Medtechnorist

#002

It seemed generally a quiet week in the world of healthcare innovation with many folks in my part of the world, still away for a few more weeks for the long summer holiday. Despite that, as always, there were some interesting snippets of innovation from various corners of the globe.

These were the ones that caught my eye this week. Hope you enjoy.

Innovation Thinking

The most intriguing healthcare cost-related research I saw this week was a paper by Ryan et al in Journal of Neurosurgery looking at a single academic centre and it's implementation of a spine triage program between 2018 and 2020 and its effect on outpatient radiology utilization.

https://thejns.org/spine/view/journals/j-neurosurg-spine/aop/article-10.3171-2022.11.SPINE22827/article-10.3171-2022.11.SPINE22827.xml

The triage program appeared to have a pretty dramatic impact on reducing diagnostic imaging (CT or MRI) ordered, roughly halving the imaging ordered, but having no impact at all on the rate of surgery being performed. The cost impact was unsurprisingly substantial ($40,107/1000 patients vs $85,475/1000 patients).

One can easily imagine how that higher 'standard' rate of diagnostic imaging ordering comes about, with other departments and fellows ordering imaging either on behalf of others, or as a work up before hand off to another department.  

From author James Clear's work in Atomic Habits, it seems as if there is a need to add some friction here, so that what is easiest ('just get some scans & send them on') isn't standardized without a proper risk:benefit evaluation on behalf of the patient to minimize iatrogenic radiation or contrast risk.

Innovation Tools

The best new tool I came across this week was a consumer device launched at CES this week from Withings. The device is essentially a urine sampler but is pitched at consumers, who can upload daily sample data to Withing's cloud-based service. Sure, there are a million privacy, data-sharing & results interpretation problems, but I reckon this is really exciting for preventive care and potentially cost-saving to have perhaps path lab-like data, generated in the home setting.  

If this proves to be robust and stable, there is a tremendous amount of diagnostic data in urine, especially when viewed over time as a trend (vs point in time per primary care visits). I am very interested to try this thing out if I can get my hands on one.

http://www.mobilehealthtimes.com/withings-brings-a-new-stream-of-health-data-to-the-healthcare-industry-with-u-scan-the-worlds-first-hands-free-connected-home-urine-lab/

Innovation Investing

Most interesting investment thesis

I just discovered this pretty chunky series B round ($43m) this week, but it actually dates from Nov 2022. The underlying company & team is pretty darned interesting, and the potential for precision, if these things can be reliably steered and removed post 'procedure' is wildly exciting when you think of how many areas we either struggle to get to now, in the body (without causing carnage), or do so in a manner that produces a ton of collateral damage - think chemo / radio therapy. If it worked, this would 10X precision in cancer therapy for starters.

Bionaut Labs Closes $43M in Series B Led by Khosla Ventures to Advance First-in-Class Micro-Robotic Technology and Remove Barriers to Treat Rare and Debilitating Diseases

Bionaut Labs Closes $43M in Series B Led by Khosla Ventures

Business Wire

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221122005892/en/Bionaut-Labs-Closes-43M-in-Series-B-Led-by-Khosla-Ventures-to-Advance-First-in-Class-Micro-Robotic-Technology-and-Remove-Barriers-to-Treat-Rare-and-Debilitating-Diseases#:~:text=Bionaut%20Labs%20is%20a%20biotech,treatment%20and%20detection%20of%20diseases.

Innovative Tweet

Some sage life advice from Sahil Bloom who has been interviewing 90 yrs olds for the past month in the lead up to his 32nd birthday.

https://twitter.com/SahilBloom/status/1610985004531650560

Have a great weekend.

Phil