Category Archives: startup

entrepreneurship, healthcare, policy, quantified self, startup

Rock Health visits Australia – preview

March 4, 2014 blackfriar

FUELLING CHANGE IN AUSTRALIA’S HEALTHCARE THROUGH TECHNOLOGY; LESSONS FROM ROCK HEALTH

By Melia Rayner | February 27th, 2014 in Intelligent Thinking First, Technology Second

Above: Rock Health funded startup CellScope are reinventing the otoscope (image courtesy of Yahoo)

Social change through technology is all around us, in the way we shop, communicate, pay bills and arrange services. So why has the incredibly important area of health been so slow to move in line with the digital economy? Australia has led medical breakthroughs in the past; from the implementation of the first bionic ear in 1982 to the cervical cancer (HPV) vaccine in 2007, but the past few years have seen our healthcare landscape struggling to get further than the ‘middle of the pack’.

Elsewhere, the digital health movement is growing rapidly. In Washington, a startup called KitCheck helps hospital pharmacies process medication kits faster and without error, whilst in San Francisco CellScopehas built a smartphone-enabled diagnostic toolkit, including a digital otoscope. Even global magnates have put resources and teams into developing health innovation, such as General Electric’s Logiq; which is an ultrasound for the whole body, and Walgreens’ Pill Reminder app and Find Your Pharmacist web tool.

All the companies above have capitalised on the need for social change in healthcare through the vehicle of technology. Utilsing innovations in technology to solve human problems is behind everything we do at Portable. The point at which culture and technology meet is where social change can really happen. It’s in this mission that our maxim ‘Intelligent thinking first, technology second’ hits home; in the utilisation of technology to support social change rather than commandeer it.

This is why we’re bringing out a digital health innovator like Dr. Nate Gross as part of our Portable Talksseries. Nate’s company Rock Health provides startups (such as KitCheck and CellScope) with funding and full service support to advance the healthcare industry through technology. Their partnerships across the industry – from medical institutions to venture capital firms and corporates – give them unparalleled knowledge of how to innovate change in a highly regulated industry. In addition, Nate’s successful development of healthcare game changers such as Rock Health and Doximity makes him uniquely qualified to present to Australian audiences on lessons in innovation from Silicon valley and how to break down barriers to entrepreneurship and communication in this sector.

We spoke to Nate about the importance of change in healthcare and some of his other key maxims in advance of his recently announced tour for Portable Talks in May.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Q9y1zRdXQ

Above: Nate speaks briefly about the story of Rock Health.

Why did you decide to come all the way to Australia for Portable Talks?

Well, that’s easy: Australia and Portable Talks. It seems to be a very exciting time in Australia, where the next engine of growth could be technology, healthcare, or both — and the [Australian] people are consistently applauded for living healthy lives. And of course, Portable’s reputation preceded itself as I had watched several previous [Portable Talks] series online, thus knowing there were amazing and in-depth conversations to be had.

How can the USA learn from Australia’s approach to health innovation, and vice versa?

I think we can learn from the approaches and we can learn from the businesses themselves. The startup community in Australia is smaller but accelerating, and most importantly the quality is high, a recipe for wins that will attract more entrepreneurial ideas and capital.

We can also learn from the businesses themselves — many successful concepts may be translated or shared due to some similarities between the mixed private and public components of our healthcare systems. That’s not to call our systems too similar, of course, as there is much to learn from Australia about accessibility and affordability.

In your opinion, what are the three biggest hurdles facing digital health innovation internationally?

Differences in incentives is often at the top of the list, which can make cost a barrier to different parties in different healthcare systems.

The funding environment is another. I think many cities and countries are ready to scale up their innovation efforts, but it can be a chicken-and-egg problem where some local wins are first required to attract capital to the area.

Language itself is a barrier, which Australia is perhaps more cognizant of than Silicon Valley, as it’s a leader in the Asia Pacific region. And there are many other hurdles that may become more relevant depending on the venture: market size, privacy, interoperability, the US regulatory process, infrastructure, consumer readiness.

Health is often perceived to be a topic that individuals outside the industry don’t actively engage with. Why should individuals from outside health and medical fields engage with in this industry?

