COLUMBUS, Ohio — People across northeast Ohio are now receiving AI phone calls to help them prep for surgery and navigate care after they leave the hospital. It’s all part of the “transformation” plan that venture capital firm General Catalyst is implementing at Summa Health, the Akron-based safety-net hospital it bought in October.
In some of the first media interviews since its parent company bought the health system, Health Assurance Transformation Company executives shed light on how the holding company is approaching its “transformation” of the hospital system and planning to share its innovations with more than two dozen of HATCo’s partner health systems.
The firm chose Summa to serve as a proving ground of sorts for health technology tools developed by General Catalyst’s portfolio companies. The purchase, a rare instance of a VC firm buying a hospital, was a response to the frustration that health systems are extremely slow in adopting new technology.
