DIGITAL HEALTH BRIEFING: UnitedHealth Group creates $250 million venture fund - EKG band approved for Apple Watch - New study shows Google is effective transcription tool

UNITEDHEALTH GROUP CREATES $250 MILLION VENTURE FUND: UnitedHealth Group's business unit, Optum, announced the formation of Optum Ventures, a $250 million fund to invest in early-stage and startup digital health companies. This new fund will specifically target firms who use data and insights to improve access to care, delivery of care, and how healthcare is paid for.

Some of Optum Ventures initial investments include:

• Apervita, a health analytics and data platform provider that enables healthcare providers to deliver better care and gain stronger insights by reducing the amount of time it takes to build and deploy analytic applications.
• Buoy Health, a health technology company that developed an AI-powered assistant that helps patients better understand their symptoms and get health advice the moment they start to feel ill.
• SHYFT Analytics, a cloud-based data and analytics platform provider, which gives life science firms the insights needed to reduce costs and risk while increasing performance.

The creation of this new fund will help strengthen UnitedHealth Group's core business. In UnitedHealth Group's latest investor conference, the firm listed three core competencies that the business is built around: data and health information to guide decision-making, clinical expertise to consistently deliver high-quality care at lower costs, and advanced technology. By targeting digital health companies that leverage data to improve the healthcare experience for both consumers and providers UnitedHealth Group is hitting on each of these competencies.

A stronger core business will help the firm fend off competitors to maintain a leading market position. UnitedHealth Group isn't just the US's largest health insurer with more than 45 million members, it owns over 400 surgery and urgent care centers, runs over 22,000 practices for physicians, and via the firm's Optum unit it is also one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) in the US, according to the LA Times. However, the healthcare company is seeing increased competition from both traditional rivals - CVS Health, another of the US's largest PBMs, is closing in on a deal to acquire healthcare insurance giant Aetna - and tech challengers - Amazon and Apple have both started to make serious pushes into the healthcare industry.

FDA APPROVES EKG BAND FOR APPLE WATCH: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first medical device accessory for the Apple Watch, AliveCor's Kardiaband EKG reader, reports TechCrunch. The device, which is already available in parts of Europe, attaches to a slot on the band of an Apple Watch, and the wearer can touch the sensor and get an EKG reading. This provides an alternative to other forms of mobile heart-rate monitoring such as using a smartphone attachment and typical EKG measurements, which require an in-office visit. AliveCor also introduced a new software feature, SmartRhythm, that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze heart rate and provide personalized insights. The Apple Watch is a natural platform for this sort of monitoring given its large installed base - Apple has sold 33 million of its device so far with further growth expected, according to Asymco analyst estimates. BI Intelligence

NEW STUDY SHOWS THE CAPABILITIES OF GOOGLE'S VOICE RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY: A new study released by Google shows that the tech firm's voice recognition technology, similar to that deployed by Google Translate, could become an effective transcription tool for doctors, according to MobiHealthNews. In the proof of concept study, Google researchers developed automatic speech recognition methodologies that used multiple speakers to transcribe medical conversations between doctors and patients. This is unique in that it goes beyond most existing solutions that are only capable of recording one person due to issues with overlapping dialogue or differences in vocabulary. Although the methodologies were far from flawless - the best methodology had an error rate of 18% - they were still effective enough to provide doctors with vital information - one method had a 98% accuracy rate recalling drug names. This tool could ultimately help doctors build better connections with their patients by allowing them to review entire conversations prior to follow-ups. It also has the added benefit of reducing the time doctors spend documenting visits - 1.5 hours on an average day, according to Google's study.

NEW GE VENTURES COMPANY CUTS MIDDLEMAN OUT OF BLOOD DRAWS: Drawbridge Health, a startup backed by GE Ventures, has a new device that could stabilize blood samples collected in clinics and coordinate delivery of those samples to labs. The device can draw a small amount of blood and store it in cartridges, which can then be shipped out to a specialized laboratory so that doctors can perform hormonal screenings, genetic tests, or monitor chronic conditions or diseases. The company is wholly focused on the collection and delivery of blood samples, rather than performing any actual tests on the blood. Drawbridge Health can cut out blood-draw facilities operated by lab companies like Quest Diagnostics - which brought in $7.5 billion in revenue in 2016. For patients in remote areas especially, this can eliminate one of the main barriers to expanded testing - the need to go from one potentially distant office to another - and allow more preventative care measures to be taken. And more broadly, by focusing on collection and transport of blood samples, Drawbridge could help reduce costs and make it easier for doctors to get patients the care that they need.

IN OTHER NEWS…

• Cardiovascular diagnostic tech company HeartFlow is expected to raise $150 million in a new round of funding, which would push the company's valuation above $1 billion, according to Recode.
• UnitedHealthcare introduced a maternity health app, UnitedHealthcare Healthy Pregnancy, which gives patients access to 24-7 support from nurses during their pregnancy and after delivery.
• California-based Cottage Health System and a number of affiliated hospitals agreed to a $2 million settlement with the state of California over their failure to have basic safeguards in place to protect patient data, which led to two patient breaches in 2013 and 2015, according to Healthcare IT News.