Walmart Health’s virtual care telehealth services, originally known as MeMD, sold to care enablement/workflow integrator Fabric. The transaction is effective immediately though no purchase price, management transition, or change in website were disclosed. The sale is no surprise as Walmart Health in shutting their clinics starting at end of May depicted the shutdown as total, lambasting low reimbursement and the cost of business as factoring into an unsustainable model. Fabric, based in NYC, uses conversational AI to triage patients, evaluate with decision support, and optimize resource allocation and patient flow.
Fabric claims that MeMD has 30,000 corporate, institutional, and health plan partners and 5 million members, Walmart bought it for an undisclosed amount in May 2021 during the telehealth boom. It expanded to include not only urgent care, but men’s and women’s health issue support, mental health and psychiatric support. Fabric’s funding since their founding in 2021 as Florence Labs is $80 million, the most recent a February Series A round of $60 million with General Catalyst, Thrive Capital, GV (Google Ventures), and four others. They bought a telehealth Ur-company, Zipnosis, from then-Bright Health in May 2023 [TTA 24 May 2023] and GYANT, an AI-assisted enablement company, in January. Release, Mobihealthnews
Geisinger, the lead health system within Kaiser Permanente’s Risant Health, experienced a data breach that potentially exposed 1.2 million records. The former employee of Nuance Communications, an IT provider in clinical documentation, accessed records two days after his termination. Geisinger discovered the breach on 29 November 2023, Because of the ongoing investigation, patients were not notified until 24 June.
Breached information varies by patient, but it included names combined with one or more of the following: date of birth, address, admit and discharge or transfer code, medical record number, race, gender, phone number and facility name abbreviation. No claims or insurance information, credit card or bank account numbers, other financial information, or Social Security numbers were accessed.
The former Nuance employee has been arrested and is facing federal charges. Nuance had no comment. Release, Healthcare Dive
In an important development for the UK’s rapidly implementing digital switchover, now extended to January 2027, Careium has developed an ‘intelligent’ SIM card for devices. It partnered with CSL to develop a “resilient’ rSIM that actively monitors connectivity and will switch either profile for maximum uptime on all UK networks. rSIM is available for all Careium 4G products in the Eliza smartcare hub and is compatible with current devices. Careium is marketed and covers about 400,000 seniors in the UK, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, and France. Release
Two fundings of note–and one shutdown:
K Health, a NYC-based digital primary care startup, received $50 million in venture round funding from lead investor Claure Group. Additional investors were Pablo Legorreta, founder and CEO of Royalty Pharma, Mangrove Capital Partners, Valor Equity Partners and Atreides Management LP. Total funding to date is over $380 million through a Series E plus two venture rounds. Valuation is estimated at $900 million. K Health supports users through an app with AI-assisted diagnostics as well as partnerships with leading health systems in 48 states including Cedars-Sinai and health plans Elevance and UnitedHealthCare. Conditions supported are primary care, weight management, urgent care, and mental health. Release, FierceHealthcare
Alyve Health, a Mumbai, India-based digital health provider, raised a Series A of $5,5 million. It was led by Axilor Ventures with participants 1Crowd Fund, InHealth Ventures, and Trifecta Capital. Alyve provides services to corporate markets to simplify the health plan experience for members across multiple healthcare experiences such as doctor consultations, diagnostics, medicine purchases, dental procedures, gym memberships, and proactive well-being. According to the release, the raise will be used to improve its data, security, and AI capabilities, as well as expand operations, hire more talent, and enhance services. Mobihealthnews
Pain management technology company Upside Health closed. Founder Rachel Trobman posted the closure on her personal feed on LinkedIn. Their Branch Health app helped chronic pain sufferers better manage their pain and connected them to clinical and educational resources. Their website and LinkedIn pages are shuttered. According to her post, they had a base of 30,000 patients. Their funding listed on Crunchbase was $635,000.
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