RCGP chair at The King’s Fund: destroy Babylon Health’s GP at Hand ‘amazing model’, the present financial model–or both

July 5, 2018 | by

A whole lot of disrupting goin’ on. At The King’s Fund’s June conference on ‘Reimagining general practice’, Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) chair Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard at the opening plenary seemingly did the impossible–praising Babylon Health’s GP at Hand while wishing its destruction, along with the present UK practice payment method. First, health leaders had a ‘lot to learn’ from the GP at Hand model–and that NHS IT systems at present were inadequate in meeting patients’ needs. “‘Let’s have tech that works and use innovative ways of consulting. Because the reality is we’re looking foolish and people are looking for alternatives. The rise of the private GP health sector is not a coincidence – it’s an inevitable consequence of the NHS not keeping up.”

If you cannot beat them, join them–and figure out a new way of paying GPs. ‘[We] have to totally adopt that technology right throughout the NHS for everybody so it destroys [Babylon’s] business model and it is normal across the whole of general practice – tech tsunami stuff. Or we have to tear up the financial model by which we pay [practices]. And one of those things has to happen fast. I would suggest we need to do both.’   

Her remarks are in the face of GP at Hand cresting at over 30,000 patients, with over 3,000 signing up in May.

Both Professor Stokes-Lampard and following speaker Professor Steve Field, CQC chief inspector of general practice, pointed to a model such as GP at Hand ‘cherry picking’ primarily healthy patients rather than a broad population and destabilizing surgeries. Both agreed that the disruption had major implications for ‘the financial contracting model in general practice’.

Earlier, GPonline exclusively revealed that market research firm Ipsos Mori is investigating–at a cost of £250,000–the impact of GP at Hand, including its long-term implications for the sustainability of traditional general practice.

Instant GP, don’t even add water; Babylon Health taps into the corporate market via insurer Bupa (UK)

June 21, 2018 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/instant-gp-300×300.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Is digital health gaining some traction in the UK? One insurer is making the bet. Earlier this week, Babylon Health announced a UK partnership with Bupa’s corporate insurance area to open Babylon’s digital health services to corporate employees insured by Bupa.  Bupa’s Instant GP app offers these employees Babylon services, such as the ability to book virtual appointments with GPs, be transferred to specialists, and receive prescriptions. The app is free to download through the Apple App Store or Google Play for Bupa-covered employees.

Bupa and Babylon have been working together in a limited way since 2015–see this Bupa press release.

Some extras for employees in the program: unlimited 24/7 online GP consultations; Babylon’s clinical triage service, and access to the Babylon’s new “digital twin” service. This medical assessment method works with a smartphone tapping key parts of their body. It’s being previewed by Bupa and is scheduled to be released nationwide later this year.

Reportedly Bupa is seeking to provide Babylon services to their UK SME business (micro, small and medium-sized enterprises) later this year. Telegraph (paid access for full article), Digital Health News

For Babylon, it’s been an extraordinarily busy time. They have a new agreement with Samsung to be included in Samsung Health on smartphones [TTA 14 June], and China’s Tencent offering of Babylon through their WeChat platform. Babylon also recently announced passing the 26,500 patient mark with London NHS GP at Hand.

Rounding up the news: Babylon’s Samsung Health UK deal, smartphone urine test debuts, a VA Home Telehealth ‘announcement’, Aging 2.0’s NY Happy Hour

June 14, 2018 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Lasso.jpg” thumb_width=”125″ /]Huge or Ho-Hum? Babylon’s ‘Ask an Expert’ feature is now available within the Samsung Health app as of the start of June. It will need to be activated at a cost of £50 per year, or £25 for a single consultation. Babylon’s service with over 200 GPs is now available on millions of Samsung Galaxy devices in the UK. Babylon now claims half a million users of its private GP services and 26,500 registered in London with its NHS-funded and controversial GP at Hand app.

