providers
Strapped for cash, hospitals try selling tech
Health systems are floundering for new ways to make money beyond patient care — including, I'm learning, selling the technology they're building and using internally to competitors. Influential non-profit health systems like Mayo Clinic and Mass General Brigham are among them; at the JPM investor conference last week, both said they were advising companies building AI products or licensing out custom-built tools.
While it's not an entirely new trend, health systems finding their resources squeezed as margins shrink and labor costs rise are wading further into the tech business, executives told me.
"These innovations work very well for our centers, and there's an opportunity to commercialize and generate some revenue from them," Moffitt Cancer Center chief data officer Dana Rollison said. Read more, and let me know if you're seeing this too.
Physician buy-in will make or break General Catalyst's health system experiment
Venture firm General Catalyst's Health Assurance Transformation Corporation, known as HATCo, plans to acquire Ohio hospital system Summa Health to more directly influence its technology and internal processes. If the deal goes through, whether it'll work depends largely on clinicians, my colleague Tara Bannow reports.
"Clinicians will say, 'Why am I being asked to do this? Is it because I'm making money or because it's the right thing?'" says Jon Gordon, a general partner at HC9 Ventures and former head of NewYork-Presbyterian's now defunct venture arm. "That dynamic is one they're going to have to navigate."
Can General Catalyst pull it off? What will clinicians and staff need from their venture firm owners to willingly adopt new technology? Thoughts welcome.
Lizzy's device digest
Timothy Stenzel, FDA diagnostics chief, retires
The Food and Drug Administration's top diagnostics leader Timothy Stenzel, who led the crucial diagnostics division during the pandemic, has left the agency, Lizzy Lawrence reports. In the pandemic's early days, Stenzel was at the center of a regulatory battle between the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over Covid tests, which were being rapidly developed with limited data as the novel virus spread. His departure comes as FDA moves to more closely regulate lab-developed tests, known as LDTs, to protect consumers from inaccurate reports — and it also raises questions about the agency's ability to follow through on its plan, experts tell Lizzy.
privacy
Google's data collection triggers FTC complaint
Privacy lobbying group the Electronic Privacy Information Center has lodged a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission urging the agency to probe Google for not deleting sensitive user information, including data about visits to abortion clinics, Bloomberg Law reports. Following the Dobbs decision in 2022, the search giant had pledged to delete location data related to medical facilities including abortion clinics after each visit, the complaint charges — but an investigation by watchdog nonprofit Accountable Tech found that it hasn't yet made those changes.
Alphabet
New Fitbit study examines metabolic health
Elsewhere in Mountain View, Alphabet property Fitbit is exploring whether wearables can help assess metabolic health in partnership with Quest Diagnostics. Data from wearables, researchers hypothesize, could be paired with biomarkers from blood samples to paint a more detailed picture of people's metabolism and the factors impacting it. Google's now recruiting participants, who must use Pixel Watches or Fitbits along with Android phones and be willing to share data from before the study and for the 70-day duration. Read more.
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