Two reasons: First, because you don’t want to wait until you get sick to start solving these problems. And second, healthcare is an entrenched industry, which means there’s a lot of entrenched thinking. Outside perspective can lead to fantastic innovation, and many of the startups that have come through Rock Health have been founded by “outsiders”.

What is the key message you’d like to bring to your talks in Australia?

It’s the right time to get involved in digital health. There has never been a better time to be a health entrepreneur, and there are many ways you can get involved to transform the healthcare sector.

Nate will be discussing topics such as trends in digital health, innovation in heavily regulated industries and breaking down barriers to entrepreneurship and communication in healthcare throughout his Portable Talkstour in early May. This event is a must-see for those working in digital innovation, healthcare, technology, startups, or high-tech funding. The tour will cover Melbourne and Sydney with tickets available here – be quick to secure an earlybird discount. Nate will also spend a day as Portable’s ‘Entrepreneur in Residence’, delivering a new agenda with the team to help encourage innovation and creative thinking in cross disciplinary fields.

To find out more about the Rock Health Portable Talks tour or to enquire after a private company consultation with Dr. Nate Gross, please contact Kate at kate(at)portablestudios.com.au

For all other tour enquiries please contact Mikala Tai at mikala(at)portablestudios.com.au

complex adaptive systems, data saving lives, entrepreneurship, healthcare, healthy habits, meaning, nutrition, policy, politics, quantified self, rapid learning health systems, startup

Wellthcare

March 1, 2014 blackfriar

Lissanthea put me on to this project.

Sounds highly aligned to my own ambitions, similarly requiring more focus…

http://www.wellthcare.com/

Wellthcare is an exploration

It’s an attempt to find new ways to value and create health

Health care contributes only 20% to our health and yet it dominates the health discourse;
80% of our health comes from our genes, behaviours, social factors and the environment

Wellthcare is about the 80%
It’s about finding new sources of health-related value
It’s about creating health

At Wellthcare we believe that much of this value resides in our networks and communities

We call this value Wellth

Recent Log posts

Pernicious moralising: when public health fails
22 Feb 2014
Wellthcare receives its first grant
6 Feb 2014
It’s time to prioritise health creation – not just care and prevention
30 Jan 2014
How a talking pet can keep us healthy
15 Jan 2014
Angelina Jolie, the end of standard, confused value, and not enough failure: why 2013 mattered
30 Dec 2013

Despatches from the Wellthcare Explorers

Despatches are detailed descriptions of the debates being had between the Wellthcare Explorers as they further discuss health creation.

Is there a role for an ‘event’? (PDF)
Published February 28th 2014

Building Resilience: Understanding People’s Context and Assets (PDF)
Published December 11th 2013

Fragmenting Communities and the Wantified Self (PDF)
Published October 22nd 2013

Discovering Wellth (PDF)
Published September 26th 2013

Exploration timeline

Wellthcare is being explored by its Pioneer, Pritpal S Tamber, and an eclectic group of thinkers and doers called the Wellthcare Explorers.

February 2014

The fourth debate between the Wellthcare Explorers on the aims of an international meeting on health creation (Despatch pending)

January 2014

Grant from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity received to ascertain whether it is possible to hold an international meeting on health creation (see announcement)
Wellthcare Manifesto drafted (publication pending)

December 2013

Wellth definition changed to: ‘new, health-related value, defined by what people want to do, supported by their nano-networks and communities’

November 2013

Third debate between Explorers followed by Despatch

October 2013

The idea of the ‘Wantified Self’ described
Second debate between Explorers followed by Despatch
Wellth definition changed to: ‘new, health-related value, defined by what people want to do, supported by their nano-networks’

September 2013

First debate between Explorers followed by Despatch

June 2013

Website launched
Wellth defined as ‘reclaimed currencies of health, delivered through new technologies, nurtured and protected by intimate communities’

May 2013

Recruitment of Wellthcare Explorers started

Feb 2013

Work starts on Wellthcare

data saving lives, healthcare, policy, startup

Rock Health: Treating patients like consumers

February 10, 2014 blackfriar

White House’s “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights”

keep your product dialed on:

Focused Collection
Transparency
Access, and
Control

http://www.gocovered.com/

http://rockhealth.com/2014/01/why-patients-need-to-be-treated-like-consumers-qa-noah-lang/

Why patients need to be treated like consumers

January 28, 2014

Noahlang

We sat down for a little Q&A with Rock Health entrepreneur and Covered CEO and privacy expert Noah Lang. You can catch Lang at Rock Health’s CEO Summit next week, where he’ll be diving into privacy issues on his panel, Privacy by Design.