Is it as our Editor Charles, quoting Niccolo Machiavelli writing in The Prince, “Nothing is more difficult to undertake, more perilous to conduct or more uncertain in its outcome than to take the lead in introducing a new order of things. For the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old and lukewarm defenders who may do well under the new”. The debate rages–see the comments below the Pulse Today article. 

Healthy.io is introducing a test of its urinalysis by smartphone test with Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust’s new Virtual Renal Clinic. 50 patients will received the Dip.io kit to test their urine. Dip.io uses the standard urine dipstick test combined with a smartphone application that guides the user through scanning in the results with a smartphone camera and sends the result to their doctor. Healthy.io claims this is a first-of-kind technology and system. According to Salford Royal, chronic kidney disease (CKD) costs the NHS £1.45 billion in England alone. The company is part of the NHS Innovation Accelerator Programme. Digital Health News

In what has been the worst kept secret in US telehealth, 1Vision LLC and AMC Health finally announced they were partners in 1Vision’s over $258 million Home Telehealth award by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) [TTA 6 Feb 17]. The news here is that the AMCH release states that they have an “Authority to Operate (ATO)”, which means they can provide Home Telehealth services using AMC Health’s CareConsole to VA-enrolled veterans and their families. This last step is very important because it is a common post-award point of failure for new awardees. Earlier this year, the Iron Bow/Vivify Health award failed on the country of origin of Vivify’s kit, dooming the implementation [TTA 16 Jan] and Iron Bow’s award. (Vivify Health has gone on.) Medtronic, as a long-term incumbent, has few worries in this regard, though any new equipment has to be cleared. The mystery is if Intel-GE Care Innovations, the last new awardee, has passed the ATO bar. AMC Health/1Vision release. 

And on the social front for New Yorkers, raise a Pint 2.0 at Aging 2.0’s NYC Happy Hour, Tuesday 18 July at 310 Bowery Bar, 6pm. Aging 2.0 website, where you can check for a chapter and events near you.

Robots, robots, everywhere…even when they’re NHS 111 online algorithms

January 23, 2018 | by | 1 Comment
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Overrun-by-Robots1-183×108.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The NHS continues to grope its way towards technology adoption, gets slammed–but is it justified? The Daily Telegraph (paywalled–see The Sun) revealed a draft December NHS report that recommended that the NHS 111 urgent non-emergency care line’s “enquiries will be handled by robots within two years.” Moreover, “The evaluation by NHS England says smartphones could become “the primary method of accessing health services,” with almost 16 million inquiries dealt with by algorithms, rather than over the telephone, by 2020.” (That is one-third of demand, with one-quarter by 2019.)

Let’s unpack these reported statements.

  • An algorithm is not a ‘robot’. This is a robot.[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/robottoy-1.jpg” thumb_width=”100″ /]
  • What is so surprising about using algorithmically based questions for quick screening? Zipnosis in the US has been using this method for years as a pre-screener in major health systems. They call it an ‘online adaptive interview’ guiding the patient through branching logic of relevant questions; a provider can review the provided clinical note and make a diagnosis and treatment recommendation in 2 minutes. It also captures significant data before moving to an in-person or telemedicine visit if needed. Babylon Health uses a similar methodology in its chatbot-AI assisted service [TTA 26 Apr 17].
  • Smartphones as a primary means of accessing health services? How is this surprising when the Office of National Statistics says that 73 percent of adults use the internet from their mobiles? 51 percent go online for health information.
  • Based on the above, 66 percent would still be using telephonic 111 services.

It seems like when the NHS tries to move forward technologically, it’s criticized heavily, which is hardly an incentive. Over New Year’s, NHS 111 had a 20 percent unanswered call rate on its busiest day when the flu epidemic raged (Sun). Would an online 111 be more effective? Based on the four-location six-month test, for those under 35, absolutely. Yes, older people are far less likely to use it, as undoubtedly (but unreported) the disabled, sight-impaired, the internet-less, and those who don’t communicate in English well–but the NHS estimates that the majority of 111 users would still use the phone. This also assumes that the online site doesn’t crash with demand, and that the algorithms are constructed well.

