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Sean Parker: Health care’s big breakthroughs aren’t going to come out of Google or Amazon

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Sean Parker: Health care’s big breakthroughs aren’t going to come out of Google or Amazon

Sean Parker, the tech billionaire and cancer research philanthropist, may be a product of a Silicon Valley tech giant — but he’s skeptical about the impact those companies will have as they increasingly make a play in medicine.

“I just don’t think the innovations that are going to drive this revolution in health care and discovery are going to come out of Amazon or Google,” Parker said Tuesday at an event put on by the Washington Post. “Google has a big group that’s focused on this — they’re really smart, they’re not unsophisticated, they’re not naive — but I don’t think that’s where you’re going to see the big breakthroughs happening.”

Silicon Valley’s tech giants have invested significant resources in health care and science in recent years — and attracted big-name talent.

Amazon, along with JPMorgan and Berkshire Hathaway, has launched a new health care company aimed at developing solutions that could be implemented elsewhere in the U.S. health care system.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has been scooping up some of the biggest names in health care. Google just hired David Feinberg, the forward-thinking CEO of the Geisinger health system, the Pennsylvania health plan and hospital system confirmed last week. Dr. Toby Cosgrove, the longtime president and CEO of Cleveland Clinic, joined Google earlier this year. And Dr. Robert Califf, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, last year joined Verily, Alphabet’s unit working on solutions to disease.

While coders face their own formidable challenges, Parker said, “tech people coming from tech to biology so dramatically underestimate the complexity of the human body. It’s not designed by us. It doesn’t work in ways that make sense.”

Parker, the former president of Facebook, has since become a major funder of research into therapies that seek to fight cancer by harnessing the patient’s own immune system through his foundation Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, which he founded in 2016. It has funded prominent research scientists across the country, most notably James Allison, one of the recipients of this year’s Nobel Prize in medicine.

 

 

‘It remains to be seen’ whether acute care, nonprofit hospital profitability has peaked, Fitch says

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/it-remains-to-be-seen-whether-acute-care-nonprofit-hospital-profitability-has-peaked-fitch-says.html?origin=cfoe&utm_source=cfoe

Fitch Ratings has released a new report in response to questions from U.S. investors about whether acute care, nonprofit hospitals’ operating profitability has peaked or can be improved.

Four takeaways:

1. Fitch said acute care, nonprofit hospitals experienced across-the-board deterioration of operating margins in 2017, and the trend is expected to repeat this year. But acute care, nonprofit hospitals’ balance sheet metrics, such as days cash on hand, cash to debt and debt to capitalization, are at an all-time high.

2. Amid declining operating margins, large system providers plan to reduce costs and inefficiencies and are rethinking care delivery, according to Fitch Senior Director Kevin Holloran. He said smaller providers face greater challenges because they “are characteristically less able to trim expenses and typically unable to negotiate higher rates from commercial insurers in their markets.”

3. Fitch concluded: “It remains to be seen whether we are at a peak or if there is further room to improve.”

4. However, the ratings agency is certain of one thing: Nonprofit hospital systems will continue to consolidate. Fitch said investors have asked it whether increased size and scale through consolidation is advantageous as far as credit ratings.

“Size and scale are ‘better’ for a hospital’s rating if its enhanced size and scale means improved operations, stronger balance sheets and more market essentiality,” said Mr. Holloran.”Conversely, a hospital getting bigger just for the sake of getting bigger at times can lead to an initial dip in operating profitability as the two or more organizations come together.”

Access the full report here.

 

CHI, Dignity unveil name for combined system

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-transactions-and-valuation/chi-dignity-unveil-name-for-combined-system.html?origin=cfoe&utm_source=cfoe

Image result for commonspirit health

CHI CEO Kevin Lofton, left, and Dignity CEO Lloyd Dean

Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives and San Francisco-based Dignity Health have picked a name for the combined system their proposed mega-merger will create: CommonSpirit Health.

“CommonSpirit Health was chosen because of its strong association with the two systems’ missions of service and positive resonance with the diversity of people served,” the systems said in a joint press release. “It evokes the strategic vision and aspiration of the new ministry to advance health for all and make a positive change for the people and communities served; a belief that all people deserve access to high-quality health and healthcare; and a passion to serve those who are sick and injured, including those who are most vulnerable.”

The systems evaluated more than 1,200 names before landing on CommonSpirit Health.

CHI and Dignity signed a definitive agreement to merge in December 2017, and the organizations expect to complete the transaction by the end of this year. The new $28.4 billion health system will include more than 700 care sites and 139 hospitals.