Thursday news roundup: bet on Oracle-Cerner closing next week, VA EHR progress reports mandated, Homeward-RiteAid rural care, Medtronic-DaVita kidney JV, Withings reenters RPM, Lightbeam buys Jvion AI

The Oracle acquisition of Cerner will close as early as Monday next week, no later than mid-June. Mid-June is the prediction of Seeking Alpha. They based it on Oracle-Cerner already passing Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board, no questions posed by the UK antitrust authority, and the US waiting period expiring in February. As rumored [TTA 25 May], European Commission regulators approved it today (Barrons, paywalled) which predicts the close will be next Monday. Hat tip to HISTalk for their alert yesterday.

Scrutiny of Cerner’s $16 billion EHR implementation with the Department of Veterans Affairs by Congress ramps up. New legislation due to be signed by the president shortly will require the VA Secretary to submit regular reports 30 days after the last day of each fiscal quarter on the VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program. Content will include spending, performance metrics, outcomes, safety, transitioning from VistA to Cerner Millenium, interoperability, and progress or issues with all. Text of Senate bill, FierceHealthcare  TTA’s previous article on Cerner EHR interoperability problems with DOD and VA

Bringing healthcare to rural America is Homeward with a freshly inked deal with RiteAid. Founded by former Livongo president Jennifer Schneider, MD, Homeward will set up distinctive purple mobile van clinics at up to 700 Rite Aid location parking lots in rural communities starting Q3 this year. Michigan will be the first market. Homeward will accept regional Medicare Advantage plans and Medicare.

The company is targeting the 60 million Americans who live in rural areas and have been losing access to basic medical care as local practices and clinics close. Their technology enablement will be for appointments, checkins, telehealth, remote patient monitoring, and scheduling home visits. Homeward announced its launch at the recent ViVE2022 in March including $20 million in funding from General Catalyst. Other Livongo alumni with the new company are Brian Vandenberg, former general counsel, Amar Kendale, former chief product officer, and Bimal Shah, MD, former chief medical officer at Livongo. Nice to know that they have moved to another healthcare chapter of real need, versus cruising the Caribbean in very large yachts. FierceHealthcare, Homeward release

Medical device giant Medtronic and DaVita are establishing a joint venture by next year to advance kidney care therapies and technologies, including new products to be used in clinics and in the home. The intent of the JV is to increase the availability of kidney care including dialysis. 10% of adults worldwide–700 million people–have chronic kidney disease. 2.6 million have kidney failure. The JV is expected to be formed in early 2023 with each company owning an equal share. Initial investment is not disclosed. According to the release:

  • Medtronic will contribute its Renal Care Solutions (RCS) business including the current product portfolio (renal access, acute therapies, and chronic therapies), product pipeline, and global manufacturing R&D teams and facilities.
  • Both companies will provide an initial investment to fund the new company (NewCo) and future certain operating capital.

FierceBiotech, Medtronic release

Withings reenters remote patient monitoring with Withings RPM. Their initial entry was with MedProCare back in 2019 but apparently in the repositioning of the company since the buyback from Nokia in 2018, it was back-burnered. The new RPM will be based on an app that will:

  • track time for CMS-compliant billing reports and uploadable to the provider EHR
  • support billing for CMS codes 99453, 99454, 99457, 99458
  • a digital patient-facing assistant
  • full connectivity to Withings devices such as scales, blood pressure monitors, and sleep monitors
  • implementation support by their Health Solutions teams

Withings RPM page, Outsourcing-Pharma

Looking hard for an M&A that relates to us in this very quiet market, Lightbeam Health Solutions, a population health software company, is acquiring Jvion Inc. Jvion has AI-enabled prescriptive analytics and social determinants of health (SDoH) solutions which will be combined with Lightbeam’s health analytics and outcomes for payers and providers. Terms of the acquisition and leadership transitions were not disclosed. Lightbeam release

News and deal roundup: Amazon Care lands Hilton, Lightbeam buys CareSignal RPM; aptihealth’s $50M, MedArrive’s $25M, Ribbon Health’s $43.5M

Amazon Care nabs a big one in Hilton Hotels (US). Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. will now offer Amazon Care to its US employees on a corporate health plan starting in 2022.  Text chats will be free, with virtual or home visits with providers available for a small fee. Availability will depend on where the employee is. Care Medical will provide national virtual visits, while house calls are in limited metro areas: greater Seattle and the Washington-Baltimore metro area at present, with expansion plans to Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Boston. Hilton is only the second company (after Precor) disclosed by Amazon. At the end of 2020, Hilton had 141,000 employees, but that includes worldwide properties so the US number remains in Amazon style–opaque. Amazon’s Kristen Helton announced it at Reuters Total Health on Monday. FierceHealthcare

Lightbeam Health buys CareSignal. Lightbeam, a population health analytics and management platform, closed its acquisition of CareSignal, a ‘deviceless’ remote patient monitoring (RPM) system that uses phones for patient reporting via SMS and (hold your beer or wine!) interactive voice response (IVR). CareSignal adds direct RPM reporting data for chronic conditions, behavioral health, social determinants of health, maternal health, and additional monitoring to the Lightbeam platform used by ACOs, payers, provider groups, health systems, and other healthcare organizations. Financial and organizational terms were not disclosed. Lightbeam’s backers are Hearst Health Ventures and 7wire Ventures through a Series A and undisclosed venture round five years ago (!), with CareSignal barely out of seed with $7.5 million invested. Release

And Series A and B raises continue… 

Behavioral health tech continues to attract substantial investment. Boston-based aptihealth’s (not a typo) $50 million Series B will be expanding its clinical science, technology, and services for higher acuity behavioral health conditions. Funding was from Takeda Digital Ventures, Pivotal Life Sciences, Vista Credit Partners, Olive Tree Ventures, Claritas Capital, and What If Ventures for total funding of $65 million. aptihealth coordinates patient access to care teams from any point of care. The company has signed 27 health plans, health systems, and physician practice customers to date. Release

MedArrive’s $25 million Series A continues home care’s hot streak. Section 32 led the round with participation from new investors, 7wireVentures and Leaps by Bayer, and existing investors Define Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and Redesign Health. MedArrive connects telehealth from payers and providers to a network of EMTs, paramedics, and other skilled healthcare workers for hands-on care. The New York-based company currently operates in California, Florida, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Texas, partnering with SCAN Health Plan, Clover Health, Bright HealthCare, Molina Healthcare as well as ACOs and government entities such as the LA Department of Health. Release, FierceHealthcare  Hat tip to HISTalk for this and aptihealth

Ribbon Health’s Series B funding of $43.5 million will be used to further develop team expansion and technology investments around their API layer, using data on doctors, insurance plans, costs, and quality of care for predictive care decisions. The raise was led by General Catalyst, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), BoxGroup, Rock Health, and Sachin Jain. Since 2016, the company has raised $53.8 million. Release, FierceHealthcare