Not that the present service has been long-term satisfactory. David Doherty at mHealth Insight/3G Doctor takes a 4G scalpel to its performance and offers up some alternatives, starting with scrapping 111.

Babylon Health’s ‘GP at hand’ not at hand for NHS England–yet. When will technology be? Is Carillion’s collapse a spanner in the works?

January 16, 2018 | by

NHS England won’t be rolling out the Babylon Health ‘GP at hand’ service anytime soon, despite some success in their London test with five GP practices [TTA 12 Jan]. Digital Health cites an October study by Hammersmith and Fulham CCG (Fulham being one of the test practices) that to this Editor expresses both excitement at an innovative approach but with the same easy-to-see drawback:

The GP at Hand service model represents an innovative approach to general practice that poses a number of challenges to existing NHS policy and legislation. The approach to patient registration – where a potentially large volume of patients are encouraged to register at a physical site that could be a significant distance from both their home and work address, arguably represents a distortion of the original intentions of the Choice of GP policy. (Page 12)

There are also concerns about complex needs plus other special needs patients (inequality of service), controlled drug policy, and the capacity of Babylon Health to expand the service. Since the October report, a Babylon spokesperson told Digital Health that “Commissioners have comprehensively signed off our roll-out plan and we look forward to working with them to expand GP at Hand across the country.” 

Re capitation, why ‘GP at hand’ use is tied into a mandatory change of GP practices has left this Editor puzzled. In the US, telemedicine visits, especially the ‘I’ve got the flu and can’t move’ type or to specialists (dermatology) are often (not always) separate from whomever your primary care physician is. Yes, centralizing the records winds up being mostly in the hands of US patients unless the PCP is copied or it is part of a payer/corporate health program, but this may be the only way that virtual visits can be rolled out in any volume. In the UK, is there a workaround where the patient’s electronic record can be accessed by a separate telemedicine doctor?

Another tech head-shaker: 45 percent of GPs want technology-enabled remote working. 48 percent expressed that flexible working and working from home would enable doctors to provide more personalized care. Allowing remote working to support out-of-hours care could not only free up time for thousands of patient appointments but also level out doctor capacity disparities between regions. The survey here of 100 GPs was conducted by a cloud-communications provider, Sesui. Digital Health. This is a special need that isn’t present in the US except in closed systems like the VA, which is finally addressing the problem. The wide use of clinical connectivity apps enables US doctors to split time from hospital to multiple practices–so much so on multiple devices, that app security is a concern. 

Another head-shaker. 48 percent of missed NHS hospital appointments are due to letter-related problems, such as the letter arriving too late (17 percent), not being received (17 percent) or being lost (8 percent). 68 percent prefer to manage their appointments online or via smartphone. This preference has real financial impact as the NHS estimates that 8 million appointments were missed in 2016-2017, at a cost of £1bn. Now this survey of 2,000 adults was sponsored by Healthcare Communications, a provider to 100 NHS trusts with patient communications technology, so there’s a dog in the hunt. However, they developed for Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust a digital letter technology that is claimed to reduce outpatient postal letters by 40 percent. Considering my dentist sends me three emails plus separate text messages before my twice-yearly exam…. Release (PDF).

Roy Lilley’s daily newsletter today also engages the Tech Question and the “IT desert” present in much of the daily life of the NHS. Trusts are addressing it, junior doctors are WhatsApping, and generally, clinicians are hot-wiring the system in order to get anything done. It is much like the US about five to seven years ago where US HHS had huge HIPAA concerns (more…)

Babylon’s ‘GP at hand’ has thousands of London patients in hand

January 12, 2018 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Babylon-NHS-tube-advert.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Apparently Babylon Health’s ‘GP at hand’ is a hit with Londoners, despite the requirement to shift GP practices. The Evening Standard reports that the Lillie Road Surgery in Hammersmith, one of the five London practices in the program (plus Victoria, Poplar, Euston, and Fulham), increased its patient list by nearly 7,000 (4,970 in November to 11,867 last month). (Was it the Tube adverts?–Ed.) No information is available on increases at the other surgeries. 