What was your inspiration for Covered?

A year ago, I needed to select a health plan from my wife’s employer options. There were only 4 choices, and we’re pretty healthy people, so it couldn’t be that hard, right? I searched for our favorite doctors, but had to do it in four different places. I tried to search for some preferred drugs to figure out what they would cost and found it nearly impossible to compare. In search of an apples-to-apples comparison, I built an excel model to figure out what might happen if I tear my knee up skiing again or one of us needed emergency care, but very quickly realized it takes more data than a single person can wrangle with to find the answer to those questions. And that data is very hard to get.

Everybody told me there were already tools out there to help consumers with their coverage decisions. I tried all of them. None of the tools gave me confidence in my decision or helped me understand the product I was purchasing. In fact, none treated health insurance like a consumer product at all. The average consumer is willing to spend 9 minutes choosing a plan so often ends up taking an “educated guess.” It was clear to me that it was time for a new vocabulary: insurance in the context of the individual. I set out to ensure consumers can make a logic-driven decision in that amount of time, or less—without picking up the phone, without confusion, and without resorting to educated guesses.

Why must health transactions become more accessible to consumers?

Nobody uses the word consumer in healthcare. It’s a patient, an employee, an insured. Healthcare companies are focused on the traditional “payers,” not the consumer. Well, guess who pays the bills at the end of the day? Us. We are customers and deserve to be treated like we’re buying expensive, complex products.

Not only does health coverage come in just behind housing and transportation as one of the largest personal investments of the year, it’s the hub-of-the-wheel that impacts every downstream health transaction that a family makes. This is the reality in a world where only 14% of the employed population are able explain the four key concepts of insurance (deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance, and out-of-pocket maximums). When consumers don’t understand their own coverage, they’re not equipped to understand each subsequent transaction in their doctor’s office, the pharmacy, or the hospital. As a result, we as Americans often under-use, overpay, and remain in a general state of confusion.

255M Americans see a doctor every year. Most have no idea how much they’ll pay. 150M Americans take a drug every month, but only 19% mail-order those drugs to save 30% of costs. Why? Because the matrix of plan “benefits” from our carriers and employers is pure cognitive overload for most of us. I believe in speaking the language of the consumer—not the insurance carriers—so I set out to simplify the experience, ensure product comprehension, and save consumers money. At Covered, we translate coverage into a language everybody can understand.

How has your background in data collection and tracking influenced your approach to Covered?

Prior to founding Covered, I built and sold privacy products at Reputation.com for 5 years. In the midst of the social media revolution, I witnessed both the underbelly of the personal data trade and the beautiful experiences that can be built when that data is used effectively.

Personalization is not a commonly used word in healthcare. The “payer” focus is traditionally on the population, rather than the individual. I think it can be done a different way, particularly if we want to liberate individuals and families to direct their own health spending. Covered borrows from streamlined consumer experiences in recommendation engines like Netflix and Amazon, and delivers them to health insurance transactions. Users can enjoy personalized experiences by sharing data with us, but we can only succeed so long as we’re honest about what we know about you as a consumer and how we use that information. The value at Covered for the user is explicit: you’re not wasting time starting from scratch filling out an overwhelming form. Covered uses your shared data to make the process easier and provide high-confidence recommendations. Then, we earn your trust for the long run by responding with value every time you share information, never asking for more information than we need at that point in time (“Focused Collection”), and never sharing it with 3rd parties unless you ask us to.

What role does privacy protection play in the digital health space?

We have to start thinking of it in terms of the consumer perspective on privacy rather than just falling back on HIPAA as our only guide. Consumers stand to benefit from health data collection and analysis with tangible improvements to their health shopping experiences, but each individual must decide if they are comfortable with the trade-off. At Covered, there’s a lot of good we can do with personal health information. The more a family shares with us the more refined a plan recommendation we can deliver. But the only way to trump very real privacy fears and execute on our responsibility to protect your data is to design a privacy-centric experiences from the ground up (“Privacy by Design”).

