The latest in digital health — in the Bay Area and beyond

After a banner 2018, the digital health sector is showing signs of stress, my STAT colleague Casey Ross reports. Wende Hutton, a VC at Bay Area-based Canaan, told Casey that she thinks “there will be a day of reckoning for some companies in the space.”

Bloomberg's Kristen Brown is out with a smart story about a new breed of physician — the fully remote telemedicine doctor. Working for startups like San Francisco-based HeyDoctor and Hims, these doctors are licensed to practice in several dozen states and embracing telemedicine as a career rather than a side gig.

I've got a new piece out that was the product of lots of conversations with digital health executives about a serious challenge they’re grappling with: what to do when patients using their apps and other communication platforms say that they’re suicidal. Clinicians have long struggled to figure out how best to help patients who express suicidal thoughts during office visits, but I found that the challenge takes on a whole new dimension when patients are talking to a chatbot.