Allara raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by GV. The startup offers membership-based virtual services to treat women’s chronic hormonal conditions, such as PCOS and endometriosis. CEO Rachel Blank — former executive at Ro and investor at General Catalyst — founded the company partly due to the difficulty she experienced arriving at her own PCOS diagnosis.

Mass General Brigham launched a program this month in collaboration with behavioral health medical group Concert Health. Under the program, more than 400 Mass General primary care providers can refer their patients to Concert. The health system’s goal is to increase patients’ access to diagnoses and treatment for mild to moderate behavioral health issues — particularly for Medicaid patients, who are the most underserved.

At HLTH, Shaun Miller — Cedars-Sinai’s chief medical information officer — pointed out one thing he thinks healthcare AI companies haven’t quite gotten right yet. He said he would “really like there to be a lot more recognition around the personalization of AI and the ability for technology to understand that not every clinician is the same.”

Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday amid decreasing sales, billions of dollars in debt and more than a thousand lawsuits claiming the chain filled illegal prescriptions for opioids. In order for the company to get back on its feet, experts say it will have to start acting more like its competitors, such as Walgreens and CVS, by leaning more into care delivery, forging strong payer partnerships, and improving its digital offerings.

At HLTH, Mayo Clinic Platform President John Halamka gave a window into how his health system is mitigating generative AI risks. Some of the measures Mayo is taking include running analyses on how well algorithms perform across various subgroups and training models only on internal de-identified data.

Hospital M&A activity has been returning to pre-pandemic levels this year, according to a new report. There were 18 M&A transactions in Q3, compared to seven in Q3 2021 and 10 in Q3 of last year. The reason why M&A activity is regaining its momentum is because hospitals are seeking partnerships to grow and protect their long-term financial sustainability — the report found financial distress was the driving factor behind nearly 40% of deals announced during Q3.

This year’s HLTH conference brought a bevy of news announcements — from partnerships to new product features to acquisitions and more. In this list, MedCity News compiled short summaries for 11 of the conference’s most notable announcements.

If you could only do one thing to improve the health of children in the U.S., it would have to be in the behavioral health sphere, Nemours Children’s Health CEO Lawrence Moss declared at HLTH. The state of youth mental health has reached a crisis point in the U.S., and Moss’ health system is working hard to address this. Some of its efforts include embedding behavioral health into primary care and deploying behavioral health workers in schools.

At HLTH 2023, I had dozens of conversations with providers, digital health investors, startup CEOs and other players in the healthcare industry. When I got home, I compiled seven refreshingly honest takes I heard from them while at the conference.

At HLTH, Bessemer investors Sofia Guerra and Steve Kraus detailed four predictions about where they think the digital health world is headed in 2024. One of these was that “services-as-software” will emerge as a new category of healthcare AI. Another was that some healthcare technology vendors will have to rethink their distribution models and rely on indirect monetization strategies.

At HLTH, General Catalyst Principal Candace Richardson discussed some of the questions she frequently asks startups during investment meetings. Some of these include “Do you stratify your outcomes data by different populations to ensure your model works well for everyone?” and “Is serving Medicaid populations on your roadmap?”

To address the growing physician shortage, some people argue that the scope of practice should be expanded for skilled healthcare professionals like nurse practitioners and pharmacists. American Medical Association President Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld said this is a “terrible idea.” He argued that throwing other professionals into physicians’ roles will have poor ramifications of patient safety. In his view, the industry should focus on uplifting strong interprofessional care teams.

Main Street Health announced the close of a $315 funding round at HLTH — some of the investors included UnitedHealthcare, Humana, Elevance, Centene and CVS. The startup, which scales value-based care in rural areas for both Medicare Advantage and original Medicare patients, also announced that it is expanding to 26 states.

Merith Basey, executive director of Patients For Affordable Drugs, believes the Medicare price negotiation program is here to stay, no matter who is president and no matter how many Big Pharma players file lawsuits. Her reasoning? Every other high income nation has been negotiating prices with drugmakers for years, and the program is widely popular in the U.S. among pretty much everyone who isn’t a pharma company, she said during a session at Engage at HLTH.

