The Rock Health Podcast

Recorded at Rock Health Summit 2020 Countless players have tried their hand at mastering the holy grail of healthcare: better care at lower costs. Big retail and telecom are next in the ring, and they just might have what it takes. These behemoths excel where traditional healthcare and tech companies have faltered—they unify digital and physical assets to get consumers what they need, when they need it, where they are. Whether it's in-store foot traffic or in-home service teams, retailers have unparalleled access to consumers through existing relationships outside the healthcare system. But will that be enough? Hear from the strategics behind retail and telecom's bold, potentially transformative moves into healthcare. Moderator: Erin Brodwin, Health Tech Reporter, STAT Panelists: - Sujata Gosalia, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer, Cox Communications - Marcus Osborne, SVP, Walmart Health - Daniel Grossman, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Best Buy

Evidation Health and Omada Health, two of Rock Health's portfolio companies, are trailblazers in their respective domains in digital health. Both have heritage as evidence-driven and evidence-generation platforms, and together they're designing the gold standard of decentralized clinical trials. As COVID-19 pushes the industry to gather novel clinical data digitally, Evidation Executive Director of Digital Health Outcomes Dr. Jessie Juusola and Omada Senior Director of Clinical Research & Policy Dr. Cynthia Castro Sweet sat down with Rock Health CEO & Managing Director Bill Evans to share how they're bringing value to the future of clinical trials by meeting people where they are.

Digital health funding had a wild ride through the first half of 2020—first hitting a record $3.1B in Q1, then hitting the brakes in April as COVID-19 spread rapidly around the globe. Despite this downswing, investors came roaring back in May as several regulatory and reimbursement barriers to digital health adoption were brushed aside in a rush to keep healthcare systems operational in the midst of the pandemic. Rock Health Managing Director & CEO Bill Evans shares some surprising insights about fundraising in the midst of a pandemic and recession in his conversation with Kaiser Permanente Ventures Director Liz Rockett, Bessemer Venture Partners Partner Steve Kraus, and leading digital health strategic counsel Fenwick & West Partner Michael Esquivel, as they look back on the past six months and look forward to the future of the market. Note: This podcast was recorded on 7/30, prior to the Teladoc acquisition of Livongo.

How can healthcare stakeholders reach and sustainably engage patients with innovative, 21st-century technology? Hear from three leaders—HealthTech4Medicaid Executive Director Adimika Arthur, and Rock Health portfolio company founders, Podimetrics CEO Jon Bloom and Arine CEO Yoona Kim—to discuss the lessons they've learned in building solutions for high risk, high-cost populations. From diabetic veterans to Medicaid enrollees, they'll share tactical tips in leveraging technology to lower the barriers to care for patients who need it most. Join the conversation to hear how they've found success in scaling these solutions with a digital-first, patient-centric mindset.

At Rock Health, we're proud to fund and support entrepreneurs working at the intersection of healthcare and technology, and work alongside a diverse group of enterprise leaders making healthcare massively better—always, but especially now. We need collaboration as a rising tide to lift all boats—especially as the COVID-19 crisis accelerates trends reshaping healthcare as we know it. Rock Health President Tom Cassels recently sat down with Advisory Board Senior Research Partner Amanda Berra, Accenture Senior Managing Director Darryl Jue, and ZS Managing Prinicpal Pete Masloski. They discuss what's next for healthcare in light of COVID-19, and how industry leaders must adapt to the forces that will become more prominent and pervasive in the post-pandemic world.

How are healthcare organizations navigating the pandemic response, and what lessons are they learning along the way? We recently spoke with leaders from three Rock Health corporate partners—Blue Shield of California Chief Innovation Officer Jeff Semenchuk, Banner Innovation Group Executive Director Christy Anderson, and Strategic Benefit Advisors National Clinical Leader Louise Short. From their respective corners of the industry—a health plan covering over 4M lives, a nonprofit health system, and an employee benefits consulting firm—they note that some trends are here to stay: a consumer-first mindset, an appetite for innovation, and the widespread shift toward supporting whole-person health. Conversation moderated by Kiersten Berg, Senior Business Development & Partnerships Manager at Rock Health

Across administrations, there has been a concerted push toward empowering patients with access to the health data that are rightfully theirs. After much anticipation, in early March, HHS released two final rules to implement interoperability and patient access provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act. At the same time, the US—and the rest of the world—found itself in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than ever, the health crisis has accelerated the need for the public and private sectors to unlock health information and deliver value to consumers through new care models, services, and even scientific advancements. Rock Health Managing Director & CEO Bill Evans caught up with two national healthcare leaders who played an integral role in ushering in this new regulatory era—Google Health's Dr. Karen DeSalvo and HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan. They discuss implications of the new rules, how stakeholders must balance data access with privacy protections, and the opportunities they see for innovation and collaboration going forward.

