The Healthcare Innovation Congress brings together leaders across healthcare and this year’s investor panel centered around generative AI.
The Healthcare Innovation Congress brings together leaders in healthcare to make meaningful progress towards enhancing access, delivery, and quality of healthcare. Their three-day flagship event, thINc360, in Washington, D.C. featured over 150 speakers with a central theme being digital health and AI.
Dr. Tara Bishop, Founder and Managing Partner of Black Opal Ventures, joined a panel alongside Jason Robart from Seae Ventures, Doba Parushev from Healthworx Venture Capital (CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield), Sean Cheng from Ascension Ventures, and moderator, Afsana Akhter, Chair of Digital Health Forum and MIT Alumni Association. The panel brought together various perspectives across the healthcare ecosystem, from health plan to health system to financial investors. This insightful discussion of generative AI investment and applications in healthcare was covered by Fierce Healthcare.
The panelists shared how, if at all, generative AI has shifted investment strategies and the strategy of existing portfolio companies. Parushev shared that this period is reminiscent of 2021 investment in digital health and Bishop agreed stating “some incredibly high valuations and massive rounds have happened in the... generative AI healthcare space.” The panelists expressed hope that generative AI can deliver improvements to access to care and reduce administrative burden but were wary of over-hyped promises of generative AI in healthcare.
Some investor panelists have made plays in the generative AI space and others have not. Bishop shared that Black Opal Ventures has invested in Hyro and felt their technology solves real problems of call center staffing and wait times, is vertical-specific to address the complexities of healthcare, and delivers ROI for customers.
Cheng shared that he is looking at infrastructure companies that are needed to use and leverage generative AI in healthcare. Bishop agreed that this is an area of interest for Black Opal Ventures and given complexities of data privacy, need for accuracy, and regulatory requirements, infrastructure companies will be well positioned.
Overall, the panel agreed that generative AI is going to play a growing role in healthcare yet the pace of innovation, heightened valuations, and unclear regulatory requirements temper some of the enthusiasm to dive into this space.
thiNc360 is the definitive multi-day event for healthcare innovation and transformation organized by The Healthcare Innovation Company. Black Opal Ventures aims to improve health outcomes for all by investing in companies at the collision of healthcare and technology.
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