No one gets this right. That’s what Charles Barkley said, in response to Gayle King’s question about whether he has ever guessed the March Madness winners correctly. In fact, he said on his CNN show that none of the 12 million people who play the bracket game during March Madness get it right – including former President Barack Obama, apparently. Turns out, gambling isn’t a sure thing. Apparently, betting on healthcare technology solutions is a bit of a gamble, too. We explain in the One Thoughtful Paragraph below.
The federal government is betting that you have nothing better to do than read their latest publications:
- In a nod to the women’s basketball tournament, President Biden issued an executive order to advance Women’s Health Research and Innovation. It directs federal agencies like HHS to consider using AI and AI-enabled technologies to help fill the gaps in women’s health research.
- HHS’ Office for Civil Rights published a bulletin stating that regulated organizations may not use tracking technologies that would lead to sharing private health information or violate HIPAA.
- CMS issued a statement on flexibilities state Medicaid agencies could use to help Medicaid providers affected by the Change Healthcare cybersecurity incident, including submitting Medicaid state plan amendments to provide interim payments to providers who currently cannot submit claims.
Charles Barkley is not just an 11-time NBA All Star who is one of only four players to record more than 20,000 points, 10,000 rebounds, and 4,000 assists in a career. He is also kinda funny. He once said: “I may be wrong, but I doubt it.” That seems to be what the funders are saying this week when they make these big bets on digital health tools. For example, Hippocratic AI, a healthcare-focused large language model to address workforce issues, among other things, raised $53M in Series A funding. Another $50M went to Lightfully, a hybrid mental health platform. HiLabs, an AI-powered cloud-based platform that claims that it can help with provider directory requirements in the No Surprises Act, raised $39M in Series B funding. These funding rounds aren’t as much money as Charles Barkley made in his career, but they are still substantial bets that these solutions are going to fix all of the health care system’s problems. We wish them luck with that, and we wish all of you luck with your brackets. If you don’t get them all right, remember that just watching basketball doesn’t make you an expert. It is like Charles Barkley said: “Just because you watch ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ doesn’t mean you can do the operation.” We also caution these funders with another Charles Barkley quote, “Sometimes that light at the end of the tunnel is a train.”
