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<td><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;">Health Tech | Fierce Healthcare</span></td>
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<td><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/telehealth/fewer-patients-traveled-abortions-2025-telehealth-care-increased-guttmacher" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Telehealth abortion care increases as travel drops</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 25th 2026, 13:44</div>
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<p><div class="col content" morss_own_score="5.142857142857143" morss_score="41.54392666157372">
<p>Fewer patients traveled to obtain abortion care in 2025 while more turned to telehealth services, a <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/report/full-year-estimates-show-overall-stability-abortion-incidence-decreased-travel-increased-telehealth-provision">new report</a> from the Guttmacher Institute found.</p>
<p>The March 2026 report used data from Guttmacher’s <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/monthly-abortion-provision-study">Monthly Abortion Provision Study</a>, which provides estimates on clinician-provided abortions in each state since January 2023. It tracks procedural and medication abortions at brick-and-mortar facilities, as well as medication abortions from telehealth providers. </p>
<p>Findings from the monthly study represent an “underestimate” of total national abortions, as advanced provisions of medication abortion and abortion exceptions in states with total bans are excluded from the data.</p>
<p><a href="https://states.guttmacher.org/policies/">Thirteen states</a> have total abortion bans with limited exceptions as of the end of 2025, while six others have six- or twelve-week bans enacted.</p>
<p>An estimated 142,000 people traveled out of state to obtain abortion care last year, down from 154,000 people in 2024, per the report. Researchers said the decline was “almost entirely driven” by decreased travel from patients in states with total bans—62,000 people traveled to seek care in 2025, while 74,000 traveled in 2024.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, telehealth provisions in states with total bans increased from 72,000 to 91,000 between 2024 and 2025. Telehealth shield laws in certain states with bans protect providers and patients with certain kinds of “<a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/shield-laws-sexual-and-reproductive-health-care">legally protected sexual and reproductive</a>” care.</p>
<p>Guttmacher Institute data scientist and lead researcher Isaac Maddow-Zimet said in a <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2026/guttmacher-releases-full-year-2025-abortion-incidence-and-travel-data">statement</a> that findings indicate “major shifts” in the ways patients in states with total abortion bans are seeking care. </p>
<p>“Yet interstate travel for abortion remains a critical option for many, especially for those seeking care later in pregnancy,” said Maddow-Zimet. “While travel from total ban states decreased in 2025 as compared to 2024, the number of people who traveled out of these states is still more than double pre-Dobbs numbers.”</p>
<p>Despite observed shifts and increasingly strict legal requirements, the number of abortions remained steady across the nation. An estimated 1.126 million abortions were provided in 2025, remaining “largely unchanged” from the estimated 1.124 million provided in 2024.</p>
<p>“This is the highest number of abortions provided in the United States since 2009; however, it is still well below the historical peak of slightly over 1.6 million abortions in 1990,” the report said.</p>
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<td><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/qualified-health-locks-125m-fresh-funding-scale-ai-health-systems" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Qualified Health locks in $125M in fresh funding</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 25th 2026, 13:44</div>
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<p>Qualified Health, a startup that works with health systems to evaluate and adopt artificial intelligence technology, raised $125 million in fresh funding to scale up its business.</p>
<p>Founded in 2023, Qualified Health offer health systems an enterprisewide AI platform designed to promote safe and responsible AI integration while also building the capabilities for long-term AI investment.</p>
<p>Venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates led the startup's series B round. New investors Transformation Capital, GreatPoint Ventures, Cathay Innovation and Anthropic and Menlo Ventures’ Anthology fund also participated. The round also was backed by existing investors SignalFire, Frist Cressey Ventures, Flare Capital Partners, Healthier Capital, Town Hall Ventures and Intermountain Ventures.</p>