Helping matters may be the UK flu epidemic, where the incentive to stay at home and have a video consult would be great (and helpful in stemming the spread). These consults on average are available 2 1/2 hours after booking, which to us Yanks used to independent services seems a great delay. One-third are reportedly out of office hours. Duration of the visit is about 10 minutes, which is standard for in-person. What is suspected is that many do not realize that the GP at hand signup also changes your GP to the program. The GP partner quoted in the article claims that homeless people, those with mental health and multiple chronic conditions–not just the young and mobile-savvy–have signed up. 

This Editor will concur with others that it’s time for telehealth to be integrated into the NHS, but the tying of it to specific practices which alters capitation is a large wrinkle which needs ironing out. Our earlier coverage here. Hat tip to Roy Lilley.

Rounding up the roundups in health tech and digital health for 2017; looking forward to 2018’s Nitty-Gritty

December 29, 2017 | by | 2 Comments

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Lasso.jpg” thumb_width=”100″ /]Our Editors will be lassoing our thoughts for what happened in 2017 and looking forward to 2018 in several articles. So let’s get started! Happy Trails!

2017’s digital health M&A is well-covered by Jonah Comstock’s Mobihealthnews overview. In this aggregation, the M&A trends to be seen are 1) merging of services that are rather alike (e.g. two diabetes app/education or telehealth/telemedicine providers) to buy market share, 2) services that complement each other by being similar but with strengths in different markets or broaden capabilities (Teladoc and Best Doctors, GlobalMed and TreatMD), 3) fill a gap in a portfolio (Philips‘ various acquisitions), or 4) payers trying yet again to cement themselves into digital health, which has had a checkered record indeed. This consolidation is to be expected in a fluid and relatively early stage environment.

In this roundup, we miss the telecom moves of prior years, most of which have misfired. WebMD, once an acquirer, once on the ropes, is being acquired into a fully corporate info provider structure with its pending acquisition by KKR’s Internet Brands, an information SaaS/web hoster in multiple verticals. This points to the commodification of healthcare information. 

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/canary-in-the-coal-mine.jpgw595.jpeg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Love that canary! We have a paradigm breaker in the pending CVS-Aetna merger into the very structure of how healthcare can be made more convenient, delivered, billed, and paid for–if it is approved and not challenged, which is a very real possibility. Over the next two years, if this works, look for supermarkets to get into the healthcare business. Payers, drug stores, and retailers have few places to go. The worldwide wild card: Walgreens Boots. Start with our article here and move to our previous articles linked at the end.

US telehealth and telemedicine’s march towards reimbursement and parity payment continues. See our article on the CCHP roundup and policy paper (for the most stalwart of wonks only). Another major change in the US is payment for more services under Medicare, issued in early November by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in its Final Rule for the 2018 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. This also increases payment to nearly $60 per month for remote patient monitoring, which will help struggling RPM providers. Not quite a stride, but less of a stumble for the Grizzled Survivors. MedCityNews

In the UK, our friends at The King’s Fund have rounded up their most popular content of 2017 here. Newer models of telehealth and telemedicine such as Babylon Health and PushDoctor continue to struggle to find a place in the national structure. (Babylon’s challenge to the CQC was dropped before Christmas at their cost of £11,000 in High Court costs.) Judging from our Tender Alerts, compared to the US, telecare integration into housing is far ahead for those most in need especially in support at home. Yet there are glaring disparities due to funding–witness the national scandal of NHS Kernow withdrawing telehealth from local residents earlier this year [TTA coverage here]. This Editor is pleased to report that as of 5 December, NHS Kernow’s Governing Body has approved plans to retain and reconfigure Telehealth services, working in partnership with the provider Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CFT). Their notice is here.

