Kim Bellard

See the following -

11 Things About Health Care I'm Dying to Redesign

The folks at Ideo recently published 19 Things We're Dying to Redesign, covering a wide range of products, services, and systems, both big and small.  It's very thought-provoking, but only one of them addressed a health care topic (oddly enough, incontinence). If there is an area of our lives that badly needs redesign, it would be health care. And not redesigning it sometimes literally results in us dying. Let's start with a clean slate. I'm not as ambitious as Ideo, in terms of the breadth or number of topics, but here are 11 things about heath care that I'm dying to redesign...

2017 Prediction: Some "Oops" Ahead

Predictions for 2017 are everywhere this time of year, and it is no wonder.  There are so many technological advances, in health care and elsewhere, and a seemingly endless appetite for them.  We all want the latest and greatest gadgets, we all want the most modern treatments, we all have come to increasingly rely on technology, and we all -- mostly -- see an even brighter technological future ahead. Here's my meta-prediction: some of the predicted advances won't pan out, some will delight us -- and all will end up surprising us, for better or for worse.  Like Father Time and entropy, the law of unintended consequences is ultimately undefeated...

2019 Forecast: Amara's Law: Health Data, Gene Editing, and Artificial Intelligence

I have two predictions for 2019. One is that at the end of 2019 our healthcare system will still look a lot like it looks now. Oh, sure, we'll see some cool new technologies, some innovative start-ups, some surprising corporate pairings, some moves by Big Tech, and some promising clinical findings. But our healthcare system moves slowly, and many in it have strongly vested interests in the status quo. The second prediction is that, more than ever, Amara's Law still prevails. In case you don't know this "law," it is attributed to Roy Amara, who was President of the Institute for the Future, among other things, and goes like this...

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America's Dismal International Rankings - Time to Innovate Our Way Out of Our Messes

Most Americans -- myself included -- think we live in the greatest country on earth. After all, we have the biggest economy, the most powerful military, the most pervasive popular culture, and, of course, the American Dream. We've got Wall Street and Silicon Valley, Walmart and Amazon, Hollywood and Nashville. We have -- well, we used to have -- the biggest city, the tallest building, and the largest manufacturing output. But when it comes to some of the basics, we're not doing so well. Take health care, for example. If you listen to politicians, we have the best health care in the world. And, indeed, if you have enough money (or really good insurance), happen to live in the right zip code, and manage to stumble upon the right doctors/hospitals, that's true. You can get the best health care in the world here.  But fail any one of those qualifiers, maybe not...

An Epic Fight For the Metaverse—Fortnite Takes on the Big Tech Oligopolies

You might have missed it amongst all the headlines about the U.S.P.S., the 2020 elections, and, of course, that little thing we call the pandemic, but Fortnite got kicked off Apple's App Store (and subsequently Google Play). I'm not a gamer, but I am fascinated by gaming, because, as Steven Johnson put it, "The Future is where people are having the most fun." Tim Sweeney, the founder and CEO of Epic Games, Inc., which makes Fortnite, seems to be having a lot of fun. And he thinks the future is the Metaverse. Healthcare, take note. The tech giants were reacting to Epic allowing "permanent discounts" on developer fees for in-game purchases made directly, rather than going through Apple or Google. Developers thus avoid the 30% commission charged in those Stores. Mr. Sweeney has been railing about the commission level for some time, leading to the recent decision.

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And We Thought Pandemics Were Bad...Time to Examine The Threat from Microplastics

The ocean full of microplastics, and fish are as well. They're in our drinking water. Indeed, "There's no nook or cranny on the surface of the earth that won't have microplastics," Professor Janice Brahney told The New York Times. Dr. Brahney was coauthor on a recent study that found microplastics were pervasive even in supposedly pristine parts of the Western U.S. They estimated that 1,000 tons of "plastic rain" falls every year onto protected areas there; 98% of soil samples they took had microplastics. Dr. Brahney pointed out that, because the particles are both airborne and fine, "we're breathing it, too." She admitted: "It's really unnerving to think about it."

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Are Smartwatches Being Over-Hyped as Health Trackers?

I don't get smartwatches. Yes, I know; they're all the rage.  Apple unveiled its Apple Watch earlier this month, to generally good if not entirely ecstatic reviews.  Not to be outdone, Google announced a collaboration with TAG Heuer and Intel for a "Swiss Smartwatch."...I have to wonder why the focus on the wrist.  It isn't the ideal place to track, say, your heartbeat, your sleep, or your steps, and as a result fitness trackers have been faulted about their accuracy.  Cramming features into a smartphone makes some sense, because they have become so ubiquitous, but I'm not sure who is clamoring to add more features to a watch...