In digital health today there’s an attitude we’ve seen before: collect as much information as you can about this person and there will be some way to monetize it later. The last go-round, many multi-billion dollar brands like Facebook and Experian were tarnished by personal data privacy fiascos in the social revolution. Let’s make sure this doesn’t happen in the health tech revolution, I’d highly recommend reading the White House’s “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights” to any consumer health entrepreneurs out there—keep your product dialed on Focused Collection, Transparency, Access, and Control.

—-

Noah Lang is the Founder and CEO of Covered, Inc., aiming to translate health coverage transactions into simple language. He is a recognized expert in online behavioral tracking, consumer data collection, and digital PII publication, and he sits on the DMA’s Data Governance Advisory Board. Before Covered, Lang was a founding VP of Business Development at Reputation.com and in 2011, he was selected as a “Privacy by Design Amabassador.”

complex adaptive systems, cool, data saving lives, entrepreneurship, healthy habits, nutrition, policy, quantified self, rapid learning health systems, startup, storytelling

Fear + Clear Action = Effective Behaviour Change

January 25, 2014 blackfriar

people indulge in unhealthy behaviours to relieve stress and anxiety
ads that cause stress and anxiety can drive unhealthy behaviours
one solution is to couple compelling threats with clear and specific paths to behaviour change
another approach is to apply the adicitive rewards that video games create for real life challenges
SUPERBETTERLABS.COM build video games which build resilience and maintain motivation while working to overcome injuries, anxiety and depression

http://www.iodine.com/blog/anti-smoking-ads/

Why Graphic Anti-Smoking Ads Make Some People Smoke More Cigarettes

Jessica Goldband

If these images make you squirm or want to click away, you’re not alone.

anti_smoking

How, then, can this type of message change the choices you make? Can we really be motivated by something that turns us off, rather than on?

You’d think, perhaps intuitively, that the scarier the ad, the more powerfully it affects our behavior. And the research supports that argument. Indeed, since the classic 1964 Surgeon General report on “Smoking and Health” came out 50 years ago this month, that’s been the basic strategy for health communication around the issue. But there’s a catch. A BIG one.

While we’ve seen a significant drop in global smoking rates (down 25% for men and 42% for women) since those landmark reports in the 1960s demonstrated the link between smoking and lung cancer, many people continue to smoke: 31% of men and 6% of women. In the U.S., 18% of adults (down by half since 1964) continue to do something they know might kill them.

Public health agencies have spent years communicating the dangers of smoking. Their anti-smoking ads have grown increasingly disturbing, threatening us with graphic images of bulging tumors and holes in our throats — possibly to try to reach that last stubborn segment of the population that hasn’t kicked the habit.

Why aren’t these ads working?

Turns out, the most recent and comprehensive research on so-called “fear appeals” and attitude change says that this kind of messaging does work, but only if the person watching the ad is confident that they are capable of making a change, such as quitting smoking. Public health gurus call this confidence in one’s ability to make a change “self-efficacy” — and threats only seem to work when efficacy is high. (The reverse is also true.)

If someone lacks efficacy, ads with fear appeals don’t help. In fact, they make the behaviorworse. How? Many people engage in unhealthy behavior because it makes them feel better and relieves their anxiety.

If you threaten someone who has little to no confidence they can change their behavior, their anxiety goes through the roof. What do they do? Perhaps turn off the threatening ad, walk away, and light up a cigarette — the very behavior you were trying to prevent. This same principle applies to other coping behaviors, such as eating unhealthy types of food or just too much of it.

Unfortunately, anxiety is quite common in this country. According to arecent Atlantic article, 1 in 4 Americans is likely to suffer from anxiety at some point in life. Making big life changes is tough, and it seems as though fear and anxiety don’t energize people, they just paralyze them.

So what’s the solution?

