Just because Steve Wozniak takes a shot at Apple doesn't mean he's wrong. Woz recently declared that the current generation of wearables, including the Apple Watch, are "not a compelling purchase." He says that his Apple Watch is "an expense that has brought me a few extra niceties in my life," but generally is frustrated that wearables don't have enough computing power and are mostly still dependent on a linked smartphone for many of their functions. He's not alone in his skepticism. A trio of analysts from Pacific Coast Securities see trouble ahead for many wearable manufacturers, as "value creation shifts away from the thing itself, while the associated ecosystem, software and/or service tend to deliver the real intelligence that the things provide"...
Kim Bellard
See the following -
Say Goodbye to Your Smartwatch
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Signatures are No Longer Required for Credit Card Transactions...How Come Most Medical Records Exchanges Still Require Fax Machines?
If you live in the U.S., you've probably had the experience of paying for a meal using a credit card. The server takes your card, disappears to somewhere in the back, does something with it that you can't see, and returns with your card, along with two paper receipts, one of which you need to sign. Everything that happens to me, I think, what is this, the 1960's?As of last week, the major credit card companies -- American Express, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa -- are no longer requiring that signature. As a Mastercard person told CNET, "It is the right time to eliminate an antiquated practice."
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So...Is Paying Ransom What Bitcoin Is For?
The tech, law enforcement, and privacy worlds are abuzz with the recent decision by Apple to refuse to help the FBI crack the security on an iPhone, even though the iPhone in question belonged to an alleged terrorist/mass murderer. As fascinating and important as that story is, I was even more interested in another cybersecurity story, about a hospital paying ransom to hackers in order to regain access to its own computer systems. This was not the first such occurrence, and it won't be the last.
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Solving Design Problems in Healthcare Starting with the Waiting Room
A few days ago ProPublica had a headline I wished I'd written: If It Needs A Sign, It's Probably Bad Design. Although the article started with a health care example (EpiPen of course, citing Joyce Lee's brilliant post), it wasn't focused on health care -- but it might as well have been. Health care is full of bad design, and of signs. Take, for example, the waiting room. When most patients enter a provider's office or facility, the first thing they are likely to see is a waiting room. The waiting room probably has other would-be patients already waiting there, each full of their own health concerns. In some instances, the initial waiting room is merely a staging area; once processed, patients may be sent to yet another waiting room to wait some more. And, of course, once they eventually do reach an exam room, they'll probably endure some more waiting, no matter how long their wait has already been...
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Sometimes Innovation Requires Disobedience
The M.I.T. Media Lab is taking nominations for its Disobedience Award, which was first announced last year. As the award's site proudly quotes Joi Ito, the Director of the Lab and who came up with the idea: "You don't change the world by doing what you are told." I love it. The site, and the award's proponents, make clear that they are not talking about disobedience for the sake of disobedience. It's not about breaking laws. They're promoting "responsible disobedience," rule-breaking that is for the sake of the greater good. The site specifies...
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The Big Get Bigger, Until They Don't
You may have missed it, but the Open Markets Institute released a report on what it calls "America's Concentration Crisis." The report begins bluntly: "Monopoly power is all around us: as consumers, business owners, employees, entrepreneurs, and citizens." As David Leonhardt wrote in his op-ed about the report, "The federal government, under presidents of both parties, has largely surrendered to monopoly power." Their associated data set details market concentration within 32 industries, several of which are health related. For example, in electronic health record systems, the top 3 firms account for 58% of the market, whereas in pharmacies/drugstores, the top 3 control 67% (and the top 2 alone have 61% share).
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The Business of Healthcare Is Business
Hmm, that headline doesn't seem right, does it? I mean, shouldn't the business of healthcare be, well, health? Or, at least, caring? Actually, shouldn't the business of healthcare be patients? After all, everyone in healthcare says it's all about patients. Everyone says they're patient-centered, whatever that means. But think about this: who in healthcare gets paid for you to be healthy? Or, conversely, who in healthcare doesn't get paid when you get sick, or when you don't improve under their care? Whether we planned it or not, whether we admit it or not, or whether we like it or not, our healthcare system is a business that has become about making money.
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Health Care
I hate being a patient. I have to admit that, although I write about health care, I am typically what can be described as a care-avoider. My exposure to the health care system has mostly been through my professional life or through the experiences of friends and family. The last few days, though, I unexpectedly had an up-close-and-personal experience as a hospital inpatient. I want to share some thoughts from that experience. Now, granted, any perceptions I gained are those of one person, in one hospital, in one medium-sized mid-western city. Nonetheless, I offer what I consider the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the experience...
