaged in the conversation about how AI can continue to transform healthcare for the better. #HealthcareTransformation #GenerativeAI #HealthTech #Innovation #AIinHealthcare Thanks to sources McKinsey & Company (https://lnkd.in/g7HZHEST) and MedCity News (https://lnkd.in/gi95t4qJ)

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The team at Define Ventures has published a paper on AI and how C-suite leaders at Payers and Providers are thinking about these exciting new technologies. Get the full report here:  https://lnkd.in/eVnp9N-k

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Oracle Health announced plans to launch a next-generation EHR platform in 2025, incorporating advanced cloud and AI capabilities. This new EHR will feature Oracle's clinical AI agent, voice-activated navigation, and Health Data Intelligence, which integrates patient data from over 300 sources to enhance clinical workflows and improve patient outcomes. The platform aims to replace traditional EHRs, which often dictate rigid workflows, with a more dynamic system that allows for personalized care plans. Oracle Health emphasizes that the new EHR is a complete reinvention rather than an upgrade of the previous Cerner system. Additionally, Oracle plans to become a Qualified Health Information Network to facilitate standardized data sharing across the healthcare ecosystem. Executives at Oracle also unveiled new cloud applications to improve patient management and streamline front-office operations, reinforcing the company's commitment to enhancing healthcare accessibility and data utility while addressing interoperability challenges in the industry.

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Super excited for this launch ✨ There's been some wonderful growth over the last few years in the remote care and virtual health spaces, but the increase in disparate solutions has also created a ton of fragmented workflows for clinicians, forcing them to switch between various point solutions to service a patient. We've seen it even with our own web app and provider-facing tools — clinicians are often spending more time trying just to find the right data on a patient than actually analyzing it and taking action. We're launching Connect to embed our insights on medication adherence directly into other web and care platforms to reduce the administrative time spent jumping between solutions to find different data points and increase the time clinicians are spending taking action and addressing patient needs. If you're a care platform of any sort and/or looking to provide your patients with a medication adherence support tool, we'd love to assist :) #virtualcare #medicationadherence #rtm

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The Future of AI in Healthcare: Key Trends to Watch   AI is transforming healthcare, offering new ways to enhance patient care, diagnostics, and operational efficiency. For healthcare professionals and investors, staying informed about these emerging trends is crucial to capitalizing on future opportunities.   1. Personalized Medicine: Tailoring Care AI’s ability to analyze genetic and lifestyle data will elevate personalized medicine, ensuring treatments are designed for individual patients. This approach promises greater effectiveness for chronic conditions and cancer therapies. Are you prepared to support innovations that make care more precise?   2. Predictive Analytics: Early Intervention AI-driven predictive analytics can identify health risks before symptoms appear, transforming preventative care. By analyzing vast datasets, healthcare providers can detect early signs of heart disease or diabetes, enabling timely interventions. Is your strategy aligned with this proactive approach?   3. Enhanced Diagnostics: Faster, Accurate Results AI is redefining diagnostics through advanced imaging analysis. Algorithms can swiftly interpret X-rays and MRIs, improving accuracy and reducing errors. Could this technology bring faster, more reliable diagnostics to your practice or portfolio?   4. Virtual Health Assistants: 24/7 Patient Support AI-powered virtual assistants are revolutionizing patient interactions by handling appointment scheduling, medication reminders, and medical queries. How could these innovations improve patient engagement and streamline your operations?   5. Drug Discovery: Accelerating New Therapies AI is revolutionizing drug discovery by identifying potential candidates and predicting efficacy, cutting costs and reducing development time. Are you ready to invest in AI solutions that expedite critical therapies?   6. Remote Monitoring & Telehealth: Continuous Care AI-driven remote monitoring systems provide real-time health assessments outside clinical settings, enabling timely interventions and reducing hospital visits. How will this impact your telehealth strategies?   7. Multimodal Data Integration: Comprehensive Insights AI’s ability to integrate diverse data—genomics, medical records, and imaging—offers a holistic view of patient health, improving diagnostics and personalized treatment plans. Are you leveraging this potential for more comprehensive care delivery?   8. Ethical Considerations: Navigating Responsibility As AI permeates healthcare, ethical concerns around data privacy, bias, and accountability must be addressed. Establishing clear regulatory frameworks will be crucial. Is your organization ready to navigate these challenges responsibly?   Shaping the Future AI’s impact on healthcare offers both opportunities and challenges. How will you contribute to this transformation? Share your perspective and join the conversation—together, we can lead this change.

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Is your software platform a medical device according to FDA? If so, what does that mean for your business? These are essential questions for developers in #DTx, #HealthcareXR, and #remotetherapeuticmonitoring. Even if your software is a medical device, you might be subject to enforcement discretion - a more affordable path to market. But, there is a thin line between enforcement discretion and active regulation, which Michael Schellhous breaks down in the article below. Check it out! https://lnkd.in/edDfNkgc

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This Bessemer Venture Partners report is basically mandatory reading for anyone working in the healthcare technology. They do such a high quality job categorizing business models and their take of AI companies creating a Service-As-A-Software offering is a meaningful concept to monitor in 2025.