More UK roundups are available on Digital Health News: 2017 review, most read stories, and cybersecurity predictions for 2018. David Doherty’s compiled a group of the major international health tech events for 2018 over at 3G Doctor. Which reminds this Editor to tell him to list #MedMo18 November 29-30 in NYC and that he might want to consider updating the name to 5G Doctor to mark the transition over to 5G wireless service advancing in 2018.

Data breaches continue to be a worry. The Protenus/DataBreaches.net roundup for November continues the breach a day trend. The largest breach they detected was of over 16,000 patient records at the Hackensack Sleep and Pulmonary Center in New Jersey. The monthly total was almost 84,000 records, a low compared to the prior few months, but there may be some reporting shifting into December. Protenus blog, MedCityNews

And perhaps there’s a future for wearables, in the watch form. The Apple Watch’s disconnecting from the phone (and the slowness of older models) has led to companies like AliveCor’s KardiaBand EKG (ECG) providing add-ons to the watch. Apple is trying to develop its own non-invasive blood glucose monitor, with Alphabet’s (Google) Verily Study Watch in test having sensors that can collect data on heart rate, gait and skin temperature. More here from CNBC on Big Tech and healthcare, Apple’s wearables.

Telehealth saves lives, as an Australian nurse at an isolated Coral Bay clinic found out. He hooked himself up to the ECG machine and dialed into the Emergency Telehealth Service (ETS). With assistance from volunteers, he was able to medicate himself with clotbusters until the Royal Flying Doctor Service transferred him to a Perth hospital. Now if he had a KardiaBand….WAToday.com.au  Hat tip to Mike Clark

This Editor’s parting words for 2017 will be right down to the Real Nitty-Gritty, so read on!: (more…)

Babylon Health: correcting our NW London CCG report; objects to concerns raised by CQC report (latest updates)

December 11, 2017 | by

Correcting and commenting on our earlier report. This Editor had earlier published on 11 Dec, as follow up to the extensive coverage on Babylon Health’s ‘GP at hand’ pilot activity in London, summarizing a report in Digital Health stating that the North West London Collaboration of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) ended plans for expanding a test of the Babylon video consult/symptom checker app for GP practices in that area and that the app could be ‘manipulated’ to secure GP appointments faster and would not reduce demands on GPs. The original article was first corrected at an NHS England‘s representative’s request to reinforce that this was a local CCG project and that NHS England was not involved. The second request we received last Friday was from Babylon Health’s PR representative, Giles Kenningham, principal at Trafalgar Strategy. It was certainly strong and quoted here, edited as indicated to remove the link to the original article and Mr. Kenningham’s signature:

Your recent article on Babylon is factually wrong and misleading (link removed):
You claim the babylon app was dropped after being manipulated by patients. The term ‘manipualtion’ has been removed from the board papers and is wrong. Similarly the planned pilot had never begun so there so nothing to roll out.
This story is based on incorrect board papers which have now been corrected.

Please find a spokesman quote below. (closing signature removed)

A spokesperson for Babylon said:

“No pilot was ever carried out, nor any agreement signed with Babylon for such a pilot.

“Discussions were held after Babylon was selected in a competitive procurement exercise as the best technology to trial in GP practices across North West London. Subsequently, a decision was taken not to fund the pilot.”

This Editor then checked on the Digital Health article and found it had been removed without any follow-up or correction. Thus on Friday 8 Dec, this Editor removed the article, thanked Mr. Kenningham for bringing it to attention, and added that our report cited Digital Health as the source. I also requested a reference or third-party confirmation of his corrections. (This last request was not received as of the time of this writing.)