<p>Axios first <a href="https://www.axios.com/pro/health-tech-deals/2026/03/12/qualified-health-series-a-100m">reported</a> the funding round earlier this month.</p>
<p>The financing round represents Qualified Health's third round of funding as it raised a $5 million seed round and a $25 million series A, which was announced as a<a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/new-startup-qualified-health-aims-build-infrastructure-generative-ai-armed"> $30 million round</a> in January 2025. The company has raised $155 million to date. The company's current valuation is between $500 million and $1 billion, executives told Fierce Healthcare.</p>
<p>There is growing demand from health systems to work with companies that can deploy AI solutions across the enterprise rather than delivering isolated pilots, according to Justin Norden, M.D., CEO and co-founder of Qualified Health. The company aims to work as an embedded, long-term AI partner to health systems to enable them to deploy AI at true enterprise scale by operationalizing their data.</p>
<p>"We took an against-the-norm bet when we started the company to lean into being a platform-first solution. We want to be infrastructure. We want to partner very deeply on everything from data integration to education and transformation across an entire employee base to numbers of workflows and agents all being governed, monitored and evaluated in a single platform," Norden told Fierce Healthcare in an interview about the latest funding round and Qualified Health's growth.</p>
<p>The AI healthcare market is accelerating in 2026 as health system executives "lean in" to focus on value creation and look for AI deployments that will deliver substantial ROI, Norden noted.</p>
<p>Qualified Health, which launched as a public benefit corporation, plans to go deeper with its existing health system partners and grow its footprint across the U.S. hospital market. The company plans to use the funding to invest in product development and engineering. </p>
<p>As health systems look to scale up AI, Qualified Health offers a platform that embeds safety and governance including clinician oversight, full auditability and traceability of decisions, clear source attributions and continuous monitoring after deployment, according to executives.</p>
<p>Qualified Health, a <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/special-reports/fierce-healthcares-fierce-15-2026#c9787dfb-80d0-4b19-a0bc-ec833fe1691f">Fierce 15 of 2026 honoree</a>, has been growing rapidly now working with some of the most complex U.S. health systems, including Emory Healthcare, University of Rochester Medicine and Jefferson Health along with all eight health institutions of the University of Texas System, comprising UT Medical Branch (UTMB), UT Health San Antonio, MD Anderson Cancer Center, UT Health Houston, UT Southwestern Medical Center, UT Health Tyler, UT Rio Grande Valley, and Dell Medical School at UT Austin.</p>
<p>The company now supports 400,000 users, representing approximately 5% of U.S. hospital revenue. </p>
<p>Health systems working with Qualified Health report that early deployments are already delivering measurable results.</p>
<p>"Working with Qualified Health helps us develop and deliver the AI tools we need, while giving us confidence they're being used safely and responsibly. Together, we're leading the way in using AI to transform patient care at Emory," said Nabile Safdar, M.D., chief AI officer at Emory Healthcare.</p>
<p>At UTMB, within the first six months, Qualified Health established a secure data foundation across electronic health record and non-EHR data sources, deployed multiple assistants and automated workflows, and generated more than $15 million in measurable run-rate impact.</p>
<p>"Qualified Health has been an exceptional partner as we build and execute our AI strategy at UTMB," said Peter McCaffrey, M.D., chief AI and digital officer at UTMB. "Their team brings deep expertise and a real willingness to dive deep alongside our clinicians, operators, and leadership teams. Together, we've been able to focus on the highest-priority opportunities, move quickly from idea to implementation, and stay ahead of the curve as we navigate this period of rapid change. The ROI has already exceeded expectations.”</p>
<p>At Mercy, leaders are using the platform to rethink workflows across the health system.</p><p>As health systems implement AI, executive teams face the challenge of integrating fragmented data sources and embedding AI into live clinical and operational workflows while maintaining strong governance.</p>
<p>At the University of Rochester Medicine, the health system is focusing on deploying safe and responsible AI technologies within administrative workflows, Lisa Nelson, chief applications officer, said.</p>
<p>[Working with Qualified Health], "we're able to harness their infrastructure and discipline as we work toward a system-wide, centralized strategy, where AI is deployed while preserving and building upon our top-quality patient experience and health outcomes," Nelson said.</p>
