DIGITAL HEALTH BRIEFING: Cerner earnings marred by VA delay - Suki launches medical voice assistant - Providers eye health tech incubators

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CERNER REVENUE GROWTH MARRED BY VA DELAY: Electronic health records (EHR) giant Cerner reported muted revenue growth of 3% year-over-year (YoY) in Q1 2018. The company pulled in $1.3 billion for the quarter, compared with $1.26 billion in Q1 2017. The lower-than-expected growth was largely the effect of the delayed $10 billion deal with the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Cerner President Zane Burke noted during the conference call Wednesday.

Meanwhile, bookings during Q1, which were up 12% YoY, marked a bright spot for the company, signaling strong growth potential for the healthcare IT market.

• Demand for EHR solutions remains strong. Business Insider Intelligence forecasts that more than 80% of all doctors will work at a facility that uses an EHR system by 2019. By 2025, nearly all facilities in the US will use EHR, with only a small fraction of private offices still relying on physical records. And nearly 50% of the US provider market intends to switch EHR vendors within the next three years, according to Sage Growth Partners.
• Spending will only increase as infrastructure improvements become necessary to cope with health systems' growing need for healthcare insights. As providers begin requiring increasingly complex IT-enabled services, such as big data analysis and automation - to support areas like precision health and population health - they'll need to overhaul their existing infrastructure.

As competition in the EHR market heats up, vendors are pushing additional services to woo potential customers, driving partnerships between tech and healthcare. To differentiate from the competition and enhance value to providers, the big EHR players are partnering with a range of tech companies. For instance, Cerner partnered with Salesforce to offer cloud solutions for population health. And Epic integrated its EHR offering with AI-company Nuance's virtual assistant.

SUKI LAUNCHES HEALTH-FOCUSED VOICE ASSISTANT: Suki, an AI-powered voice assistant company, announced on Monday a $20 million funding round to launch its eponymous virtual assistant for doctors. The service aims to automate manual tasks such as recording medial notes and retrieving patient files, which can attribute to physician burnout. Suki currently has 12 active pilots across a range of medical areas and three separate EHR systems.

AI-based voice assistants are being increasingly used within the healthcare system, with more providers trialing the technology as a potential tool. Major hospitals and healthcare services in the US are using voice assistants to connect with patients and help physicians. For example, BIDMC is using Amazon's Alexa to enable inpatients to perform routine tasks, such as calling a nurse or ordering a meal. And EHR vendor eClinicalWorks launched Eva, an assistant that allows physicians to pull patient data and order prescriptions. Providers are clearly interested in leveraging the technology - 23% of US physicians are already using voice assistants in a professional capacity, according to a survey from Decision Resources.

HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS SEE DIGITAL HEALTH INCUBATORS AS WORTHY INVESTMENT: Provider interest in digital health initiatives appears to be gaining traction, with two announcements this week focused on fostering and developing digital technology for healthcare:

• The American Medical Association (AMA) strengthened its commitment to driving provider adoption and usage of digital health solutions - the organization committed $27 million to its partner incubator Health2047, according to MobiHealthNews. With the AMA's funding, the incubator also gains access to the organization's more than 230,000 physician and medical student members. This announcement is just the latest sign of the AMA's enthusiasm for digital health following the group's intentions to expand digital health as one of its top advocacy priorities of 2018.
• Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center launched the Health Technology Exploration Center (HTEC), an incubator aimed at developing scalable digital health technologies. The initiative will focus on the development of blockchain, IoT, artificial intelligence, telemedicine, and machine learning technologies within the healthcare market.

The announcements are further indications that providers now consider fostering new digital health technologies crucial to the future of healthcare. Further, these partnerships and innovation hubs also mean that providers will have a greater hand in focusing the development of health tech in areas of need. With their existing patient data and physician expertise, hospital-led initiatives may be uniquely positioned to direct digital health improvements that streamline delivery of care.

NEW EMERGENCY-RESPONSE WEARABLE TARGETS ELDERLY POPULATION: San Francisco-based tech company iBeat announced $5.5 million in funding to support the launch of its HeartWatch - a personal emergency response system (PERS) smartwatch that monitors heart rates, blood flow, and oxygen levels, and alerts emergency care services when irregularities occur, MobiHealthNews reports. iBeat's watch demonstrates the increased integration of PERS functionality into wearable devices. PERS devices, also known as medical alarms, are the most niche area of the telehealth industry and cater almost exclusively to elderly patients. And while the aging population means that demand for this technology will grow - the US has 42 million seniors, two-thirds of which are at risk of heart disease, the US Census Bureau estimates - the increasing capabilities of wearables, such as fitness trackers or smartwatches, means that the need for cumbersome, single-use devices such as medical alarms will fade. Further, by catering its product to this particular subset of the population, iBeat likely hopes to carve out a niche of the broader wearables market against the likes of Apple and Fitbit, which are increasingly taking on the healthcare market.

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IN OTHER NEWS:

• A new study found that a computer algorithm was as accurate as doctors in assessing risk of breast cancer, eHealthNews reports. Researchers hope the system can alleviate the subjectivity and inconsistency across radiologists' evaluations.
• The Mayo Clinic is poised to roll out the first stage of the $1.5 billion EHR overhaul at its Minnesota headquarters on May 5, Healthcare IT News reports. The firm will use Epic's EHR system to replace systems from Cerner and GE.

Business Insider Intelligence research associate Nicky Lineaweaver contributed to the briefing.