Wanting to get to the bottom of this for our Readers–and as a marketer who’s corrected more than a few inaccurate reports, your Editor has located the CCG’s report which is here published 22 November. It corresponds with Mr. Kenningham’s full note. The CCG report appears to have been revised (the URL indicates a v3), there never was a Babylon pilot, this version does not use the word ‘manipulation’, and the end result was that the CCG decided not to proceed to the pilot stage. In short, it appears to this Editor that the Digital Health report was based on an earlier and incorrect version of the report (perhaps as early as 25 Oct) and we are of course happy to correct. My fault and apology to our Readers and to Babylon in that I should have located the 22 Nov revised report prior to publishing the article and essentially provided a correction to Digital Health‘s report.

However, the CCG’s report on their Babylon evaluation contains two findings that were included in Digital Health‘s now-deleted article and give some pause. The CCG used focus groups of potential users, which surfaced that, in the CCG’s words, “The focus groups had also commented that there is a risk of some people gaming the symptom checker to achieve a GP appointment. The insights gathered therefore revealed that the symptom checker in particular was unlikely to reduce demand for GP services.”

Our Editor Chrys has pointed out the Pulse article which also comments on this and was corrected for the CCG’s revised report. The comments here by practicing GPs are worth reading. Scroll down and you’ll see that  ‘gaming the system’ has happened using direct triage in practices using personal phone consults–no app required. Can this even work?

Focus groups are highly subjective, but they are great ways of surfacing the flaws that developers and companies have gone blind to.

We hope that Babylon Health does take this feedback seriously. This Editor makes no secret of her advocacy of technology that can speed the obtaining of care, but based on her experience with early-stage companies, every critique, every hole that can be kicked in a service, delivery, and logistics, exposing a weakness should be appreciated–and ruthlessly scrutinized for flaws that need solutions. This becomes harder to do when you’ve achieved Big Funding. Babylon is typically burning a hole through it (The Times, 1 Oct–hat tip to Chrys). The pressure on now to find The Road to Breakeven must be stunning.

Important updates: Speaking of finding solutions, Babylon differs strongly with the findings of the Care Quality Commission (CQC)(not to be confused with the CCG), in the CQC report on their service published on Friday 8 December. 

(more…)

NHS ‘GP at hand’ via Babylon Health tests in London–and generates controversy

November 18, 2017 | by | 2 Comments
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Babylon-NHS-tube-advert.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The GP at hand (literally) service debuted recently in London. Developed by Babylon Health for the NHS, it is available 24/7, and doctors are available for video consults, most within two hours. It is a free (for now) service to NHS-eligible London residents who live and work in Zones One through Three, but requires that the user switch their practice to one of the five ‘GP at hand’ practices (map). Office visits can be scheduled as well, with prescriptions delivered to the patient’s pharmacy of choice.

Other attractive features of the service are replays of the consult, a free interactive symptom checker, and a health record for your test results, activity levels and health information. 

While the FAQs specify that the “practice boundary” area is south of Talgarth Road and Cromwell Road in Fulham, and north of the River Thames, it is being advertised on London Transport (see advert left and above taken on the Piccadilly Line) and on billboards.

Reviewing the website FAQs, as telemedicine it is positioned to take fairly routine GP cases of healthy people (e.g. colds, flu, rashes) and dispatch them quickly. On the ‘can anyone register’ page, it’s stated that “the service may however be less appropriate for people with the conditions and characteristics listed below”. It then lists ten categories, such as pregnancy, dementia, end of life care, and complex mental health conditions. If anyone is confused about these and other rule-outs, there is a support line. 

Babylon Health is well financed, with a fundraise of £50 million ($60 million of a total $85 million) in April for what we profiled then as an AI-powered chatbot that sorted through symptoms which tested in London earlier this year. This is a full-on telemedicine consult service with other services attached.