<p>The company's leadership team is stacked with experts across healthcare and AI, including clinicians, AI engineers, policy experts and healthcare operators. The founding team includes Norden, former Stanford faculty member and former partner at GSR Ventures who also was the CEO of TrustworthyAI, which was bought by Google/Waymo); Kedar Mate, M.D., former president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement; Shantanu Phatakwala, former chief data science officer at Haven and former vice president of R&D at Evolent Health; and Beau Norgeot, Ph.D., former vice president of AI at Elevance.</p>
<p>Three yeas ago, Qualified Health's co-founders saw the need for health systems to prepare for the long game with AI adoption and recognized health systems wanted to approach things as a platform first, with safety, governance and evaluation top of mind, Norden noted.</p>
<p>"There was this feeling in early 2023 where we saw this sea change coming. Health systems in general have been very reactive to the technology trends that have hit them through some of their major partners. How can they have more ownership, control, guidance and speed to make sure that this technology trend, they are more a part of it? There was this recognition that health systems wanted to be a part of this, wanted to be in control of this, but that they might not be able to do every part on their own," he noted.</p>
<p>Qualified Health has long-term ambitions to go public as the company continues to scale, Norden noted, without providing any specific timing for an IPO. The goal is to be a permanent, independent partner to health systems in the long run, he said.</p>
<p>The company’s investor partners are positioned to help Qualified Health with its long-range plans, Norden said, particularly New Enterprise Associates.</p>
<p>“NEA is a unique investor in healthcare, where they can very much go deeply with a partner and can really carry and support us through IPO and beyond. We have really big ambitions. There's a match of this ambition, our team matched with the investor’s team. NEA is one of the oldest, most well-known venture firms in Silicon Valley and thinks long term and also is incredibly deep in healthcare,” he said.</p>
<p>"We are living through a generational shift, one where AI doesn't just augment how organizations work but fundamentally transforms them from the inside out,” said Mohamad Makhzoumi, co-CEO of NEA, in a statement. “From NEA’s nearly five decades of company-building experience, we believe the organizations shaping the next era of healthcare innovation will be those helping health systems reimagine every administrative and clinical workflow from the ground up, and Qualified Health is exactly that company. We are thrilled to lead this financing and to partner with Justin and team to accelerate healthcare’s AI transformation and shape the future of healthcare enterprises across the country.”</p>
<p>Makhzoumi joined Qualified Health’s board of directors in conjunction with the financing.</p>
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<td><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/evolving-state-exome-and-genome-sequencing" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">The evolving state of exome and genome sequencing</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">Mar 25th 2026, 13:44</div>
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<a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech">Health Tech</a>
<h1>The evolving state of exome and genome sequencing</h1>
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By
<a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/person/ayla-ellison">
<span>Ayla Ellison, </span>
</a>
<a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/person/anastassia-gliadkovskaya">
<span>Anastassia Gliadkovskaya</span>
</a>
<span>Mar 25, 2026 9:31am</span>
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<p>Rare diseases, defined in the U.S. as conditions affecting fewer than 200,000 people, can take years, if not decades, to diagnose. About 10,000 rare diseases affect 30 million Americans, and half of those patients are children.</p>
<p>What if rare diseases could be identified early and treated proactively before they progress? That is becoming more possible thanks to advances in genetic testing. One company, GeneDx, is on a mission to address diagnostic challenges through faster, more affordable genome testing.</p>
<p>To explain the evolution of this technology, how it is changing lives and where it may go in the future, Senior Writer Anastassia Gliadkovskaya speaks with GeneDx CEO Katherine Stueland.</p>
<h4>To learn more about the topics in this episode: </h4>
<h4>To Listen to More Episodes of Podnosis</h4>
<a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/resource/products/podcast">
Check Out the Full List
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<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
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