< + > Pair Team Raises $9 Million Series A to Expand Access to Health Care Services for Medicaid’s Most Vulnerable Patients

Through its Value-Based Care Enablement Solution, the Round Advances the Company’s Efforts to Improve Care Across California

Pair Team, a virtual and community-based primary care solution connecting Medicaid’s highest-risk patients to high-quality care, today announced it has raised $9 million in Series A funding. The financing was led by NEXT VENTURES, with participation from PTX Capital, Create Health Ventures, OCA Ventures, CHCF Innovation Fund, Kapor Capital, Augment Ventures, Newark Venture Partners,  Y Combinator, Kleiner Perkins, Gaingels, and several notable healthcare angel investors including Jay Desai. The funding will be used to help Pair Team accelerate its expansion across California by enabling the company to grow its network of safety net organizations and scale its current team to support additional patients.

Since January 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and other federal agencies have had their eyes on California with the launch of the nation’s largest-ever program to transform the healthcare system for vulnerable communities. With nearly $10B in total funding, California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) is integrating social support services such as housing, food access, and transportation through local health plans for low-income residents. The goal is to elevate the role of community-based organizations (CBOs) such as shelters, food pantries, and rehab facilities in the care delivery system. This is the future of Medicaid laid out by CMS, and other states like New York are following suit. However, local clinics and CBOs lack the resources to effectively coordinate and establish a new model of care.

Pair Team solves these issues by partnering with local health centers and community-based organizations, giving them access to a shared, value-based care management platform that is utilized by Pair Team’s network of safety net organizations and providing staffing support to fill gaps in care access and coordination. By enabling existing organizations to provide both virtual and in-person care through its shared platform, Pair Team connects Medicaid’s highest-risk patients with the information and services they need, such as housing coordination, grocery delivery, medication management, virtual therapy, and other primary care services.

“Pair Team’s hands-on approach is changing lives for thousands of Californians who are not able to access the care needed to better their health. Our virtual and community-based solution builds personal and meaningful relationships with our patients to help them regain trust in and access to the health care system,” said Neil Batlivala, Co-Founder and CEO at Pair Team. “This latest financing will help us bring whole-person care to more patients across California, and soon nationally. This is Medicaid’s regulatory moment, and we are here to help catalyze much-needed change for the wellbeing of our most vulnerable communities.”

Pair Team’s comprehensive, value-based care solution provides a personalized, high-touch care experience while addressing obstacles such as lack of transportation, housing, food security, and mobile phone access. The company’s unique care delivery platform leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to implement clinical best practices, integrate care with community-based organizations, and automate workflows so that clinicians can focus their time on patients.

“Pair Team’s commitment to enabling existing safety-net organizations to improve healthcare for individuals complements our thematic focus on Whole Person Health. We continue to be impressed by their ability to execute according to plan, effectively driving strong engagement and meaningful clinical outcomes,” said Julian Eison, Managing Partner at NEXT VENTURES. “As the healthcare landscape rapidly shifts toward value-based care, all stakeholders need to work together to prioritize inclusive, effective, and patient-centric outcomes, and Pair Team is developing a blueprint for success. We are honored to be partnered with Neil, Cassie, and the greater Pair Team on this company’s remarkable and promising journey.”

By addressing social issues first to better care for Medicaid patients in California, Pair Team has engaged upwards of 49% of eligible, high-needs patients and demonstrated a 34% reduction in emergency department utilization. Through its mental health and chronic care management support, 58% of patients diagnosed with depression report reduced depression symptoms, and 62% of patients diagnosed with diabetes experienced reduced A1c scores.

Pair Team is passionate about building a team of individuals who support its mission of improving the well-being of underserved communities. In addition to care providers and other licensed practitioner positions, Pair Team is hiring for a broad number of roles including executive operations and director roles, as well as local community-based care team members.

For more information about Pair Team or if you’re interested in joining its team, please visit pairteam.com.

About Pair Team

Pair Team connects underserved communities to high-quality care by partnering with local health centers and community-based organizations. It acts as an extension of its partners to provide comprehensive clinical and mental health care while addressing the many social barriers to achieving a high quality of life such as access to housing, food, or transportation. The company’s shared community health platform leverages artificial intelligence to implement clinical best practices, making it the market leader in California’s complex care program.