Now to the American view of telemedicine, this is all fairly routine, expected, and convenient, except that there’d be a user fee and a possible insurance co-pay, as more states are adopting parity for telemedicine services. We don’t have an expectation that a PCP on a telemedicine consult will take care of any of these issues which Babylon rules out, though telemental health is a burgeoning and specialized area for short and long-term support. But the issues with the NHS and GPs are different.

First, signing up to ‘GP at hand’ requires you to change your GP to one in that program. US systems are supplementary–a telehealth consult changes nothing about your other doctor choices. This is largely structural; the NHS pays GPs on a capitation basis.

mHealth Insight/3G Doctor and David Doherty provide a lengthy (and updated) analysis with a critical view which this Editor will only highlight for your reading. It starts with the Royal College of GPs objections to the existence of the service as ‘cherry-picking’ patients away from GPs and creating a two-track system via technology. According to the article, “NHS GPs are only paying them [Babylon] £50 a year of the £151 per year that the NHS GP Practice will be paid for every new Patient they get to register with them” which, as a financial model, leads to doubts about sustainability. Mr. Doherty advises the RCGPs that they are fighting a losing battle and they need to get with mHealth for their practices, quickly–and that the NHS needs to reform their payment mechanisms (GPs are compensated on capitation rather than quality metrics).

But there are plenty of other questions beyond cherry-picking: the video recordings are owned by Babylon (or any future entity owning Babylon), what happens to the patient’s GP assignment if (when?) the program ends, and patients’ long-term care.

Oh, and that chatbot’s accuracy? Read this tweet from @DrMurphy11 with a purported video of Babylon advising a potential heart attack victim that his radiating shoulder pain needs some ice. Scary. Also Digital Health.

Health tech arrivals (Philips, Roche, VRI, PushDoctor)…and departures (Pact, Jawbone)

July 6, 2017 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Looney-Tunes-Were-in-the-Money.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]This popular vacation week has been filled with ‘money under the wire’ news of acquisitions, investments…and one high-profile owner shuttering a pioneering activity app.

Acquisitions:

Philips Healthcare added London-based pregnancy app developer Health & Parenting for an undisclosed sum. Its most popular app is Pregnancy + (and ++), with 12 million downloads via the Apple Store and Google Play, but others are Baby + for all things baby-rearing, and Baby Name Genius to Find That Ideal Name. It will fold into and diversify Philips’ existing uGrow digital parenting platform which includes the Avent smart baby monitor and smart ear thermometer and leverages the open infrastructure of Philips’ Health Suite Digital Platform. One wonders at the flood of data flowing from these apps to these devices and what Philips will do with all these points. Release, MedCityNews

Roche acquired Austrian partner mySugr, a management tool that promises to ‘make diabetes suck less’. Last year they added Roche’s Accu-Chek Connect blood glucose monitor to its chosen device connect and sync list. mySugr features an app for users to log their meals, exercise, glucose levels, and mood. It also captures pictures of user snacks and unleashes “a diabetes monster” avatar when the food choices are poor based on their glucose levels. Terms were not disclosed. MedCityNews

Telecare/monitoring company VRI quietly acquired Healthcom from Woodbridge International. Healthcom’s primary area is care transition management using medical alerts, telehealth, and medication management for payers, government agencies and care partners. Originally positioned as a partnership June 30 on VRI’s website, Globe Newswire confirmed the sale a week later. Terms (again) were not disclosed.

Mobihealthnews rounded up 24 major acquisitions, including GreatCall (by GTCR) and Best Doctors (Teladoc)–all by June 30!