A step in the right direction would be for ad campaigns to couple compelling threats with equally clear and specific paths to behavior change. Or why not apply the rewards built into reaching a new level in addictive video games to apps that people can use for real-life challenges? One great example of this is Superbetter, a social online game to help people build resilience and stay motivated while working to overcome injuries, anxiety, and depression.

Stand-alone threats implicitly assume that people don’t already know how bad their choices are, and can drive them to the very behaviors they wish they could change. Truly effective ad campaigns might still appeal to our fears, but they should also let us wash it all down with a confidence chaser that empowers the more anxious among us to act on our fears.

data saving lives, entrepreneurship, healthcare, rapid learning health systems, startup, technology

VCs investing in US Healthcare

January 24, 2014 blackfriar

US investment in health care was triggered by the affordable care act
health is a bigger sector than tech
investing in a health insurance start-up presents an interesting strategic level

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/15/vcs-investing-to-heal-u-s-healthcare/

VCs Investing To Heal U.S. Healthcare

Posted Jan 15, 2014 by Jonathan Shieber (@jshieber)

The U.S. healthcare system is sick, but increasingly early stage investors are spending money on new technology companies they believe can help provide a cure.

Earlier this week, Greylock Partners, one of the investors behind Facebook and LinkedIn, and the Russian billionaire technology investor Yuri Milner put together a $1.2 million round alongside a group of co-investors to back First Opinion – a consumer facing service selling a way to text message doctors anytime of day or night.

Greylock and Milner join a growing roster of technology investors focused on healthcare in recent years. The number of companies raising money from investors for the first or second time has skyrocketed since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, according to data from CrunchBase.

In 2010, the year in which President Obama signed the ACA into law, there were only 17 seed- and Series A-stage healthcare-focused software and application development companies which had raised money from investors. By the end of last year, that number jumped to 89 companies tackling problems specifically related to the healthcare industry, according to CrunchBase metrics.

Across all categories, investors spent over $1.9 billion in 195 deals with commitments over $2 million, according to a report from early stage investment firm Rock Health. Funding was up 39% from 2012 and 119% from 2011, the Rock Health report said.

And there’s plenty of room for the market to grow, according to Google Ventures’ general partner Dr. Krishna Yeshwant. “We’re still at the very beginning of what this is going to look like,” said Dr. Yeshwant.

Google Ventures is addressing the nation’s healthcare dilemma with investments in companies like the physicians’ office and network One Medical Group, which raised a later stage $30 million last March. At the opposite end of the spectrum in December 2013 Google invested in the $3 million seed financing of Doctor on Demand, which sells a service enabling users to video chat with doctors.

Unsurprisingly, the explosion in healthcare investments tracks directly back to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, investors said. “The incentives brought forward by the ACA shift what makes sense,” in healthcare, Dr. Yeshwant said.

“At the highest level there’s now a forcing function to take advantage of the efficiency technology provides,” said Bill Ericson, a general partner with Mohr Davidow Ventures, who led the firm’s investment in HealthTap, a service for consumers to message doctors with healthcare questions.

Overwhelmingly, Silicon Valley is leading the charge in these innovations, according to CrunchBase.

This flood of capital has pushed some investors like Founders Fund to re-think their strategy, and de-emphasize healthcare software in search of other, larger opportunities.

““The reason we have somewhat shifted focus away from healthcare IT is because there is so much investment going into that space. So we think the problems there are being sufficiently addressed by the full market.” said Brian Singerman, a partner at Founders Fund.

The firm’s most recent investment was in Oscar, a new, New York-based insurance company. Yes… an insurance company.

“In healthcare there is a tech stack around genomics, digitization, biometrics, analytics, and actual cures; one of the things that ties that all together is insurance,” said Singerman.

“Launching a new insurance company is not something that happens very often. While you could launch a new insurance company without the Affordable Care Act, the catalyst it gives you by being on the same page as the big incumbents is unprecedented.”

At Google Ventures, Dr. Yeshwant thinks there will be more opportunities for tech-enabled companies like Oscar and One Medical to compete in these broad industrial categories rather than offering point solutions. “Instead of being a piece of the system, it’s being the entire entity,” he said.