There's Instagram and Instacart—but how close are we to Insta-health? While the healthcare experience is increasingly digital, privacy issues, the changing patient-physician relationship, and differences across population segments paint a more nuanced, complex picture of consumer behavior. And a critical question has yet to be fully answered—what value is flowing back to the patient? The authors of the 2019 Digital Health Consumer Adoption Report—the Stanford Center for Digital Health's Dr. Mintu Turakhia and Rock Health's Sean Day and Megan Zweig—recently sat down and parsed through the findings from the fifth annual survey of 4,000 Americans about the role technology plays in their healthcare journey.

Across the last decade, digital health has grown from a blip on the radar of investors to a robust sector receiving nearly one in ten venture dollars invested in the United States. In 2019, digital health saw six IPOs and the second-largest funding year on record with $7.4B. What will the future hold? To provide a survey of the digital health landscape, Flare Capital Partners co-founder & Partner Michael Greeley joined Rock Health Managing Director & CEO Bill Evans in conversation with Rock Health Director of Research & Marketing Megan Zweig during JPM 2020 week in San Francisco.

Digital health companies seeking to scale through large enterprise organizations have their work cut out for them—especially in an increasingly crowded space like digital mental health. To find out what makes for a successful partnership, we teamed up with Kaiser Permanente Ventures on an event bringing together two leaders who have been instrumental in getting such a partnership off the ground. Roger Dowdy, Kaiser Permanente Washington's Director of Mental Health and Wellness, and Karan Singh, co-founder and COO of Ginger, sat down Shruti Kothari of Kaiser Permanente Ventures to break down the why, the how, and some lessons learned for others looking to pursue similar collaborations—and impact—in the space.

The industry is at a unique crossroads: pharmaceutical and digital therapeutic (DTx) companies have begun to act on their ambition to advance digital therapeutics—but the path to successful alliances and, importantly, scale remains uncertain. As a follow up to our recent research on building pharma-DTx alliances, we sat down with two leaders to get their perspective on: -The dos and don'ts of pharma-DTx partnerships -Evidence standards for digital therapeutics -Channel pathways and business models for DTx companies -Assessing the value of working with pharma as a DTx company Hear from ZS' Paul Darling, Novo Nordisk's Amy West, Pear Therapeutics' Corey McCann, and Rock Health's Megan Zweig in our latest podcast episode.

In 2018, digital health companies leveraging telemedicine received nearly $1.5B in investment. And although telemedicine adoption has grown across the board in recent years, the majority of users remain the urban and the young. How are different healthcare stakeholders thinking about tackling barriers to adoption, potential limitations of virtual care, and the evergreen question—how telemedicine should be paid for? Hear from Blue Shield of California's Director of Investments & Corporate Development Moses Ike and Pandia Health Founder & CEO Dr. Sophia Yen on the evolving space.

In 2017, the FDA launched its Digital Health Innovation Action Plan, detailing its plans to review and update regulation of software. Among the digital health programs is the Pre-Certification Program, also known as Pre-Cert, wherein FDA is working with innovators to develop a new approach to regulatory oversight for software-based medical technologies. Nearly two years into the pilot program, we wanted to get a status update and hear what's in store this year and beyond. Rock Health Managing Director and CEO Bill Evans caught up with Bakul Patel, the FDA's Director for Digital Health, and Jared Seehafer, cofounder and CEO of Rock Health portfolio company Enzyme, to discuss the FDA's new look, the proposed framework for regulating AI and machine learning, and how startups should navigate—and participate in—the evolving regulatory process.

Will artificial intelligence help humanize healthcare and get medicine back on track? Signs point to yes—with a few caveats. Rock Health Managing Director and CEO Bill Evans spoke with leading cardiologist and digital medicine researcher Dr. Eric Topol about his new book, Deep Medicine, which provides a wide-ranging overview of the current state of AI in healthcare. Together with Dr. Topol, we explore the fundamental shift from “shallow medicine” to “deep medicine,” the data and privacy issues at hand, and why there has never been a more urgent window of opportunity to fix healthcare with the transformative potential of AI.

Even when serving patients is their primary goal, most digital health solutions go to market via large enterprises, whether through payers, providers, biopharma, or employers. That's why effective digital health companies build expertise not just in their product, but in cultivating relationships with large enterprises and implementing solutions across them to reach patient populations at scale. Rock Health recently co-hosted an event with Kaiser Permanente Ventures to discuss what it takes to build a lasting, impactful alliance between enterprise and digital health companies. Hear from Kaiser Permanente's Executive Director of Telehealth Angie Stevens and Validic's SVP of Product Brian Carter in a conversation moderated by Kaiser Permanente Ventures' Director of Strategic Engagement Shruti Kothari.