Investments:

Manchester’s PushDoctor telemedicine app raised $26.1 million in Series B financing from Accelerated Digital Ventures and Draper Esprit plus Oxford Capital Partners, Partech Ventures, and Seventure Partners. This added to their $10.1 million Series A raise in January 2016. PushDoctor connects UK patients with NHS-registered GPs for virtual visits costing only £20. Unlike US-based tele-docs, Push Doctor issues prescriptions, makes doctor-led referrals to other health providers and specialists, and helps manage repeat prescriptions. Their founder also has an eye on managing long-term conditions, short-term illnesses, fitness, and nutrition. Their major UK competitors are Babylon Health (which recently raised £50 million for its triage app), Ada Health, and Your.MD. Crunchbase, TechCrunch, Mobihealthnews

And shutterings:

Pioneering fitness incentive app Pact (founded 2011) announced its closing by end of August. Originally a ‘get thee to the gym’ app, it branched out into healthy food (eat more vegetables!) and tracking meals with MyFitnessPal. Pact never truly emerged from seed funding. A rare stumble by Khosla Ventures, which led a 2014 bag-of-skittles round of $1.5 million. Mobihealthnews, Crunchbase

Jawbone closed out the week by liquidating and transubstantiating into Jawbone Health Hub. More on this here. 

Babylon Health ‘chatbot’ triage AI app raises £50 million in funding (UK)

April 26, 2017 | by | 8 Comments

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/babylon_lifestyle2.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Babylon Health, which has developed an AI-assisted chatbot to triage a potential patient in minutes, has raised a serious Series B of £50 million (US$60 million). Funders were Kinnevik AB, which had led the Series A, NNC Holdings, and Vostok New Ventures (Crunchbase). According to the FT (through TechCrunch), Babylon’s value is now north of $200 million. Revenues were not disclosed.

The current app uses texts to determine the level of further care, recommends a course of action, then connects the user if needed to a virtual doctor visit, or if acute to go to Accident & Emergency (US=emergency room or department). It also follows up with the user on their test results and health info. The funding will be used to enhance their current AI to extend to diagnosis. They are accumulating daily data on thousands of patients, machine learning which further refines the AI. Founder Dr. Ali Parsa, founder and CEO of Babylon, said in a statement. “Babylon scientists predict that we will shortly be able to diagnose and foresee personal health issues better than doctors, but this is about machines and medics cooperating, not competing.” Like other forms of telemedicine and triage (Zipnosis in health systems), it is designed to put healthcare access and affordability, as they claim, “into the hands of every person on earth”. The NHS pilot in north London [TTA 18 Jan] via the 111 hotline is testing Babylon as a ‘reliever’ though it directs only to a doctor appointment, not a video consult. BBC News, Mobihealthnews

Babylon as AI diagnostician that is ’10 times more precise than a doctor’

January 18, 2017 | by | 2 Comments

The NHS announced at the top of this month that it would test Babylon Health‘s ‘chatbot’ app for the next six months to 1.2 million people in north London. During the call to the 111 medical hotline number, they will be prompted to try the app, which invites the user to text their symptoms. The app decides through the series of texts, through artificial intelligence, in minutes how urgent the situation is and will recommend action to the patient up to an appointment with their GP, or if acute to go to Accident & Emergency (US=emergency room or department) if the situation warrants. It will launch this month in NHS services covering Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey, and Islington, London. TechCrunch.

The NHS’ reasons for “digitising” services through a pilot like Babylon’s app is to save money by reducing unnecessary doctor appointments and pressure on A&Es. It provides a quick diagnosis that usually directs the patient to self-care until the health situation resolves. If not resolved or obviously acute, it will direct to a GP or A&E. The numbers are fairly convincing: £45 for the visit to a GP, £13 to a nurse and £0 for the app use. According to The Telegraph, the trial is facing opposition by groups like Patient Concern, the British Medical Association’s GP committee, and Action Against Medical Accidents. There is little mention of wrong diagnoses here (see below). The NHS’ app track record, however, has not been good–the NHS Choices misstep on applying urgency classifications to a ‘symptom checker’ app–and there have been incidents on 111 response.

Babylon’s founder Ali Barsa, of course, is bullish on his app and what it can do. (more…)