For more information, please visit pairteam.com.

Originally announced October 19th, 2023

< + > OCR settles with BA for ransomware breach

Following an investigation into the breach of the protected health information of 206,695 individuals, the Office of Civil Rights announced a settlement with Doctors’ Management Services – which provides medical billing, payor credentialing and other third-party healthcare services to several covered entities. WHY IT MATTERS

< + > Tele-stroke tech improves care and provider confidence at Essentia Health-Fargo

The nurse stroke program manager offers an in-depth look at the virtual care initiative, which brings neurologists from other sites into critical decision making.

< + > What Tools are Needed to Better Handle Cloud in Healthcare?

There are a lot of amazing things that the cloud is capable of doing in healthcare. But as a newer technology, there are still some areas that it falls behind. So as we are looking into the cloud and possibly adding it to our organizations, we need to be looking at some additional tools that can help you better manage your cloud efforts in healthcare.

To get a starting point on what tools we need to get a better handle on the cloud in healthcare, we reached out to our wickedly smart Healthcare IT Today Community. The following is their recommendations on the necessary tools.

Vladimir Dabić, Tech Lead at Inviggo

Any Infrastructure-as-a-Service tools are very helpful for managing cloud infrastructure. This can be cloud specific tools like AWS’s CloudFormation or AWS CDK, or it can be open source tools like Terraform with AWS/GCP/Azure provider. Using IaaC with version control like git let’s you have reproducable infrastructure in a click of a button, as well as history of changes. To better handle cloud in healthcare, SaaS tools like SecureFrame can be used. SecureFrame connects to your cloud account and audits your infrastructure for chosen compliance (SOC2, HIPAA, GDPR, CCPA etc) which makes this process much faster.

Jay Ackerman, President & CEO at Reveleer

To better handle cloud in healthcare, several tools are needed. These tools collectively enable healthcare organizations to efficiently manage cloud resources, ensure security and compliance, optimize performance, and leverage advanced technologies for improved patient care and operational excellence. Some essential tools include:

• Cloud Management Platforms (CMPs): Provide a unified interface for provisioning, monitoring, and managing cloud resources
• Monitoring and Analytics: Monitor resources and applications and provide insights into performance while enabling automated responses to incidents. These can help identify and mitigate performance issues
• Security and Compliance Tools: Help ensure that cloud resources are configured according to security best practices and compliance requirements
• Cloud Compliance Management (CCM): Platforms assist in maintaining compliance with industry standards and regulations like HIPAA
• Automation and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Tools: These can enable infrastructure provisioning through code, promoting consistency and version control
• Data Management and Backup Tools: Securely stores and retrieves data and offers scalable and durable storage
• Data Analytics and Machine Learning Tools: Support data analysis and transformation
• Encryption and Data Protection Tools: Provide built-in services for managing encryption keys and help prevent unauthorized data leakage by monitoring and protecting sensitive information

Adopting cloud technology in healthcare brings both opportunities and challenges. While cost savings, scalability, and flexibility are among the benefits, considerations for data security, compliance, and proper migration strategies are essential. Healthcare organizations should assess their unique needs and risks when choosing between public, private, or multi-cloud models. They should also invest in appropriate tools to effectively manage and secure their cloud infrastructure.

Paul Brient, Chief Product Officer at athenahealth

In healthcare IT, the term “cloud” can encompass a range of solutions, but simply being “in the cloud” doesn’t automatically translate to seamless interoperability, effortless and cost-free software updates, or anytime, anywhere access. These aspects are critical, especially as healthcare moves toward a value-based care model where connectivity is essential for delivering high-quality patient care and closing care gaps.

Said another way, simply moving your existing on-premises technology to the cloud doesn’t unlock the full potential of cloud technology. The full benefits of cloud technology come when you transition to a true multi-tenant, single-instance SaaS solution. These systems are more flexible, more scalable, and lend themselves better to interoperability. When all users are on the same instance, updates are seamless, and importantly, integrations for interoperability only need to be built once for all customers. With on-premises technology that is migrated to the cloud, you still must manage upgrades and build point-to-point integrations.