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This is a big one! With over $11T in our healthcare industry we have always thought to look to the “left” and “right” of our value chain at market influencers and competitors. Here’s a push for us to get serious about looking at disintermediation and new market entrants with a focus on big tech’s interest in healthcare. While these are just the “larger” companies, their investments alone represent a significant focus on looking at our industry differently and solving for the struggles in healthcare in a very unique way. As we look at these, one can just simply say this makes them “potential competitors” but if you dig deeper I personally think this actually gives us a unique partnership opportunity. Let’s solve the opportunities in this industry together!

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Brellium is a great example of how AI is transforming healthcare. Within six months of deploying Brellium's AI technology, Cerebral has seen a dramatic 81% improvement in meeting critical insurance criteria, and has decreased the time spent on chart audits by 78%, demonstrating significant advancements in operational efficiency. This significant improvement in efficiency freed up significant resources, allowing healthcare providers to reallocate their time and efforts to more client-focused activities and other administrative areas. https://lnkd.in/emgkse7P

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ZignaAI has been my favorite partner to work with since the founding of Helix Advisory! Their work has already paid significant dividends for payors leveraging their technology, but we couldn't be more excited to combine our #RCM expertise with their technological innovation to bring those outcomes to providers! #healthcareAI #CDI

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While there are many things to consider when it comes to integrating AI into healthcare, an important question to not overlook is: Are patients ready for it? New research from Bain provides some great insight into how patients feel about certain Generative AI applications. From note-taking to medical advice, understanding patients' comfort level will drive this tech's success. Do any of these findings surprise you? #AI #Healthcare #FutureOfHealthcare #PatientExperience

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Interoperability in healthcare refers to timely and secure access, integration and use of electronic health data so that it can be used to optimize health outcomes. Hear from our own Bobby Sherwood on the challenges and best practices around #interoperability.

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Here’s your recap of last week’s health IT news 🗞️ 👇 🤖 AI Clinician Assistant • Avaamo launched an AI ambient scribe solution with support for over 50 specialties with pre-trained models. • Wound AI, an AI clinical decision support solution built by VANTIQ, Telemedicine Solutions, LLC, and NTT DATA, launched and is now available 📞 AI Contact Center • Premier Inc. awarded a group purchasing agreement to TeleVox Healthcare. 🏥 AI Facility Management • Medely has integrated with Oracle, allowing users to leverage Oracle’s Cloud HCM capabilities. 🌡️ AI Remote Patient Monitoring and Triage • The Alliance for Smart Healthcare Excellence—established by care.ai, now a part of Stryker, and developed with assistance from CHIME—was established to promote the Smart Hospital Maturity Model (SHMM). 📈 Data & Analytics • Epic expanded its set of APIs available to developers to support USCDI v3. • Health Catalyst will acquire Intraprise Health, a cybersecurity provider; it was also selected for analytics and interoperability by CyncHealth, Iowa’s health information exchange (HIE). • Health Commons Project acquired OneHealthPort • Socially Determined released a new application that helps organizations access data for minors. 🧾 Orders & Fulfillment • Surescripts is expanding its Medication History for Populations product to health plans, enabling care management teams to identify gaps in care and improve outcomes. 🧑‍💻 Virtual & At-Home Care • Mass General Brigham launched a partnership with the New England Center and Home for Veterans to provide hospital at home services for veterans experiencing homelessness. • MedStar Health expanded its partnership with DispatchHealth to support care transitions.    🍎 VBC • i2i Population Health is partnering with CureMD to surface actionable data to providers at the point of care. 🧠 Food For Thought • Brendan Keeler shared an interesting post differentiating AI solutions across augmentative vs. autonomous and then further breaking down each. One take we found interesting was, “Active interfaces are fun, but ultimately have some of the same problems as Siri - they require explicit engagement and cognitive overhead to use. This means their adoption and impact often fall short of expectations - users must actively remember to use them and overcome the friction of engagement.” https://lnkd.in/eR39qFpK --- Want the latest healthcare tech news delivered to your inbox each week? Sign up here 📬 👉 https://lnkd.in/e2UJ3ckP

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After attending the The MedTech Conference, here are some key takeaways and questions to bring to HLTH Inc. in the coming days: - MedTech investors are prioritizing #execution efficiency, focusing on both resource management and cash optimization, while demanding clear demonstrations of value. - #Discipline and #focus are essential: every dollar invested must create #value, and that value must be proven. - #Sustainability is becoming a top priority, not just for companies but for the entire healthcare ecosystem. We need to focus on #affordability, #implementation, and the demonstration of #benefits, ideally combining both cost-based and value-based approaches. Software medical devices are exploring new market access pathways in both Europe and the U.S., but healthcare systems are not ready yet. This raises important questions: How will this evolve? How can we define adapted and relevant routes for products that bring value to patients, healthcare professionals and systems alike?! These are key issues we’ll tackle at HLTH Inc. starting Sunday. While we may not have all the answers, I’m excited to brainstorm, explore, and hopefully collaborate with some brilliant minds (#whitematter 👌 ) to generate value and revenues within global healthcare systems.

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After a brief writing hiatus… Part III of “Who Pays for Healthcare AI” is live. The third installment defines five performance-based pricing models for healthcare AI and explores: • Four types of Return on Investment (ROI) in healthcare and life sciences • The importance of shielding at-risk pricing models from operational externalities • How better pricing model design can mitigate negative working capital risk under performance-based models • Taming the beast: attribution Check out Part III below, and subscribe to receive the final post of the series! https://lnkd.in/dPZSHMiy

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