The MedCity Information editorial crew requested quite a lot of healthcare leaders attending the HLTH convention in Las Vegas final week the burning query of the day: What areas inside digital well being will see consolidation within the subsequent six to 12 months?

Listed here are a number of areas that they pointed to:

Generative AI and Medical Documentation
The hype over generative AI is actual and that may be a class that may see some winners and losers. Right here’s how Dr. John Halamka, president of the Mayo Clinic Platform see it.

“So we’re on this extremely fascinating time the place as I’m going sales space to sales space in HLTH, I see generative AI in all places and enterprise fashions nowhere.,” he declared.

He added that nobody has discovered the right way to ship worth in digital well being general and “predicted an enormous shakeout” with a “a number of early movers” in areas like medical documentation, radiology interpretation and oversight and digital pathology. Others on this house will probably be left behind.

The chief medical info officer of Cedars Sinai additionally pointed to AI-enabled medical documentation as an space the place some consolidation exercise will happen.

“I actually suppose there’s been plenty of work over the past [few] years round ambient AI scribes and I do imagine that there are some clear leaders popping out of the fray,” stated Dr. Shaun Miller, chief medical info officer at Cedars Sinai.

Behavioral and Psychological Well being
Enormous quantities of funding have gone into this class, stated Brad Smith, CEO of Essential Road and never surprisingly, psychological well being is a class that he feels goes to endure some thinning of the herd.

Christine Lemke, co-founder and CEO of Evidation Well being, described behavioral well being because the “no.1 space” that’s ripe for consolidation.

A enterprise capitalist agreed.

“I feel all of the psychological well being platforms will consolidate particularly throughout acuity ranges …,” stated Sofia Guerra, vice chairman at Bessemer Enterprise Companions.

She added that firms that construct options to recruit one of the best therapist expertise may even consolidate.

Care Supply and Digital Care Platforms

“Properly there will probably be an amazing quantity of consolidation in all the digital well being platforms,” stated Missy Krasner, enterprise chair of Redesign Well being. “These are platforms that basically are white labeling a tech platform to do async and/or realtime digital well being.”

Nworah Ayogu, chief medical officer of Amazon Clinic, the digital care platform of the Seattle retailer, stated that the care supply market has already seen consolidation. He’s appropriate – consider Amazon shopping for One Medical, CVS Well being shopping for Oak Road and Walgreens’ VillageMD shopping for Summit Well being. The identical motivation of merging to have the ability to serve bigger teams of consumers will probably be seen subsequent 12 months, Ayogu stated.

Michelle Davey, co-founder and CEO of Wheel, additionally pointed to care supply as an space of future consolidation.

“The platformization of care supply is right here so the very area of interest care supply arms are going to come back collectively,” she stated. “You’re going to have the ability to entry, as a client, your care from major care, ladies’s well being and accessing from that very same platform perhaps your psychological well being.”

Digtial Therapeutics

Ever since Pear Therapeutics, extensively thought of a pioneered on the planet of prescription digital therapeutics, sputtered, the class appears to have a bullseye on it. For a number of years earlier than that, digital therapeutics has been a narrative largely of failed partnerships between pharma and well being tech firms.

Of the 11 well being executives we interviewed, just one pointed to digital therapeutics as an space that may see consolidation, nevertheless it’s a big space nonetheless.

“One space is pure tech suppliers like digital therapeutics that may find yourself consolidating with digital care,” predicted Chris Hogg, CEO of Marley Medical.

Whether or not you imagine that these areas will certainly consolidate or that there will probably be others, many will agree that the trip over the following 12 months won’t be nice.

“Simply put together for a really rocky 12 months forward of you,” warned Dr. Halamka of the Mayo Clinic.

Picture: maxsattana, Getty Photographs

Reporters Katie Adams and Marissa Plescia contributed to this story.