True SaaS solutions also allow practices to harness the “network effect” of being part of a larger system, where the system can learn from all the usage of the system to benefit all users. So, for example, if a payer changes their rules and starts denying claims, this learning can be quickly incorporated to avoid denials across the network. Or if a care gap is closed for a patient at one practice, all other practices caring for that patient can see this immediately.

Finally, with the dramatic increase in AI capabilities, having all users on a common system allows for an extremely powerful AI training and deployment environment. AI models can learn from the work being done across all practices to streamline administrative tasks and greatly improve the user experience.

Doug Parent, CEO at RingRx

At RingRx, we utilize a combination of cloud infrastructure management tools to ensure efficient and secure operations. These tools provide centralized control over cloud resources, enabling us to monitor, manage, and optimize our cloud infrastructure. Additionally, we leverage specialized healthcare technology solutions for compliance, security, and patient communication, ensuring seamless integration within our cloud environment. To better handle cloud in healthcare, dedicated tools for data encryption, access control, audit logging, and HIPAA compliance verification are essential to maintaining the highest standards of data protection and privacy.

Sundar Shenbagam, Chief Technology Officer at Edifecs

Instead of focusing on Tools, I would focus on approaches. Reason is every major cloud vendors provide plethora of tools to better understand usage, monitor details and APIs/tools to automate solutions. First approach is to take advantage of tooling and capability available on cloud like Kubernetes containers to manage workload than try to manage it outside of them which results in big maintenance headaches. Once we take advantage of such tools, then spend time in setting up monitoring and alerting framework using cloud vendor tools and use APIs and tools to resolve resource issues automatically by predicting upcoming failures. Never forget human angle since DevOps engineers are the ones need to act on resolving issues when automation fails.

Matt Donahue, Chief Technology Officer at CloudWave

Managing cloud infrastructure in healthcare requires a range of tools. These include tools to gain visibility into the usage, consumption, and performance of cloud resources. Financial analysis tools are crucial for tracking and optimizing cloud spending, as unexpected costs can arise. Security tools, including user access provisioning and audit logs, are also essential to protect patient data and ensure regulatory compliance. Additionally, backup and recovery solutions in the cloud are important for data protection and disaster recovery, as they often offer cost-effective options compared to traditional backup systems.

Ajaya Loya, Senior Engineering Manager – Cloud Infrastructure & Security Tea at LeanTaaS

Employing Infrastructure as Code (IAC), applying containerization strategies for hosting applications, ensuring visibility into cloud spending, and utilizing Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) tools for identifying misconfigurations are essential approaches to efficiently oversee cloud infrastructure, bolster security, and expedite innovation while enhancing the adaptability of change cycles.

So many great ideas here! Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit your expertise and thank you to everyone reading this article! We could not do this without your support. Let us know what tools you think are necessary to have a better handle on cloud in healthcare either in the comments down below or on social media. We’d love to hear from you!

< + > Suki expands availability of its ambient AI clinical documentation platform

The company recently expanded the platform's capabilities to support those in inpatient settings to work across hospital, ambulatory, telehealth, skilled nursing facilities and home health. 

< + > AI and the Human Touch: Embracing a Symbiotic Future

The following is a guest article by Ed Watal, Founder and Principal at Intellibus

It seems as if every news outlet, talking head, and business influencer has been talking about AI — and for good reason. Though artificial intelligence is not a new concept, the latest innovations in what the technology can do for business, news, media, art, and finance are taking the world by storm. From ChatGPT to AI-assisted medical care, there isn’t a single industry that hasn’t been touched by AI in some way — causing some to wonder if the human element of business, work, and life itself may be in jeopardy.

However, human beings working with other humans have no reason to fear for their survival against the rise of AI just yet. There are ways to successfully integrate AI tools into one’s processes that keep the human touch alive and well, creating a symbiotic relationship that will carry us into the future.

Collaboration 

When AI joins forces with human innovation and creativity, the collaborative effort can bring a new, enhanced level of customer service and productivity. AI integration can help companies manage mundane tasks, leaving people more time to tackle complex ideas, creative brainstorming, and customer-to-customer interactions.