Earlier this week, we released our annual funding report, which explored the “bubbliness” of digital health amidst record dollars and tempered exits. To expand on our findings and get to the heart of what the funding environment means for the future of the sector, we spoke with an entrepreneur and seasoned digital health investor about: –How entrepreneurs should approach fundraising in a capital-rich market –What milestones investors look for before signing the check –Whether valuations are too high –Why digital health is primed for more acquisitions Hear from Sitka co-founder & CEO Kelsey Mellard, Flare Capital co-founder & Partner Michael Greeley, and Rock Health Managing Director & CEO Bill Evans in our latest podcast episode, recorded during the #JPM19 week in San Francisco.

Free from the constraints of legacy operating systems, Oscar Health takes a full-stack approach to insurance—one where healthcare becomes a collaborative experience between the patient, payer, and provider. Rock Health's Megan Zweig sits down with Mario to understand how his company is breaking down industry silos, what plans are in store for Alphabet's recent super-investment, and what others can learn from Oscar's consumer-first, tech-forward approach.

As the tech titans push forward with their entrance into healthcare, speculation surrounds their chances of successfully solving the industry's myriad of maladies. Hear from Cleveland Clinic CEO-turned-Googler Dr. Toby Cosgrove and CNBC.com's Chrissy Farr on what's notable—and what's just noise—as these tech giants move into the $3T healthcare market.

While the singularity is nowhere in sight, we're inching closer to a world where more jobs are being replaced or augmented by machines—and industry sentiment ranges from praise to skepticism. In this live session, Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at UCSF, Bob Wachter and Google Ventures partner and physician-scientist Vineeta Agarwala voice their views on the divergent paths of AI.

As one of the last industries to undergo technological transformation on an exponential scale, healthcare is ripe for change—and attracting the attention of diverse industries like never before. What opportunities do transportation, finance, food, and other companies see in healthcare? What trends are leading non-traditional companies into this balkanized industry? And what lessons should healthcare learn from them? Featuring Chris Waugh, Chief Design & Innovation Officer at Sutter Health James Sinclair, Managing Director, Consumer Retail and Healthcare Group at Goldman Sachs Heather Jordan Cartwright, General Manager at Healthcare NExT, Microsoft Ronan Wisdom, Managing Director, Global Lead - Connected Health, Accenture

An expert in the field of AI, Andrew Ng shares what the digital health community needs to understand about trendy technology, by separating hype from reality, while discussing how these technologies are creating real value in healthcare—today and throughout the decade ahead. Recorded live at Rock Health Summit 2017

In our recent survey digital health companies divulged their enterprise sales pain points. This week we went even deeper—with two executives at the center of technology innovation and adoption at leading health systems—to get their honest take on what hospitals want from digital health tools, including: - How they vet new innovations and recommendations to startups on operating a pilot - What's next in the technology landscape for hospitals? - Their biggest adoption pain points and digital health enterprise failure stories Tune in to the conversation with Boston Children's John Brownstein and Brigham and Women's Adam Landman in our latest podcast episode.

Last week we briefed you on the record shattering funding streak of the first half of 2017. Then we sat down with two other investors, Bessemer Venture Partners' Steve Kraus and Kaiser Permanente Ventures' Liz Rockett to bring you a deeper look into: - The most exciting opportunities in digital health - How companies are being evaluated in this uncertain, albeit cash-rich, environment - What we expect for the upcoming IPO market - Whether or not unicorns are real - What recent tech giant moves mean for the industry - Where healthcare transformation is in its long process of digitization and maturation

Despite persistent efforts by those in digital health, gender parity in leadership remains a huge issue. It's not due to lack of attention. The front cover of The Atlantic's April issue asked, “Why is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?” According to Rock Health research, digital health companies led by men get 91% of all venture deals, leaving few dollars for women-led companies. Only 9% of companies funded in 2016 had a woman CEO—down from the already dismal 11% in 2015—even though women are the primary decision makers in health care. Counter to this trend, we're seeing lots of success by women entrepreneurs and excitement for women's health products. So how are women entrepreneurs navigating this environment? What do they feel is missing from the conversation? And what gaps and opportunities do they see in women's health? We spoke with two of them to find out. One is a Rock Health portfolio CEO improving family access to healthcare—starting with pregnancy. The other is upending the lab experience by enabling patients to take at-home tests, and take control of their health. Interview by Ashlee Adams, Rock Health

What are players from around and outside healthcare doing to make this universal experience more understandable, clear—and even enjoyable? Two CEOs share their take on how transparency in healthcare is taking shape and what it really means for patients and stakeholders.

