In the first quarter of 2022, CB Insights found that the $10.4 billion that was invested in global health tech startups was down 36% compared to the $16.2 billion that was put into the global market from Q4 of 2021. Experts predicted this drop and don’t believe a rebound as drastic as the one seen during the pandemic will be happening any time soon.
This not to say, of course, that the health tech industry will be seeing its end. There is still an obvious need for innovation and development in the area. Rather, the funding frenzy of 2020 and 2021 has come to a halt, and the explanation as to why is rather simple.
The cool-off in health tech investing has much to do with the normalization of COVID-19. It follows a larger trend of investors pulling back from backing startups after a year of all-time-high cash flow for the businesses.
The stagnation in funding for health tech in particular followed a massive jolt of investment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It makes sense – the perceived value of the industry in the short-term shot up exponentially. But now that the immediate need for health tech innovation has receded, VCs are exploring what other industries may be the next to explode. And why wouldn’t they? Compared to other ventures, the health tech industry has slower ROIs due to its longer and expensive cycles of R&D, not to mention the bureaucratic hoops. It’s likely that investors are looking to shift their ventures towards markets with a clearer path to returns.
Shannon Flynn is a freelance blogger who covers education technologies, cybersecurity and IoT topics. You can follow Shannon on Muck Rack or Medium to read more of her articles.
The right to repair is a contentious topic that has spent a lot of time in the news over the last couple of years. Consumers believe they should have the right to repair devices they own, while many manufacturers contest this. When discussing repairing an automobile or a smartphone, the law should side with the consumer – but where does the right to repair fall when dealing with medical devices?
A new lawsuit brought against the Library of Congress by a trade association of medical device manufacturers could change how DMCA gets applied moving forward.
DMCA Section 1201 and the Triennial Review
Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998. It has evolved into a seemingly comprehensive tool for copyright protection in the intervening decades. Unfortunately, people have found ways to exploit it. Many of its sections and processes operate contrarily to one another, making it difficult for even those versed in DMCA law to keep track of all the potential loopholes and exploits.
On paper, Section 1201 of the DMCA seems like a straightforward process to prevent the law from being circumvented. Section 1201 explains that attempting to “circumvent a technical measure” would also be considered copyright infringement in very broad terms. It also creates a tool for people to obtain exemptions to this section of the DMCA. Every three years, people are allowed to apply for exemptions.
2021 provided the latest opportunity for exemption applications. Some of the approved exemptions included an expansion on an exemption from six years ago which allowed for the circumvention of technological protection measures (TPMs) on medical devices. The initial exemption limited this sort of circumvention to partially or wholly implanted devices, but petitioners in 2021 sought to expand the exemption to include any medical devices.
For medical professionals, this exemption makes a lot of sense. It allows medical professionals to access data on their patients’ devices, regardless of any TPMs in place. The medical device industry doesn’t see it that way.
The purpose of analytics is to provide insights using data to enable people in an organization to make smarter decisions. It gives decision-makers a better understanding of what is going on, what has happened, why it happened, and what is likely to occur based on hard data. Done well, analytics will improve the overall performance of the organization.
It is important to ensure that insights are spread throughout a company in a strategic way to maximize the benefits. Just as an organization’s culture is a major factor in its performance, its data culture is crucial to spreading this wealth of knowledge and information.
What is data culture?
Data culture is a broad term encompassing various aspects. The most obvious aspect is how much value executives place on data and analytics, and how aligned leaders are on the organizational data strategy. How leaders view analytics has a huge impact on the motivation of analysts to improve their skills at reading, interpreting and analyzing standardized data (also known as data literacy.) Data culture requires connection among the cohort of analysts as well as the organization’s data strategies, and it is critical to establish a network that permeates the organization.
Establish networks
The formal way to establish this network is through the establishment of federated analytics and named analytics power users. This structure enables alignment while empowering analysts with tools, data and support they need. It is important that these analysts glean value from the collaboration and are incentivized to obtain valuable skills and relationships.
The informal network of relationships is key to developing a positive and impactful data culture. The data governance structures should support a strategic roadmap of analytics initiatives undertaken as partnerships between the central analytics team and analysts in business areas. Shared ownership in developing analytics solutions fosters a virtuous cycle whereby the team members have deeper buy-in.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the bravery and commitment of health care professionals in the face of danger and tragedy. Unfortunately, the continued stress of the crisis took a severe toll on the heroic nurses who provided invaluable care and hope to our communities. It also further exposed the crippling nurse shortage that is plaguing the health care system nationwide and in Texas and increased the call to think outside of the box to address the crisis.
Some hospitals in Texas and across the country are taking steps to address the shortage, and they’re doing it by making changes for a more inclusive and friendly environment – providing nurses with better engagement and empowerment to shape operations and improve patient care.
Addressing the causes
The nursing shortage is a long-standing challenge, but the pandemic has significantly worsened the problem. Nurses and physicians have left in record numbers, due to fatigue and exhaustion. High turnover has severely affected employee morale, creating a snowball effect that could encourage more nurses and other staff to leave. It can also have an impact on attracting new talent.
The difficulties of COVID-19 created a wave of early retirements due in part to the extended period of limited access to medical facilities for both patients and staff. Because hospitals stopped doing elective surgeries – and many patients made it a point to stay away for safety reasons – hospitals had less income and needed to reduce staff to stay afloat. A 2015 study reported that more than 1 million RNs would retire from the workforce between now and 2030. As they go, they take with them their invaluable accumulated knowledge and experience.