AI can also be helpful from a customer service standpoint. Many companies have started utilizing AI chatbots to answer frequently asked questions from customers, and some AI programs even have the ability to complete some customer service tasks, such as switching a seat on an airplane or even issuing a refund. Customers who no longer have to sit on hold waiting to talk to a real person will be much happier with their experience, and the company will not have to worry about employing people to answer the same questions day after day.

Emotional Intelligence 

AI has become so intuitive that it can actually learn to respond to human emotion. This integration is especially helpful within highly charged situations, such as the medical field. Integrating AI with emotional intelligence can help improve the customer or patient experience and overall care outcomes by teaching the AI to understand human needs and emotions. Emotion analysis tools can also be used in marketing or even finance, where they have been used to predict market trends.

Ethical Considerations 

A symbiotic relationship cannot exist, now or in the future, without consideration of the ethical principles of AI. Biases — including racism, sexism, and homophobia — have already been detected in modern AI systems.

Because human beings are behind AI machine learning, human biases will always find their way into AI systems in some way, shape, or form. However, ethics must be part of AI development to prevent overt misuse or intentional bias.

Continuous Learning 

AI is here to stay, meaning both AI innovators and human beings need to adapt and learn together to bring the best of what both sides have to offer to the world at large. Both need to keep pace with evolving technology and concentrate on fostering a unified and dynamic partnership.

By accepting what AI has to offer, human beings can become lifelong learners and use AI to enhance learning and growth. AI will continue to adapt to human behavior and improve how fast and well it learns the information human beings offer. As both sides continue to learn and grow, the collaborative relationship can become stronger.

A symbiotic relationship with AI is possible and, in most cases, beneficial. Though AI can not replace the complex nature of human beings — with all of our emotions, quirks, and real-life experiences — it can be a useful partner in helping us live productive lives. With training, coaching, serving, and creating, AI can be more than just a sidekick in the hero’s journey of human innovation and growth.

About Ed Watal

Ed Watal is an AI Thought Leader and Technology Investor. One of his key projects includes BigParser (an Ethical AI Platform and Data Commons for the World). He is also the founder of Intellibus, an INC 5000 “Top 100 Fastest Growing Software Firm” in the USA, and the lead faculty of AI Masterclass — a joint operation between NYU SPS and Intellibus. Forbes Books is collaborating with Ed on a seminal book on our AI Future. Board Members and C-level executives at the World’s Largest Financial Institutions rely on him for strategic transformational advice. Ed has been featured on QR Calgary Radio and Medical Device News.

< + > Featured Health IT Job: Data Warehouse ETL Developer and Administrator (Epic)

We like to regularly feature a healthcare IT job that might be of interest to readers. Today, we’re featuring the Data Warehouse ETL Developer and Administrator (Epic) position that was recently posted on Healthcare IT Central. This position was posted by Stoltenberg Consulting Inc. and is remote.

Here’s a description of the position:

Now seeking a Data Warehouse ETL Developer and Administrator with Epic Clarity certification for a 12-month remote client health system engagement. The consultant will primarily provide claims and payor data (eligibility, medical, vision, lab, pharmacy) ETL services using SSIS/SSMS to modify existing processes and create new processes to support the client’s waiver team for reporting, and other duties as assigned. The ideal candidate possesses a working knowledge of payor data, ETL experience (SSIS), SQL experience (Microsoft), and ability to review raw data files, packages, stored procedures, business needs and develop enterprise level processes to support automated processing of files.

Required Skills

• Working knowledge of payor files (eligibility, claims, labs)
• ETL development using best practice industry standards
• Strong Microsoft SSIS experience
• Strong Microsoft SQL experience
• Must be a self-starter

Typical Tasks

• Develop and modify ETLs for inbound and outbound payer/HEDIS/Gap-in-Care/procedure files
• Review incoming files for data and format integrity
• Develop and document standard processes for ingesting payor files
• Make recommendations on industry best practices

Qualifications

• Epic Clarity certification

Looks like a great opportunity for those with experience with ETL development! If this looks like a position that would interest you, check out the full details for the job and how to apply.

As always, you can search our Health IT job board for a variety of jobs from leading companies in the industry. You can also register for free and post your resume where recruiters search for job candidates regularly.