The age-old power dynamics in healthcare are quickly shifting—away from providers as the primary touch point for care and toward tech-, and consumer-empowered decision-making. In a world where personal data is king and consumers expect things to be free—and are also expected to take on a larger burden of their healthcare costs, healthcare companies have a lot to adapt to. Two entrepreneurs—one leading a first of its kind marketplace for consumer genomics and another organizing all of this data from the wild and bringing it back into the four walls of the health system—share their insights about navigating this shift, engaging healthcare stakeholders, and putting the patient or consumer at the center of it all. With Helix CEO Robin Thurston and Validic Co-Founder & CEO Drew Schiller Interviewed by Ashlee Adams, Rock Health

Medical research is a $200B industry—but is not conducted in a way that is searchable, machine-readable, or reproducible. We chat with Benchling cofounder and CEO Saji Wickramasekara and Elemental Machines cofounder and CEO Sridhar Iyengar to understand what's at stake, and how technology is being used to advance scientific research. Interviewed by Mollie McDowell Learn more at rockhealth.com

There's tremendous excitement about the potential of what data can do to change how healthcare really works. Simultaneously there's some confusion, and fear from patients around security and privacy. We talk to two entrepreneurs working heavily in the space, David Vivero, Co-founder & CEO of Amino and Deb Kilpatrick, CEO of Evidation Health to understand how to best harness patient data in order to serve patients themselves. Interviewed by Mollie McDowell Learn more at rockhealth.com

The President-elect vowed to repeal the ACA on his first day in office. Or will he just pick it apart and keep the pieces he likes? The water is murky and answers are forthcoming, but we can be certain of one thing—a shift in healthcare legislation as we move from a Democratic to Republican House. Bill Evans, Rock Health's Managing Director, recently interviewed James Robinson from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and Christina Farr from Fast Company in order to frame the key questions to be asking at this time.

Many of us associate innovative solutions and scalable technology with startups, Silicon Valley, and scrappy teams; but these experts are focusing their time and talents in Washington DC in order to harness technology's ability to solve healthcare's biggest problems. Hear from The White House Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil, HHS CTO Susannah Fox and Fortune Magazine Senior Writer Leena Rao.

On demand services are all the rage and the first wave affecting healthcare included a plethora of doctor-driven services. But what's on demand in the rest of the healthcare stack? We'll sit down with Lantern, Honor, and Kurbo Health to explore how they're thinking beyond the MD and leveraging thousands of allied healthcare workers to improve our access to quality care. Rock Health portfolio company co-founders Alejandro Foung of Lantern, Sandy Jen of Honor, Thea Runyan of Kurbo Health, and Thomas Goetz of Iodine discuss.

As the Founder and Managing Partner of Social+Capital Partnership, Chamath Palihapitiya is the "it" man of socially responsible investing. Hear his take on what needs to change in healthcare and how his investment thesis focuses on companies that are drastically doing just that. Moderated by Jessica Lessin, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Information.

Now that we have entered the age when technology is being applied to every aspect of our lives, it takes extra grit and dedication to build a company tackling one of our country's most entrenched and disjointed industries. David Ebersman left his post as CFO of Facebook (before that he was CFO of Genentech) to focus on bringing technology to healthcare in an effort to make experiences that affect us all less isolating and frustrating. We'll explore why he made the leap, how his current ventures compare to building other iconic and disruptive companies, and what his vision is for the future of digital health.

Virtual reality has transformed the way we think of and create new worlds, but it also allows us to explore the inner-most workings of the human body. We'll discuss the very real implications virtual reality is having on healthcare—from how we study biological structures to how we administer care. Hear from UCSF's Adam Gazzaley, Next Galaxy Founder & President Mary Spio, and TechCrunch's Sarah Buhr.

They rang the bell, now what? We sit down with the CEOs of Evolent Health and Fitbit, who led two industry-changing IPOs to discuss how their companies deliver and grow in the wake of going from startup to public company.

Leading American cardiologist, geneticist, author, and digital medicine researcher Eric Topol discusses the state of patient-centered and empowered healthcare, paternalism, and what the future holds for data and digital health.

An early-stage company with the potential and followthrough to become a billion dollar paradigm-shifter can be as elusive, but hopefully not as mythical, as a unicorn. We pick the brains of investing heavy-weights to talk cold, hard facts: where can we find unicorns in digital health? Hear from GE Ventures Managing Director Leslie Bottorff in conversation with Oak Investment Partners Managing Partner Ann Lamont and The New York Times reporter Katie Benner

An interview with J. Craig Venter at our 2015 Rock Health Summit