Oct 15, 2025 Current Resources

News 10/15/25

October 14, 2025 News No Comments

Top News

OutcomesAI announces $10 million in seed funding.

The company’s Glia software combines AI voice agents with licensed nurses to handle nursing workflows.

Founder and CEO Kuldeep Singh Rajput, PhD was founder and CEO of Biofourmis, which was merged with CopilotIQ in October 2024.

Reader Comments

From Spigot: “Re: healthcare conference. Interesting keynotes, eh?” The best part is always the brochure straining to justify why the speakers have anything to do with healthcare, beyond being has-been celebrities whose agents offered an affordable glad-hander. They are inevitably described as visionary entrepreneurs, resilient leaders, and universal storytellers whose wisdom will somehow inspire the healthcare community. Maybe McEnroe will share his insights from narrating “Never Have I Ever,” which like McEnroe himself has no healthcare relevance but was wickedly funny (as was this collection of Emmitt Smith’s oratorical fumbles). Here’s the one relevant similarity: as in healthcare, people and organizations are most motivated to do whatever benefits them most, so Becker’s must have flashed cash and perks.

A Reader’s Notes from Nashville Healthcare Sessions

Panel on the investing landscape in healthcare

Julie Yoo, General Partner, a16z

Diagnostics has been a challenging area to invest and be successful in, but there are opportunities, especially with companies taking a platform approach.
She’s bullish on robotics as an investment opportunity.
She said even in challenging sectors, there are investment opportunities. For example, the OBBB Act will significantly impact Medicaid eligibility, and that creates opportunities for companies who make it easier to navigate Medicaid eligibility and redeterminations.
Every company in their portfolio is using an AI-based software development solution.
She commented on the changes in the investing environment since the pandemic. Seven companies since 2020 have reached $100 million ARR in five years or less, whereas none did that before 2020. She says the current environment pushes companies to broaden their targets to multiple verticals (providers, payers, and employers).

Vijay Patel, Managing Partner, CVS Health Ventures

Also taking a hard look at robotics.
He’s thinking about investments not just in terms of health tech but also tech that enables healthcare delivery. An example is an AI company CVS Health just invested in that assists call center agents; they are also seeing value in tech investments on behind-the-scenes aspects of healthcare delivery, like supply chain.

Conversation on employer-based healthcare

Mercedes Ikard, Senior Director, US Benefits Operations, The Walt Disney Company

Disney spends $1 billion annually on healthcare benefits and wellness programs in the US. They have 80,000 primary care visits a year and provide care for families, not just employees.
They have disease management programs that provide care managers and coaches to navigate healthier living. They do things like offer culinary classes to employees to promote healthier eating.
Pharmacists are an integral part of the care team for their employees and coordinate with physicians, nutritionists, etc.

Panel on the shift to ambulatory care

Jeff Snodgrass, President & CEO, AMSURG

Taking procedures off the inpatient-only list and moving more of them to ASCs has knock-on effects of moving other procedures to the ambulatory setting. Seeing this trend in orthopedics and cardiology especially.
Example: when total shoulder replacements are inpatient-only but partial replacements are not, providers are incentivized to schedule partial replacements at the hospital because they don’t want the inconvenience of operating at two places in a day. Bringing total shoulders to the ASC brings partials with them.

Eric Evans, CEO, Surgery Partners

Bringing 500 new surgeons into their ASCs each year. The surgeons are attracted to lower bureaucracy and better control over their schedules.

Renee Buckingham, President, Primary Care Organization, Humana CenterWell

Rural settings are seeing significant strains on healthcare labor, not just for physicians but also medical assistants and nurses.

Miscellaneous tidbits

Tom Hale, CEO, ŌURA: the biggest change they see with ŌURA users is that they drink less alcohol.
Eduardo Conrado, President, Ascension. Health system has $25 billion in revenue, 95 hospitals, 26 joint ventures. Focusing on growing its ambulatory presence (e.g., AMSURG acquisition). Serves 2.5 million commercial lives, 1.5 million Medicare lives, and 1.15 million Medicaid or uninsured lives.
David Dill, Chairman & CEO, Lifepoint Health. 60 acute hospitals, 50 rehab hospitals, 30 behavioral health facilities 350,000 surgeries and 1 million ED visits annually

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

RCM vendor R1 will acquire Phare Health, which offers AI solutions for inpatient coding and clinical documentation improvement. R1 will fold the startup into its R37 AI lab, which it launched earlier this year with Palantir.

A Miami publication profiles Gameday Men’s Health, which operates 400 testosterone and erectile dysfunction clinics nationwide. The company, which doesn’t accept insurance and therefore requires no billing capabilities, built its own EHR using Lobbie software that offers no-show prediction, outcomes tracking, workflow reminders, and an upcoming mobile app for patient scheduling and messaging.

WellTheory, which offers virtual care management services for autoimmune conditions, raises $14 million in Series A funding.

Sales

Advocate Health’s Atrium Health Medical Group (NC) selects WellBeam’s post-acute care coordination software.
Northwell Health (NY) will implement Abridge’s ambient AI technology across its 28 hospitals.

People

Adria Jackson, PhD, MBA, RN (Flourish & Thrive Labs) joins the Veterans Health Administration’s Eastern Oklahoma VA Health Care System as chief health informatics officer.

Counterpart Health names Blaine Lindsey (AnsibleHealth) VP of enterprise growth and partnerships.

Ascertain hires Molly O’Neill, MS (Aegis Ventures) as chief commercial officer.

Announcements and Implementations

Jennie Stuart Health (KY) goes live on Epic after merging with Deaconess Health (IN).

AGS Health launches AI-powered RCM workforce solutions for tasks related to insurance eligibility verification, prior authorizations, denials management, and appeals.

Infinx makes a strategic investment in Voxology AI and adds the company’s AI scheduling agents to its contact center software.

Inovalon adds DoseMe’s precision dosing software to its VigiLanz Pharmacy Surveillance application.

Teladoc Health adds a hospital workplace safety tool to its monitoring solution that analyzes audio and video to identify hostile facial expressions, threatening gestures, aggressive language, and entry into restricted areas.

LiveData launches an analytics tool that provides visibility into OR performance such as room usage, case booking efficiency, and identification of bottlenecks.

Other

Thanks to AMIA for citing Dr. Jayne’s HIStalk piece in its Informatics Smart Brief on the potential of AI scribes to restore joy in medicine. My key takeaways from Dr. Jayne:

Some studies have found that use of AI scribes doesn’t always reduce after-hours “pajama time.”
Some employers are reclaiming any AI-created time savings by assigning doctors additional after-hours work.
Pajama time measurements may be unreliable. They may track only documentation hours rather than all activities, may not detect when an EHR application is open but idle, or may fail to distinguish specific tasks.

Sponsor Updates

Altera Digital Health announces that Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust achieved significant time savings across its wards by introducing automated vital signs integration into its Sunrise EHR.
A Black Book Research survey names Verisma the top provider of release-of-information services.
Modern Healthcare ranks Cardamom #6 in its Best Places to Work in Healthcare 2025.
CereCore publishes a new case study titled “Cybersecurity Advisors Bring New Hope to Orgs Without Security Officials.”

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