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Artificial Intelligence Docs May Need Some Good AI Lawyers

A recent post highlighted how artificial intelligence (AI) is already playing important roles in health care, and concluded that expanded use of AI may be ready for us before we are ready for it.  One example of the kind of problem we'll face is: who would we sue if care that an AI recommended or performed went wrong? Because, you know, always follow the money. Last week Stanford's One Hundred Year Study On Artificial Intelligence released its 2016 report, looking at the progress and potential of AI, as well as some recommendations for public policy...

Asking Better Questions and Improving Patient Engagement

I've been thinking about questions. A few things I read helped spur this. The first was a blog post entitled "Asking the Wrong Questions" by Benedict Evans, of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, Mr. Evans looked at a couple of long range technology forecasts (from as long ago as 1964 and as recently as 1990), and pointed out how they both managed to miss several key developments. He attributed this to "this tendency to ask the wrong questions, or questions based on the wrong framework." And we're still at it. Mr. Evans, whose background is mobile technologies, said that people are now doing a lot of speculating about what comes "after mobile," such as AR and VR...

Best Buy Buys Into Health

Best Buy generated a lot of positive press recently with its acquisition of GreatCall, which focuses on technology services for seniors.  Its move into health may not be a surprise since it seems lots of retailers -- think Walmart or Kroger -- and many big tech companies -- think Apple or Amazon -- want into health, not to mention more tech startups than you can throw $100 million at. It's the why and the how about Best Buy's moves into health that deserve more scrutiny, and that healthcare organizations may learn from.

Betting on Future(s) - Doctors vs Fantasy Football

Pundits worry about the chilling effect that medical school debt -- which approaches $200,000, according to the AAMC -- has on our future physician workforce.  If so, I'm wondering if health care should take a page out of a tactic being used for pro athletes: allow investors to buy shares of physicians' future income...To be honest, I'm not even really all that interested in securitizing physicians' incomes, even for those (relatively) poor primary care physicians.  Complaints about incomes aside, most physicians do quite well financially and, of course, much better than in most other countries.  What I'm interested in is having the data on physicians that such an approach would require.

Can the Healthcare System Change Its Spots?

Just a few years ago, things were looking up for the American health care system. We were going to start finding better ways to pay for care: call it pay-for-performance (P4P), value-based purchasing (VBP), or similar terms. We were going to nudge -- or, rather, push -- providers into more clinically integrated systems (e.g., ACOs) to help improve outcomes and to control costs. And, of course, with wider use of electronic health records (EHR), we'd be able to better coordinate care and make decisions based on actual data. It all sounded very promising. Now, though -- what's that old expression about the leopard not being able to change its spots?...

Clicks-and-Mortar: Health Care's Future

The woes of the retail industry are well known, and are usually blamed on the impact of the Internet.  Credit Suisse projects that 8,600 brick-and-mortar stores will close in 2017, which would beat the record set in 2008, at the height of the last recession.  There are "zombie malls," full of empty stores but not yet shuttered. And then there's health care, where the retail business is booming. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Christopher Mims set forth Three Hard Lessons the Internet is Teaching Traditional Stores.  The lessons are: Data is King, Personalization + Automation = Profits, Legacy Tech Won't Cut It.

Computational Thinking in Healthcare

OK, you use your smartphone all the time: you use the latest and greatest apps, you can text or tweet with the best of them, you have the knack for selfies, and so on.  You probably also have a computer, tablet, and a gaming system, each of which you are also very proficient with.  No question: you are a whiz with electronic devices. But, if you're like most of us, you don't really know how or why they work. Maybe that's OK.  Most of us don't know how our cars work either, couldn't explain how heavier-than-air flight is possible, have no idea what the periodic table means to our daily lives, and would be in trouble if our lives depending on us making, say, bricks or glass...

Coronavirus and the Recurring Mistake of Fighting the Wrong Wars

What do the coronavirus and Navy ships have in common? For that matter, what do our military spending and our healthcare spending have in common? More than you might think, and it boils down to this: we spend too much for too little, in large part because we tend to always be fighting the wrong wars.I started thinking about this a couple weeks ago due to a WSJ article about the U.S. Navy's "aging and fragmented technology." An internal Navy strategy memo warned that the Navy is "under cyber siege" by foreign adversaries, leaking information "like a sieve." It grimly pointed out...

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