“The thing to keep in mind… with the healthcare industry is that it is far bigger than tech. As an entity it is where we’re spending 17% to 18% of GDP, so any one segment is tens of billions of dollars,” Dr. Yeshwant said. “Increasingly you’re seeing IT investors who have a fine sense of disruptive opportunities enter the market.”

Photo via Flickr user BrickDisplayCase

data saving lives, quantified self, startup

Apple raid Sano

January 21, 2014 blackfriar

Apple have started raiding software startups like Sano Intelligence (the blood monitoring patch):

The needle-less, sensor-laden transdermal patch is painless (I handled a prototype, which felt like sandpaper on the skin) and will soon be able to monitor everything you might find on a basic metabolic panel–a blood panel that measures glucose levels, kidney function, and electrolyte balance. Already, Sano’s prototype can measure glucose and potassium levels. There are enough probes on the wireless, battery-powered chip to continuously test up to a hundred different samples, and 30% to 40% of today’s blood diagnostics are compatible with the device.

http://9to5mac.com/2014/01/17/apple-continues-hiring-raid-on-medical-sensor-field-as-it-develops-eye-scanning-technology/

Example of biomedical industry’s work on blood sensors

Apple is moving to expand its personnel working on wearable computers and medical-sensor-laden devices by hiring more scientists and specialists in the medical sensor field. Apple began work in earnest on a watch-like device late last decade, and it has worked with increasing efficiency and more dedicated resources on the project over the past couple of years. Last year, we published an extensive profile that indicated Apple has hired several scientists, engineers, and managers in the field of biomedical technologies, glucose sensors, and general fitness devices…

Smartening the iWatch team

Over the past couple of months, Apple has been seeking even more engineering prowess to work on products with medical sensors. Earlier this year, two notable people from the medical sensor world joined Apple to work on the team behind the iWatch’s hardware vision. Apple has hired away Nancy Dougherty from startup Sano Intelligence and Ravi Narasimhan from general medical devices firm Vital Connect. In her former job, Dougherty was in charge of hardware development. Narasimhan was the Vice President of Research and Development at his previous employer.

Unobtrusive blood reading

Sano Intelligence co-founders introducing their work (image)

Dougherty’s work at Sano Intelligence is incredibly interesting in light of Apple’s work on wearable devices, and it seems likely that she will bring this expertise from Sano over to Apple. While Sano Intelligence has yet to launch their product, it has been profiled by both The New York Times and Fast Company. The latter profile shares many details about the product: it is a small, painless patch that can work on the arm and uses needle-less technologies to read and analyze a user’s blood.

The needle-less, sensor-laden transdermal patch is painless (I handled a prototype, which felt like sandpaper on the skin) and will soon be able to monitor everything you might find on a basic metabolic panel–a blood panel that measures glucose levels, kidney function, and electrolyte balance. Already, Sano’s prototype can measure glucose and potassium levels. There are enough probes on the wireless, battery-powered chip to continuously test up to a hundred different samples, and 30% to 40% of today’s blood diagnostics are compatible with the device.

With the technology for reading blood able to be integrated into a small patch, it seems plausible that Apple is working to integrate such a technology into its so-called “iWatch.” For a diabetic or any other user wanting to monitor their blood, this type of innovation would likely be considered incredible. More so if it is integrated into a mass-produced product with the Apple brand. Just like Apple popularized music players and tablets, it could take medical sensor technology and health monitoring to mainstream levels.

Earlier this week, Google entered the picture of future medical devices by announcing its development of eye contact lenses that could analyze glucose levels via a person’s tears. This technology is seemingly far from store shelves as keeping the hardware in an eye likely poses several regulatory concerns. By putting similar technology on a wrist or an arm, perhaps Apple will be able to beat Google to market with this potentially life-changing medical technology.

While the aforementioned work by Dougherty occurred at Sano Intelligence, the fact that she “solely” developed this hardware means that her move to Apple is a remarkable poaching for the iPhone maker and a significant loss for a small, stealth startup. She notes her involvement at Sano on her LinkedIn profile (which also confirms her new job at Apple):

– Hardware Lead in a very early stage company designing a novel system to continuously monitor blood chemistry via microneedles in the interstitial fluid. Brought system from conception through development and board spins to a functioning wearable pilot device.

