Becker's Hospital Review

35 INNOVATION Ascension's innovation arm launches $285M venture fund By Jackie Drees A scension Ventures, the healthcare venture arm of St. Louis-based Ascension, closed a $285 million strategic venture capital fund, bringing the firm's total assets to more than $1 billion, according to a March 5 news release. e fund is backed by 12 health system partners and is Ascension Ventures' fih venture capital fund. Since launching in 2001, Ascension Ventures has invested in almost 80 soware, services and medical device and diagnostic companies. "is is an important time to be a strategic healthcare investor," Ascension Ventures Senior Managing Director Matt Hermann said in a news release. "Several factors — the pace of health system transformation, technology advances enabling new care modalities and business models, an influx of seasoned entrepreneurs tackling root cause industry issues — have created a unique time when health system and entre- preneurial markets are aligned." Here are the 12 health system partners that backed the fund: • AdventHealth (Altamonte Springs, Fla.) • Carle Foundation (Urbana, Ill.) • CentraCare (St. Cloud, Minn.) • Children's Medical Center of Dallas • Intermountain Healthcare (Salt Lake City) • Novant Health (Charlotte, N.C.) • OhioHealth (Columbus) • OSF HealthCare (Peoria, Ill.) • Luminis Health (Annapolis, Md.) • Sentara Healthcare (Norfolk, Va.) • Texas Health Resources (Arlington) • One undisclosed health system n How Allegheny General's former president pivoted leadership focus to health innovation By Jackie Drees J effrey Cohen, MD, stepped down from his role as president of Allegheny General Hospital in 2020 to head up Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Health Network's innovation efforts and biotechnology hub. Dr. Cohen, who has served as chief physician executive of community health and innovation at AHN since Jan. 1, 2020, leads the health system's health in- novation hub AlphaLab Health. AHN announced plans to transform its former Bellevue, Pa.-based hospital campus into the biotechnology, biomedical and pharmaceutical innovation hub last September. In a Feb. 19 interview with the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, Dr. Cohen shared one of the main tenets of the initiative, which is to find the next generation of medical tech companies. "If you look at the fundamental revolution that we're going through, it's the transformation from a manufacturing-based world to a digital world," he said. AlphaLab Health selects health IT companies to collaborate with and invests $100,000 to help them expand their businesses. The incubator has chosen seven companies to partner with in 2021, but has been proceeding with the projects completely digitally during the pandemic, according to the report. n Digital health adoption in 2020: 5 tools consumers increased or stopped using By Jackie Drees T he COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital health adoption among providers and patients, with consumers increasingly using live telemed- icine and digital health tracking tools to manage care, according to a Rock Health report accessed in March. For its 2020 Consumer Adoption Survey, Rock Health teamed up with the Stanford Medicine Center for Digital Health and surveyed 7,980 individuals about their consumer healthcare habits and preferences. Four survey insights: 1. Live video telemedicine usage increased to 43 percent among consumers in 2020, up from 32 percent in 2019. 2. Digital health tracking tools saw the biggest growth in 2020, rising from 42 percent adoption rates in 2019 to 54 percent in 2020. 3. Wearable tech ownership also became more popular last year, with 43 per- cent of consumers having a wearable device with digital health capabilities compared to 33 percent in 2019. 4. Digital health tools for online provider reviews and online health informa- tion both dipped in 2020, coming in at 61 percent and 67 percent, respective- ly. In 2019, online provider review tools had a 64 percent adoption rate and online health information had a 73 percent adoption rate. n

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