Health Startup Digest - 6/17/16

This is an awesome interview of Steve Krupa, who normally hosts the Breaking Health podcast. He goes over his views on health care and technology, how he got into health venture, his thoughts on the podcast, and where he sees the industry going. I highly recommend giving it a listen.

AMA’s President, Dr. James Madara, has some strong words for many of the new “digital therapeutics” in his annual address to the AMA. He calls many of these direct-to-consumer digital tools “snake oil” and recalls how the AMA worked to dispel the original snake oil sellers in the mid-1800s. He does think there is a bright future for technology in health care, so his words should not be taken out of context, he quotes Dr. Bob Wachter’s seminal Digital Doctor and he mentions many initiatives that the AMA is involved with to foster technological innovation in the field, including their partnership with MATTER in Chicago. A number of technologists have come after him for his snake oil comments, but you should read this in its entirety to get the full picture for Dr. Madara’s vision for the future of health care.

An interesting review of cost control for medications via transparency laws that are pending in a number of states. The theory that some legislators have is that if you compel companies to share their R&D expenses for drugs, you may be able to more clearly tie cost to the payer to cost of development. As the author points out, this is by no means a perfect system for cost control (if it even makes it through the legislative process). I like including policy reviews like this to see where legislators are trying to solve the problem of run-away costs; however, I am skeptical that transparency laws are the real solution.

It’s well understood that a large portion of our health can be traced back to social determinants. The American Journal of Managed Care did a comprehensive study on different interventions and their outcomes. Read the entire study, here, be sure to go to page 9 which is where the review of different interventions with their outcomes starts. If you want to read up on how the study was conducted, definitely feel free to go through the first 8 pages as well. The main take away I have is that comprehensive services coordination can be incredibly impactful vs. focusing on a single determinant (i.e. housing). It’s also quite interesting to read up on the different programs that institutions have implemented.

I’m sure many of you heard about the report that Bing was able to predict pancreatic cancer in patients via their search history. You can file this in your folder under “news agencies taking studies as gospel when they shouldn’t.” As the author of this article notes, “[t]he Times coverage is notable for its utter lack of skepticism and its failure to challenge any of the concepts or claims made in the story. We don’t hear from any independent experts, even though the premise of the story is so extraordinary as to practically demand some outside scrutiny.” Read through the rest of this critique of the Times coverage and the Bing study, and send it over to any of your friends that were excited about the findings.

This is a heart wrenching story of one family’s struggles with trying to save the life of their first born son, Bentley. It is a touching read and, as it turns out, an incredible use case for 3D printing as a means of surgical planning. The surgeon that saves the boy’s life, printed out a 3D rendering of the boy’s skull to practice his procedure and to ensure he could successfully complete what he had set out to do. This is a moving read to remind us of the positive impact technologies can have on real lives.

I am a classical languages nerd turned digital health geek. I spend my days researching medical device, pharmaceutical, and biotech companies + helping clinicians efficiently collaborate.

I have a passion for the intersection of health and technology, and wholeheartedly believe we are at the beginning of the most exciting eras of health care.