Rob Coppedge is CEO of Echo Health Ventures in Seattle and has been investing and working in health care for 20 years.
Let me be clear: I believe strongly in the need for substantive, consumer-centric transformation of the health care system and have been a long-term proponent of the power of entrepreneurs to catalyze and drive these difficult changes.
Despite this, I truly struggled to prepare for a recent presentation on the future of venture capital investing in the "digital health" space. The group I addressed expected another digital health pep rally – but, after much reflection, the best I could bring them was an explanation of why, despite the countless blog posts and questionable survey data to the contrary, I believe the digital health party is over and why those of us focused on long-term systemic transformation should be happy to put this hype cycle behind us.