Are we still moving Forward?

Hey Health Techies!

The business of healthcare is tough. Companies start up, restructure, and close down every day. But every now and then certain news hits the health tech community a little harder than normal. That’s what seemed to happen last week with the shutting down of primary care startup, Forward.

My LinkedIn feed was absolutely cluttered with questions and hot takes on what had happened to the popular mission-driven company, and how this could have happened just one year after a $100 million funding round. Details as to why the closure was so abrupt have yet to be divulged. When things like this happen, the health tech world tends to take a pause and tip their hats to a valiant effort, and try to piece together some learnings that we can take away so that that the loss isn’t in vain.

❓So what exactly was Forward?

Forward was an 8 year old technology-driven startup in the primary care space. Their biggest claim to fame was their AI driven CarePod experiences which were designed to be able to screen for and diagnose certain health conditions without the physical presence of a clinician.

🚀 Mission driven

Say what you want about AI attempting to do the work of clinicians, but from the very beginning Forward made it clear that their mission was to make healthcare cheaper, more accessible, and provide better outcomes for patients by focusing on preventative care.

🤌🏽 Patient experience

While I wasn’t a patient of Forward myself, I heard from multiple former patients last week that seemed pretty heartbroken by the news. By all accounts, Forward was offering something innovative and worthy of praise.

In many healthcare settings, the patient experience is pretty subpar. It’s low tech with a lot of redundancies, wait times are long, and prices aren’t transparent. While we may not be ready for a fully cash-pay AI-driven primary care model, I think it’s time that we admit that patient expectations are higher than ever around experience and outcomes.

Unfortunately while in business Forward’s patient experience may have been excellent, they are leaving patient’s in a little bit of a lurch since its shuttering. Upcoming appointments were abruptly cancelled, app access was terminated, and customer service will only operate until the middle of next month. This has been a trend I’ve noticed with healthcare startups. The patient offboarding process is clunky and haphazard. I know it may be the last thing on a growing startups’ mind as they are scaling, but I do think that ensuring a proper continuity of care is important and hope that companies of the future at least consider this as they develop their clinical operations standards.

📖 What can we learn?

I think learnings are still being pieced together on this one. Some of them are a bit obvious. Technology is expensive. Increasing the physical footprint of an in-person business model is expensive.

Others are one layer down from the surface. Cash pay business models aren’t a savior in healthcare. Sure, you aren’t at the mercy of the insurance company’s whims or puny reimbursements, but the margins aren’t infinite.

Perhaps the hardest learning to nail down is one about timing. Many believe that Forward was simply a little too early. Their reliance of AI may not sound so ahead of its time today, but remember that Forward got its start 8 years ago before the AI boom that we’ve seen over the past few years.

My takeaway? It can be easy to hear bad news like this in this space and wondering if we’re still moving in the right direction. Are we still moving forward or are closings like this a massive setback?

For me, I think as long as we pause to reflect on what we can learn, we’re doing the right thing. I saw so many people on LinkedIn offering to connect displaced employees with new jobs, knowing that the company closure was not a reflection of their performance or talent. These mission driven employees making their mark at other healthcare companies can only move the needle in the right direction.

I choose to be optimistic even when we witness a failure because the only real failure is not trying at all. Healthcare has a long way to go, and we need to keep moving forward.

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Until next time,

Lauren