Healthcare technology experts have confidence that the industry will put the right guardrails up around LLMs as it continues to develop and deploy these AI tools, they said Sunday during a panel discussion at Engage at HLTH.

The digital health sector’s quarterly investment trends seem to be stabilizing in 2023, according to a new report from Rock Health. The report noted investors are shifting their focus away from pandemic-era categories like telehealth and pharmaceutical R&D catalysts — instead, they’re interested in startups creating products for disease treatment, the improvement of nonclinical workflows and the enablement of value-based care.

Headway closed a $125 million Series C funding round. The round brings the New York-based startup’s valuation to $1 billion, reaching unicorn status. The company connects patients to in-network therapists and helps mental health providers avoid the massive administrative burden associated with taking insurance.

Diana Health, which partners with hospitals to operate a network of maternity practices, closed a $34 million Series B funding round. The startup currently operates three women’s health practices in Tennessee. With its new funding, the company plans to open new practices in Tennessee, Florida and one other yet-to-be-announced state.

Providence announced that it will spin out its fourth digital health startup in the first quarter of next year. The company, called Praia Health, offers a platform designed to build stronger relationships with patients by personalizing their healthcare journeys and connecting them to relevant resources and services.

Hospitals’ operating margins are still in a worse place than they were before the pandemic, but 2023 is ending as a much more stable year for hospital finance than 2022, according to a new report from Kaufman Hall. Because this year hasn’t had any large Covid-19 surges, hospitals have seen less variability in patient volumes. This has helped them allocate their resources more efficiently and decrease their reliance on expensive contract labor.

San Francisco-based Plenful emerged from stealth on Tuesday. The startup sells a workflow tool that automates manual and administrative workflows for pharmacy technicians. In addition to its launch out of stealth mode, the company also announced that it has closed a $9 million funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners and signed contracts with more than 20 customers.

7wireVentures launched its largest fund to date on Tuesday — the closing of the $217 million digital health fund brings the Chicago-based firm’s assets under management to more than $500 million. Two-thirds of the new fund’s capital will be allocated to 7wireVentures’ existing portfolio companies for follow-up investments, and the remaining third will go toward Series B and Series C funding round for companies in which the firm hasn’t yet invested.

Healthcare-focused market research firm Trilliant Health published a report detailing the 10 most significant economic trends affecting U.S. healthcare stakeholders in 2023. Some of the main ideas covered in the report included Americans’ worsening physical and mental health, the industry’s shift away from traditional care pathways, and the way patients’ decision making is becoming increasingly driven by consumerism.

UNC Health published a study showing that Laudio’s automation software saved the health system $5.4 million in annual nurse turnover costs. The startup’s technology automates administrative tasks for frontline nurse managers — such as patient rounding, schedule making, and quality and safety checks.

Here is a selection of recent executive hires, promotions and layoffs occurring across the healthcare industry.

Transcarent announced a new provider network, which seeks to help its employer customers provide their staff with access to high-quality, affordable care. The network includes 10 health systems — including Mount Sinai, Mass General Brigham and Intermountain Health.

Cartwheel, a startup that partners with school districts to provide virtual mental health services, raised $20 million in Series A funds. The company is working with about 50 school districts and charter school networks across Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

The advancement of value-based care cannot and should not exist solely in a payvider model, Intermountain Health CEO Rob Allen argued in an interview last week. Having its own health plan made things “a little easier” when Intermountain began getting serious about at-risk contracts, but achieving success in value-based care “is more about your commitment to the approach” and forging strong relationships with payers of all types.

Zocdoc launched a new suite of tools to compete with the solutions sold by Phreesia, NexHealth and Solutionreach. The product suite, which is free for any provider to use, includes tools to streamline the patient intake process, facilitate online scheduling and enable video visits.

In order for health systems to “not be commoditized fully,” they need to collect data to know their patients’ behaviors better and build stronger relationships with them, argued Sara Vaezy, Providence’s chief strategy and digital officer. Consumer brands like Amazon have been doing this for years so they can deliver personalized experiences to their users, and it’s time hospitals take a page out of their playbook, she said.