Below is a roundup of health tech and digital health news you may have missed
Quantum Health, Vida Health team up on weight management solution
Health benefit consultants report a rise in demand for guidance on specialty drug and GLP-1 cost management.
To meet this need, healthcare navigation and care coordination company Quantum Health is teaming up with virtual care company Vida Health.
March 20, Quantum Health tapped Vida Health to launch a new weight management solution to address the growing GLP-1 spending challenge for employers. The solution focuses on managing drug utilization patterns to align treatment with need as well as supporting employers in ensuring the effective use of GLP-1s and other weight management therapies, the companies said.
The new weight management program for employers is part of Quantum's premier pharmacy platform.
Through the partnership, Vida, a virtual obesity care provider, is now Quantum’s exclusive GLP-1 solution, enabling more than 500 self-insured employer clients and over 3 million members to access Vida’s specialty care for obesity and related conditions within the premier pharmacy platform and fully integrated into Quantum’s clinical workflows.
The program begins with holistic behavior change and less intensive anti-obesity medications, with only 14% of members starting on a GLP-1 compared with the average 40% to 50% in unmanaged care settings, according to the companies.
The solution will be available to early adopter employers in 2025, with plans to continue to expand the premier pharmacy program to address additional high-cost, high-priority pharmacy needs for employers.
Clearwater joins CancerX to advance cybersecurity in oncology innovation
Cybersecurity firm Clearwater joined CancerX, an initiative led by the Moffitt Cancer Center and the InnovationX program, as the organization's first member company and accelerator champion focused on advancing strong cybersecurity and data privacy practices in the fight against cancer.
As part of its involvement, Clearwater will contribute its expertise and resources to educating CancerX community members, including the organization's recently announced 2025 Accelerator cohort, on how to build cybersecurity and privacy programs that align with best practices and healthcare industry standards.
CancerX develops tools such as digital solutions to improve cancer patient care coordination and communication, new software technology to help community organizations meet cancer patients where they are and new platforms to support patients with their post-treatment care.
CancerX "champions" include several leading oncology organizations—including health systems, cancer centers, pharmaceutical companies, investors and other recognized networks of hospitals—dedicated to advancing innovation in oncology.
"As a Champion, our role is to help ensure that innovation advances unabated by concern over the security and privacy of data and systems. We are pleased to lend our expertise as part of Clearwater's mission to move more organizations across the healthcare ecosystem to a more secure, compliant, and resilient state so they can achieve their mission," Clearwater CEO Steve Cagle said in a statement.
Cylinder acquires Dieta Health to add AI-powered stool imaging app
Virtual digestive health provider Cylinder is expanding its capabilities to offer more personalized digestive care.
The company acquired Dieta Health, which developed a clinically validated AI-powered stool imaging app. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
The acquisition also strengthens Cylinder’s clinical partnerships and supports its mission to reduce healthcare costs. The system flags critical shifts in bowel patterns—such as the presence of blood—so the care team can act before complications escalate.
Traditionally, patients with gastrointestinal conditions are often asked to observe their stool and report subjective outcomes—like the Bristol stool scale—which influences diagnosis and treatment decisions. Dieta’s app allows them to capture stool photos via smartphone, then classifies the stool with five clinically validated data points. The technology has outperformed traditional patient-reported outcomes and has been validated through four peer-reviewed studies, including research from Cedars-Sinai and the Mayo Clinic, according to the company.
Dieta has hundreds of thousands of stool images associated with a diverse set of diagnoses and clinical contexts on individuals. Their efforts have already yielded promising results in areas such as IBS treatment, ulcerative colitis monitoring and cirrhosis management. Integrating this AI into Cylinder’s platform will provide faster, more accurate insights into GI conditions, enabling earlier diagnoses and tailored treatment plans, the companies said.
Cylinder’s digital digestive health platform connects people with individualized, expert-backed care and support for the full spectrum of GI issues. By making digestive health support accessible, Cylinder is helping members feel better while reducing absenteeism and healthcare costs for employers.
Cylinder will be adding Dieta’s founder and CEO, Asaf Kraus, along with three key team members to the team.
“Integrating Dieta’s AI-driven stool imaging directly supports our mission to improve digestive health outcomes and member experiences,” Bill Snyder, CEO and founder of Cylinder, said in a statement. “This acquisition enhances our AI capabilities, opens up new clinical opportunities, and reinforces our commitment to innovation in digestive health."
Wisp teams up with Origin to expand access to pelvic floor physical therapy
Online sexual and reproductive health provider Wisp is teaming up with Origin, a provider of women’s health and pelvic floor physical therapy.
Through the partnership, Wisp patients can now access Origin’s full suite of services through exclusive discounts, including therapies tailored to postpartum healing, pre-pregnancy strengthening, improving pain during sex and symptoms associated with common and oftentimes chronic vaginal infections like UTIs.
According to the 2024 Origin Pelvic Health Study, 83% of women between ages 18 and 59 report symptoms linked to pelvic floor dysfunction, with millennial women reporting much higher rates of pelvic floor issues than older Generation X women. Pelvic floor symptoms are most likely to start or worsen as a result of maternity or menopause.
This demographic makes up a large portion of both companies' patient populations. To better serve this population, Wisp and Origin chose to partner to bring whole body and pelvic floor physical therapy options to Wisp’s members.
Wisp provides sexual and reproductive health solutions to its more than 1.4 million patients in all 50 states. Origin operates in-person clinics in seven states and provides virtual care throughout the country.
Wisp patients can now access 360-degree care that includes in-person care in seven states and virtual pelvic floor physical therapy nationwide through Origin.
"Women's health is complex and multifaceted, requiring personalized care that addresses the specific needs of each individual," said Origin CEO and co-founder Carine Carmy. “Origin and Wisp are dedicated to providing comprehensive, tailored solutions that empower women to prioritize their reproductive, sexual, and overall well-being."
American Cancer Society, Layer Health partner to accelerate research
The American Cancer Society (ACS) and healthcare AI company Layer Health inked a multiyear collaboration to use large language models (LLMs) to speed up cancer research.
Traditionally, gathering information from patient medical records for research is a labor-intensive, time-consuming process that relies heavily on manual effort. Prior machine-learning approaches were not scalable and did not generalize well across records from different hospital systems, according to the organizations.
The ACS will now use Layer Health’s innovative LLM-powered data abstraction platform to extract clinical data from thousands of medical charts of patients enrolled in ACS research studies, including the landmark Cancer Prevention Study-3, a population study of 300,000 participants among whom several thousand have been diagnosed with cancer and provided medical records.
Layer Health’s AI platform is designed specifically for healthcare to reason over an entire patients’ longitudinal medical record and answer complex clinical questions using an evidence-based approach that justifies every answer with direct quotes from the chart. This strategy prioritizes transparency and explainability and eliminates the problem of “hallucination” that is sometimes seen with other LLMs, according to company executives.
The collaboration builds on a successful pilot involving breast cancer patients. With Layer Health’s platform, the ACS was able to pull complex concepts from patient charts with an accuracy of 95% to 100% on all pilot variables, beating human performance.
“We are excited to work with Layer Health to streamline and scale our data abstraction process,” said Alpa Patel, Ph.D., senior vice president of population science at the ACS, in a statement. “This collaboration will help us accelerate our research and generate more meaningful insights that can drive progress in the fight against cancer.”