– Solely responsible for electrical design, testing, and bring-up as well as system integration; managing contractors for layout, assembly, and mechanical systems

– Building laboratory data collection systems and other required electrical and mechanical systems to support chemical development

Dougherty’s work at Sano Intelligence was not her first trip in the medical sensor development field. Before joining that company, she worked on “research and development for an FDA regulated Class I medical device; a Bluetooth-enabled electronic “Band-Aid” that monitors heart rate, respiration, motion, and temperature” for another digital health company, according to her publicly available resume.

Patent portfolio

At Vital Connect, Narasimhan was a research and development-focused vice president. As Vital Connect is a large company, it is unclear how responsible Narasimhan actually was for the hardware development, but it is clear that he has expertise in managing teams responsible for biosensors. Their sensor can be worn on the skin (usually around the chest area) and is able to monitor several different pieces of data. As can be seen in the description from Vital Connect (above), their technology can measure steps, skin temperature, respiratory rate, and can even detect falls. These data points would be significant compliments to a wearable computer that is already analyzing blood data.

Besides his management role at Vital Connect, Narasimhan comes to Apple with over “40 patents granted and over 15 pending,” according to his LinkedIn profile. Many of these patents are in the medical sensor realm, and this demonstrates how his expertise could assist Apple in its work on wearable devices. Narasimhan has patents for measuring the respiratory rate of a user, and, interestingly, the measurement of a person’s body in space to tell if they have fallen. The latter technology in a mass-produced device would likely improve the quality of life for the elderly or others prone to falling.

Of course, it is not certain that the work of either Narasimhan or Dougherty will directly appear in an Apple wearable computer or other device. What this information does indicate, however, is that Apple is growing its team of medical sensor specialists by hiring some of the world’s most forward-thinking experts in seamless mobile medical technologies.

Silicon Valley

Apple is not the only company boosting its resources for utilities that can measure blood. According to sources, other major Silicon Valley companies are racing Apple to hire the world’s top experts in blood monitoring through skin.

Other biometric technologies

In addition to focusing on sensors that could monitor a person’s activity, motion, and blood through the skin, sources say that Apple is actively working on other biometric technologies. As we reported in 2013, Apple is actively working on embedding fingerprint scanners into Multi-Touch screens. It seems plausible that in a few years down the roadmap, Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint scanners could be integrated into the iPhone or iPad screen, not into the Home button.

Perhaps more interesting, Apple is also actively investigating iris scanning technology, according to sources. This information comes as a Samsung executive confirmed that Samsung is developing iris scanning technologies for upcoming smartphones. It is currently unknown if iris scanning to unlock a phone will arrive with the Galaxy S5 this year.

Apple is also said to be studying new ways of applying sensors such as compasses and accelerometers to improve facial recognition. These technologies could be instrumental in improving security, photography, and other existing facets of Apple’s mobile devices. It does not immediately seem intuitive to have new facial and iris recognition technologies on wearable devices, so it is unlikely that those technologies will make the cut for the future “iWatch.”

Big plans

While 2013 focused on improvements to Apple’s existing software and hardware platforms, Apple CEO Tim Cook has teased that 2014 will include even bigger plans. “We have a lot to look forward to in 2014, including some big plans that we think customers are going to love,” Cook told employees in December of 2013. These plans likely include larger-screened iPhones and iPads, updates to iOS and OS X, and sources are adamant that Apple will revamp its television strategy this year. But is an iWatch in the cards of 2014? Only time will tell. Regardless of when the product is planned for launch, it appears that Apple is stacking up its resources to create a wearable computer that is truly groundbreaking for the medical world, and that the company will not introduce it until it is ready.

entrepreneurship, rapid learning health systems, startup

Doximity bigger than AMA

January 14, 2014 blackfriar

Very clever… wonder if they’re coming out here?

http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/09/doximitys-social-network-for-doctors-now-has-more-members-than-the-american-medical-association/

Doximity’s social network for doctors now has more members than the American Medical Association

Shutterstock

January 9, 2014 9:57 AM

Rebecca Grant

A social network could actually help your doctor give you better care.

Doximity’s physician network doubled in size last year to 250,000 members,outstripping even the American Medical Association in terms of numbers.