Unfortunately, the critical nursing shortage shows no sign of abating, and experts project that 1.2 million new RNs will be needed nationwide in the next eight years in order to address the shortage. According to the Texas Workforce Commission, there are already 23,000 more unfilled RN jobs, and that number is expected to increase 50% by 2030. What’s more, the shortage of RNs will only intensify as baby boomers age and the need for health care grows.
Aesthetic medicine has come a long way in the last couple of decades. The field is in a very advanced state at this point, and many people have been enjoying the benefits it brings to the table. Watching that progress unfold has been exciting for those with an active interest in observing the field and tracking improvements in it as well. With that in mind, where do we stand right now, and what’s the current state of aesthetic medicine?
Patient centricity has quickly become the biggest buzzword in medicine and clinical research – but it is much more than a trend. Patient centric clinical research allows the healthcare industry to deliver more holistic outcomes for patients, meaning that new treatments not only deliver the desired outcome, but also leave intact or even improve the patient’s quality of life while they are undergoing treatment. As a result of this shift, implementing strategies for capturing the patient’s voice in clinical research has become a top priority for the biopharma industry.
Patients today certainly have more advocacy and are playing a more active role in clinical trial planning and data collection as a condition of their participation, which is a major contributor to this shift. However, regulators and payers are also driving the shift by showing increasing interest in the perspectives of patients as they review submissions for new drug approvals. Electronic clinical outcomes assessments (eCOAs) have emerged as an effective approach to capturing these patient insights that can make or break the trial by giving them a structured platform for reporting their experiences and capturing those reports in measurable and meaningful ways.
What are eCOAs?
An eCOA is a digital approach to capturing patient experience data in traditional clinical trials and real-world studies. During the pandemic, eCOAs shot to prominence in the research space as sponsors sought out more agile tools to capture patient data remotely. At this critical point in time for agile research, eCOAs made it easier for investigators and sponsors to keep track of patient progress outside of the site environment’s confines and collect more patient-specific information to support the safety and efficacy of treatments and their impact on patients’ quality of life.
eCOAs are custom-built interactive assessments that clinical trial participants are prompted to respond to, through provided or personal devices. They allow patients, clinicians, and caregivers to directly report outcomes, supplying real-time insights, and high-quality data collection. These digital assessments have led the way in simplifying patient engagement and amplifying the voice and experience of patience.
By Cindy Gaines, chief clinical transformation officer, Lumeon.
Reflecting on the past couple years, it’s become clear that staffing shortages have taken a toll on nursing physically, emotionally and mentally, leading to declining retention rates, inadequate resources, and, at times, concern for their mental health.
Staffing shortages are not just the result of a pandemic, but of an aging workforce. Hospitals are faced with the challenge of addressing the work environment not just in the context of a pandemic, but holistically.
Pain Points
Through the years, we have equipped nurses and care staff with equipment such as computers, pagers, tablets, and zone phones to help them connect with patients, family members, doctors, labs, radiology and outside services. This equipment is necessary for their work but has had unintended consequences. As nurses manage medications and juggle competing priorities, they are constantly bombarded with a world of distraction. This creates safety risks in the care environment.
Additionally, this technology has introduced service expectations created to support the patient and family experience. For example, a phone call must be answered within 3 rings—great customer service for the caller, but it takes the nurse away from the patient currently being cared for. At times, technology meant to support the care process has become a barrier between the nurse and the patient.
This stressful work environment is further complicated by very real staffing issues in our country. Demographic data suggests that the average median age of a nurse is 52 years old and that 20% of RNs are 65 years or older, meaning hospitals can expect gaps in staffing as this age group ages out and begins to retire. While this seems like an opportunity to usher in a new generation of young, fresh-minded nurses, nursing programs are unable to graduate enough people to supply this gap in the industry due to an overwhelming lack of resources.
These factors together have created the perfect storm of a care staff shortage.
By Ken Perez, vice president of healthcare policy and government affairs, Omnicell, Inc.
Discussions about the cost of healthcare in the United States often take the form of debates, pitting one sector against the other. Classic examples are health insurers (payers) versus hospitals and health systems (providers), and pharmaceutical manufacturers versus providers. Often at stake in these clashes are the relative sizes of the healthcare economic pie received by the different sectors.
Looking at healthcare through a societal lens helps one avoid participating in these debates and instead focus on macro issues. For years, how much the U.S. spends in total on healthcare—across all payers and for all healthcare—has been at the top of the macro issues list.
National health expenditures (NHE) are the universally accepted measure of that. On March 28, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2021-2030 National Health Expenditure report, which was prepared by the CMS Office of the Actuary.
How much did the U.S. in total spend on healthcare last year? In 2021, national health spending totaled $4.3 trillion, equal to 18.8% of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) and down from a record 19.7% of GDP in 2020 that reflected the significant spending incurred to respond to COVID-19. Because of the pandemic, NHE grew sharply (9.7%) from 2019 to 2020, and its growth slowed to 4.2% in 2021. Per capita health expenditures were $13,037 in 2021. To put that in perspective, last year, the U.S. spent almost $1,100 per month on healthcare for the average per person.
Comparisons with Other Countries
Since healthcare consumes almost a fifth of the nation’s GDP, one has to ask whether that is good or bad. One basis for answering that question is to compare U.S. healthcare spending with that of similarly advanced industrialized countries. Two measures are commonly used to perform that comparison: 1) healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP; and 2) per capital health expenditures.
By Melissa Mooney, director,
