April 2018 - Recon Strategy

An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for April 2018

Marc Herant April 30, 2018

Are we nearing an asymptote with implantable cardiac pumps? Severe heart failure is common, and spare hearts for transplant are rare, which has led to the development of implantable mechanical alternatives. In the last few decades, progress has been immense, and in the latest installment of a 3rd (4th?) generation pump, outcomes have reached a level where survival of several years is the rule. Still, at every iteration incremental improvement is less, and performance remains well behind what happens with transplant in terms of complications such as infection, stroke, or

The Healthcare Blog: Consider this Speculative Scenario on Walmart & Humana

Miriam Alandydy April 24, 2018

Disease as an information defect

Marc Herant April 23, 2018

One way to think about disease[1] is as a loss of information[2] from the operating blueprint for human physiology. Broadly speaking, there are three main possible types of informational defects depending on the nature of the informational encoding that is compromised. The first is genetic through loss of information due to corruption of the genetic (and sometime epigenetic) code, for instance in congenital disease or in cancer. The second is spatial through loss of architectural information due to cumulative changes away from a structural template. This prevents turnover of tissue

Consider this speculative scenario on WMT-HUM: nibbling at the bottom and taking a slice off the top of the healthcare delivery pyramid

Tory Wolff April 13, 2018

WMT is in talks with HUM about a relationship enhancement, possibly an acquisition. The two already know how to work together in alliances (narrow pharmacy network, marketing collaborations, points programs). If a new structure is needed, WMT and HUM must be considering a major expansion of scope or a set of operating models where contributions are difficult to attribute and reward (e.g. joint asset builds). What is on their minds? Beyond any interim incremental moves, what could be the endgame? Catching convergence fever Horizontal combinations among the top five health

Bloomberg: 30,000 Strong and Counting, UnitedHealth Gathers a Doctor Army

Miriam Alandydy April 9, 2018

United’s Medicare Advantage footprint and OptumCare network do not overlap much (so far)

Tory Wolff April 4, 2018

United’s OptumCare promises a lot of value for health plans. An integrated system supported by Optum technology should be able to deliver consistent, analytically sophisticated care. Its ambulatory-focused configuration (clinics plus urgent care plus ambulatory surgical centers or ASCs) should keep patients out of high-cost settings through mutually reinforcing referral loops (where it has density[1]). One obvious question is whether United can use OptumCare to materially advantage its own health plans. Is a new, nationally-scaled Kaiser in the offing? If that is its endgame, United has a lot of work

EHRs + Genomics = Drugs? – An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for March 2018

Marc Herant April 2, 2018

GWAS, Regeneron and Geisinger, and liver disease Genome wide association studies (GWAS) look at broad populations for gene variants associated with a particular phenotype. Often, like in Type II diabetes, one finds hundreds of genes correlated with disease, and that’s obviously not very helpful. In lucky cases there are only a few variants, and that gives clues on potential underlying mechanisms of disease. But for the very lucky, there is a jackpot which is finding a variant that is actually protective against the disease – this is what happened with

Month: April 2018

Recon takes an analytical look behind select developments in healthcare

An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for April 2018

The Healthcare Blog: Consider this Speculative Scenario on Walmart & Humana

Disease as an information defect

Consider this speculative scenario on WMT-HUM: nibbling at the bottom and taking a slice off the top of the healthcare delivery pyramid

Bloomberg: 30,000 Strong and Counting, UnitedHealth Gathers a Doctor Army

United’s Medicare Advantage footprint and OptumCare network do not overlap much (so far)

EHRs + Genomics = Drugs? – An opinionated take on NEJM highlights for March 2018

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