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Good afternoon, readers.
Imagine you’ve just had serious surgery. You’re ready to leave the hospital, but not quite ready to go back to your everyday life. And so you need to get periodic checkups from your doctor or nurse practitioner.
Trekking back and forth from the hospital would be a (literal) pain. And, depending on your age, using an iPad or computer may be beyond your technological grasp. But what if the doctors and clinicians came straight into your bedroom—and you didn’t have to do anything at all?
That’s the technology that telehealth giant American Well is developing and expects to deploy sometime in 2020, CEO Roy Schoenberg tells Fortune in an exclusive interview.
“This is a new service that is tied into the American Well ecosystem. It’s a device that gets mounted on top of the TV in front of the patient in their home, has the ability to take over the TV when the clinician wants to come in… Making the bedroom of the patient a hospital room,” he says.
The details are a bit sparse, since both the underlying product itself and the logistics behind its use (such as setting it up in an elderly patient’s home) still need to be worked out. But, as Schoenberg tells it, the (as-of-yet unnamed) device would be able to connect to a TV or webcam. A medical professional could switch the patient’s TV from, say, CNN over to a direct video feed to a doctor.
What’s more, this service would allow clinicians to home in on vital signs and biometrics by zooming in on a patient via webcam, allowing for a much better view. Wirelessly connected microphones and the device’s capability to link up with wireless tech (such as blood pressure monitors) could deliver critical information to health care providers in real time with minimum effort required from the patient.
American Well envisions partnerships with insurers and hospitals who will see the value incentive of treating chronically ill or recovering patients remotely.
“As a patient, the likely way in 2020 is, when you’re in the hospital, the discharge planning will give you this device, and then there’s going to be different ways of helping you set this up in your home,” says Schoenberg.
He also cautions that the rollout, as with much in health care, will be a process. But the current plan is to get it out into the real world this year.
Read on for the day’s news.
Sy Mukherjee
sayak.mukherjee@fortune.com
@the_sy_guy
DIGITAL HEALTH
23andMe cuts jobs amid falling DNA test sales. CNBC's Chrissy Farr reports that home DNA testing firm 23andMe is axing 100 jobs (about 14% of its workforce) as demand for at-home DNA testing kits fall. CEO Anne Wojcicki floated a number of theories about the decline to Farr. I have some of my own—including increased scrutiny over the privacy concerns linked with such services, or the potential that consumers just haven't been finding the products' insights worth the price. Going forward, 23andMe says it will expand the focus of its DTC and therapeutics businesses. (CNBC)
INDICATIONS
I-Mab launches first Chinese biotech IPO in the U.S. in two years. Chinese biotech I-Mab has set off a public offering process on the Nasdaq, making it the first Chinese biopharma company in two years to IPO in the U.S. This may not be all that surprising given rule changes that have allowed more and more of these companies to list on the Hong Kong exchange, including a rule change that allows pre-clinical biotechs (i.e., ones that don't have any products on the market) to go public. (Yahoo Finance)
THE BIG PICTURE
WHO not ready to declare coronavirus outbreak an international emergency. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday declined to declare the ongoing coronavirus outbreak in China a global emergency, calling it "a bit too early to consider that this is a public health emergency of international concern." Chinese authorities have essentially locked down Wuhan, where the outbreak began, and a number of other cities, shutting down transport ahead of the travel-heavy Chinese New Year celebrations. WHO officials said while it does mark an emergency in China, there have only been isolated cases in many other regions. (Reuters)
Supreme Court to punt Obamacare case till after 2020 election. The House GOP and Trump administration's lawsuit to repeal the entirety of the Affordable Care Act likely won't come before the Supreme Court until after election day 2020. The court's justices rejected House Democrats' request to fast-track the case, which carries serious political ramifications—striking down the law in the midst of the election would upend the health care industry, scuttling major Obamacare provisions such as protections for people with pre-existing conditions and the law's Medicaid expansion. (Politico)
REQUIRED READING
A.I. Is 'The Most Important Project Humanity Will Ever Work On,' by Aric Jenkins
How the Air Travel Industry Is Dealing with the Wuhan Coronavirus, by Bloomberg
Will Retiring Baby Boomers Crash the Stock Market, by Ben Carlson
Captain Davos: CEOs Urged to Lead in Sustainability, by Eamon Barrett