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The Microsoft Empire Strikes Back: Makes Major Inroads into Healthcare
It seems deeply ironic that a week after I wrote about how even giant companies eventually get surpassed, I'm writing about the resurgence of one such giant, Microsoft. Last week Microsoft won back the title of world's most valuable company (as measured by market cap), passing Apple. Apple had that distinction since 2012; Microsoft hasn't had it since 2002. Admittedly, Microsoft was only able to pass Apple because a recent tech stock downturn dropped Apple from its record trillion-dollar valuation, and, as of this writing, Apple has pulled back in front again, but the fact that it is a race again says a lot about Microsoft.
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The Most Important Health Care Jobs of the Future
Fast Company ran an interesting article The Most Important Design Jobs of the Future, predicting 18 of the most important design jobs of the future (at least 3 to 5 years out). A couple of them were in health care, and arguably all of them would have some impact on health care, but I thought it might be fun to do a similar list specific to health care, and not limited to design. Let's hope no one comes back in a few years to show how wrong I was. I'll skip the usual suspects -- e.g., doctors, nurses, pharmacists. Yes, those jobs will (almost) certainly still be around, but they may not be central as they are today. And those jobs will evolve in ways that reflect the trends illustrated by the jobs I list...
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The Pandora's Box of Gene Editing Is Now Open
The age of gene editing is upon us. Specifically, the use of CRISPR. Amazing things are happening, proving again how clever humans are. Whether we're smart remains to be seen. For those who are unfamiliar with it, CRISPR -- more accurately, CRISPR-Cas 9 -- is a new technique for gene editing. It has allowed faster, more precise, and less expensive gene editing. It can already do more than you may realize. CRISPR has been much in the news lately, due to a new study published in Nature. Researchers successfully corrected a DNA mutation that causes a common heart disease that is sometimes fatal, especially for young athletes. In what is believed to be a first, the researchers repaired viable embryos. Moreover, they repaired most (72%) of the embryos, which is much better than previous efforts...
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The Ransomware Attacks on Hospitals Are (Cyber) Criminal
One of the redeeming aspects of crises is that, amidst all the confusion, suffering, and loss, there are usually moments of grace, of humans showing their best nature... Unfortunately, crises also tend to bring out the worst of our natures... And then there are the cyberattacks. Last week the federal Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI, and HHS issued a joint alert Ransomware Activity Targeting the Healthcare and Public Health Sector, warning that they have "credible information of an increased and imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers." I'll spare you the technical details of the expected attack strategies or suggested mitigation efforts, but I will note that they warned: "CISA, FBI, and HHS do not recommend paying ransom." Read More »
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The Right to Repair Ourselves
Geoffrey Fowler wrote an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal: We Need the Right to Repair Our Gadgets. He describes how manufacturers have made it difficult for us to fix our personal tech gadgets (The Guardian concluded the same earlier this year), and discusses how he's managed to overcome some of those obstacles. As I was reading it, I kept thinking, boy, replace "gadgets" with "our bodies" and "manufacturers" with "health care professionals," and he could be talking about health care.
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The Robots Are Coming...to Healthcare!
Ready or not, there are robots in your future. And some of them will be for health care. There has been growing concern that the rise of robots, along with artificial intelligence (AI), will create huge impacts on jobs. Within the last few months both McKinsey and PwC have issued white papers on the topic. The former found that nearly half of jobs have the potential to be automated (although most not totally), while the latter expects 38% of U.S. jobs at at high risk of automation within 20 years. Health care is not high on most lists of sectors whose jobs are soonest to be heavily impacted by robots, but it is on the list -- and it will happen...
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This Actually Is a Test
When it comes to health care, testing is not what it used to be, or what it is going to be in the not-too-distant future. For example, confirmation of a cancer diagnosis is getting much easier. The New York Times reported that blood tests -- known as "liquid biopsies" -- have now been shown to generally match the results of a tumor biopsy. The blood tests look for DNA fragments from the tumor that signal its presence. The liquid biopsies are useful for both detecting the presence of a tumor and its ongoing monitoring. The current generation of tests are not perfect, with as many as 15% of tumors not generating enough DNA to be detected, but they do offer the advantage of not requiring an invasive procedure...
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