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Posted: 22 april 2021

Microsoft’s Acquisition Of Nuance Reaffirms Its Interest In Dominating The $11+ Trillion Healthcare Market

One of the largest global market sectors is healthcare, expected to be valued at more than $11 trillion by 2022. The growth in healthcare continues to be tremendous, especially as new innovation is increasingly being embraced by the field. Ranging from digital health, to artificial intelligence, data-driven care models, and novel ways to improve care access, healthcare innovation is transforming at a rapid pace. Microsoft continues to forge its path within healthcare, with a reaffirmed commitment to expanding its offerings of impactful and meaningful technology and services within the industry. The latest of these ventures by Microsoft was announced earlier this month when it confirmed that it will proceed with an acquisition of Nuance Communications, “a trusted cloud and AI software leader representing decades of accumulated healthcare and enterprise AI experience.” The purchase has been valued an astounding $19.7 billion dollars. Microsoft describes this venture as a part of its larger “Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare” infrastructure and strategy. Specifically, it describes Nuance as “a pioneer and a leading provider of conversational AI and cloud-based ambient clinical intelligence for healthcare providers. Nuance’s products include the Dragon Ambient eXperience, Dragon Medical One and PowerScribe One for radiology reporting, all leading clinical speech recognition SaaS offerings built on Microsoft Azure. Nuance’s solutions work seamlessly with core healthcare systems, including longstanding relationships with Electronic Health Records (EHRs), to alleviate the burden of clinical documentation and empower providers to deliver better patient experiences. Nuance solutions are currently used by more than 55% of physicians and 75% of radiologists in the U.S., and used in 77% of U.S. hospitals.”

Homelessness Is A Healthcare Issue. Why Don’t We Treat It As One?

Housing alone will not solve the problems of people experiencing homelessness. Los Angeles is home to more than 65,000 individuals experiencing homelessness. Los Angeles is home to more than 65,000 individuals experiencing homelessness. LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES How you define a problem determines how you solve a problem. Take homelessness, for example. If you see it fundamentally as a housing problem, then your solution will be to build more housing. If you see it as an economic problem, then your solution will be to create more and better-paying jobs. And if you see it as a quality of life problem, in that the encampments that have taken over streets and public parks, for example, diminish housed residents’ ability to enjoy their communities, then your solution will be to clean up the tents and move their inhabitants into shelters. I see homelessness as a healthcare problem (in part). And while none of the above approaches is wrong per se, they are all stunted by a kind of myopia that prevents their prescribed solutions from tackling the challenge of homelessness in the sort of broad manner that has been demonstrated not just to improve life for the homeless, but speed the process of getting them housed as well. Building affordable housing, for example, would certainly put a roof over the head of the unhoused, but would likely do little to help someone struggling with a substance use disorder. On the other hand, the solutions I envision entail providing more and better healthcare, as well as an array of related care services, to people experiencing homelessness. What’s more, I’m convinced that, in Medicare Advantage, we have a financial model of care whose incentives are aligned with the needs of homeless people—and the funding to make meaningful strides in addressing the manifold challenges they face every day.

30 Under 30 Asia: The Young Entrepreneurs Innovating In Healthcare

To Ryuichi Onose, launching his own business was led by deeply personal reasons. When his grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, Onose struggled to get a second opinion. The former trading company employee decided there had to be a better way, especially for another view on treatment, and approached Japanese investment fund ANRI, who introduced him to bioengineer Takao Yasui. Together, they founded Craif in 2018 to focus on early cancer detection. The Tokyo-based startup will check for cancers, including lung and ovarian, at its lab by using AI to analyze urine samples collected by its own proprietary device. “When everybody said that urine wouldn’t work, that’s when I thought that that was an opportunity,” Onose says. Its point of differentiation: it can extract more biomarker data than others in the industry, he adds. Craif, which raised $7.5 million in funding so far, aims to launch the testing service next year. Eventually the firm hopes to broaden the range of illnesses screened, offer the best treatment options and expand in Japan and overseas.

How Virtual Reality Is Making Healthcare More Accessible

As more people move away from cities to live in more rural areas, driven away by the pandemic or looking to simplify their day-to-day routines, access to healthcare is becoming more challenging. Healthcare is an essential need, but a complicated factor for many people who live far from hospitals, medical experts, and other specialists. MedTech entrepreneur Erik Maltais took note of all of these competing factors and, driven by a desire to do good in the tech world, utilized Virtual Reality (VR) technology to make healthcare specialists accessible to all. Virtual reality (VR) systems are currently understood as entertainment tools, used for watching movies, playing video games, and even to immerse oneself into the digital NFT market. But Maltais saw a bridge between VR and the medical world and applied his entrepreneurial spirit to make a way for it to transform the healthcare industry. Within three years of their initial idea, the Maltais and his partner Jon Clagg built VR software that went beyond entertainment and offered something that could benefit society. With their newfound focus on the medical training market, Maltais and Clagg founded their award-winning company, Immertec. Leading the Way in MedTech Innovation Maltais is leading the way in an area of healthcare where experts see great potential. According to medical professionals at Cedars-Sinai, VR is a new frontier in medical innovation. It helps doctors learn necessary procedures more easily, provokes further empathy among healthcare providers that leads to greater progress in treatments, and helps by giving at-risk people a hands-on education about the disease.

What’s Next For Molina Healthcare Stock?

The stock price of Molina Healthcare (NYSE: MOH), a managed care company best known for its health insurance through Medicaid and Medicare, has seen an 8% rise over the last ten trading days, while it’s up 4% over the last five trading days, and we believe the stock may continue to trend higher in the near term. The recent rise can largely be attributed to an overall growth seen in healthcare stocks, including Molina, Centene, and Humana, among others. Healthcare stocks have been in focus this year with expectations of increased investments into the healthcare system under the new government administration. Healthcare stocks focused on government sponsored healthcare plans stand to benefit from increased investments. Furthermore, Molina last week announced that it has won a contract to provide medical care coverage to Medicaid beneficiaries in Ohio, aiding its stock price growth. Looking at the recent rally, the 8% rise for MOH stock over the last ten days compares with just 1.7% gains seen in the broader S&P 500 index. Now, is MOH stock poised to gain further? It appears so. Given the current momentum in the healthcare stocks, and based on our machine learning analysis of trends in the stock price over the last few years, we believe that there are higher chances of a rise in MOH stock over the next month (twenty-one trading days). See our analysis on Molina Healthcare Stock Chances of Rise for more details. Curious about the possibility of rising over the next quarter? Check out the MOH Stock AI Dashboard: Chances Of Rise And Fall for a variety of scenarios on how MOH stock could move. Five Days: MOH 4.1%, vs. S&P500 -0.01%; Outperformed market (20% likelihood event)

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AI in Healthcare Trends 2021 Ebook

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