Its free network now reaches 35 percent of all doctors in the U.S., which CEO Jeff Tangney said is a “significant tipping point.”

“This essentially means Doximity will get doctors the answers they want faster, and more reliably, than a simple Google search,” Tangney told VentureBeat. “Doctors can ask a critical mass of their peers any number of questions ranging from drug interactions to specialist advice, and it points to the demand and hunger for specialized, vertical social networks that meet an unmet need.”

Doximity has consistently grown since its launch in 2011, and it’s added a number of new features to make it much more than a “Facebook or LinkedIn for doctors.” In 2013 alone, the company built a recruiting tool called Talent Finder, released an API to enable easy authentication, launched a “digital fax line,” and rolled out a continuing medical education (CME) platform.

Medicine is a collaborative profession. Doctors and other medical care providers rely on communication with their peers to get expert advice, ask questions, coordinate patient care, and discuss difficult cases. But medical communication is extremely sensitive and highly regulated, so it happened primarily offline for a long time.

That is beginning to change now as tech startups like Doximity create secure, HIPAA (Health Insurance Privacy and Accountability Act)-compliant, doctors-only places for them to connect online. Tangney said saves them “precious” time and reduces the “burden” of paperwork, which is increasingly important now that the Affordable Care Act is kicking in and millions more people have access to medical care.

“With Obamacare and baby boomers filling patient waiting rooms, maintaining a high standard of care demands ever greater efficiency from our health care professionals,” Tangney said. “Doctors need a secure way to connect and collaborate.”

More than 10,000 physician-to-physician messages are now sent daily through the site. Fifty-plus third-party sites use Doximity’s login API, and 200 paying clients are using TalentFinder, which facilitated 70,000 consulting and career offers to physicians.

Tangney said most of the platform’s growth has been grassroots — doctors telling doctors .

Prior to founding Doximity, Tangney was the founder of Epocrates, a San Francisco Bay area company that develops mobile health applications. Doximity is based in San Mateo, Calif., and has raised just shy of $30 million from Emergence Capital Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, and InterWest Ventures.

business, entrepreneurship, management and leadership, startup

Characteristics of successful innovators

January 12, 2014 blackfriar

Oaaahhh shucks… had the strange feeling he was talking about me throughout this post, seriously.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/10/the-five-characteristics-of-successful-innovators/

The Five Characteristics of Successful Innovators

by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic | 1:00 PM October 25, 2013

There is not much agreement about what makes an idea innovative, and what makes an innovative idea valuable.

For example, discussions on whether the internet is a better invention than the wheel are more likely to reveal personal preferences than logical argumentation. Likewise, experts disagree on the type and level of innovation that is most beneficial for organizations. Some studies suggest that radical innovation (which does sound sexy) confers sustainable competitive advantages, but others show that “mild” innovation – think iPhone 5 rather than the original iPhone – is generally more effective, not least because it reduces market uncertainty. There is also inconclusive evidence on whether we should pay attention to consumers’ views, with some studies showing that a customer focus is detrimental for innovation because it equates to playing catch-up, but others arguing for it. Even Henry Ford’s famous quote on the subject – “if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” – has been disputed.

We are also notoriously bad at evaluating the merit of our own ideas. Most people fall trap of anillusory superiority that causes them to overestimate their creative talent, just as in other domains of competence (e.g., 90% of drivers claim to be above average — a mathematical improbability). It is therefore clear that we cannot rely on people’s self-evaluation to determine whether their ideas are creative or not.

Yet there are relatively well-defined criteria for predicting who will generate creative ideas. Indeed, research shows that some people are disproportionately more likely to come up with novel and useful ideas, and that – irrespective of their field of expertise, job title and occupational background – these creative individuals tend to display a recurrent set of psychological characteristics and behaviors. As summarized in a detailed review of over 100 scientific studies, creative people tend to be better at identifying (rather than solving) problems, they are passionate and sensitive, and, above all, they tend to have a hungry mind: they are open to new experiences, nonconformist, and curious. These personality characteristics are stronger determinants of creative potential than are IQ, school performance, or motivation.

Creativity alone, however, is not sufficient for innovation: innovation also requires the development, production, and implementation of an idea. This is why the number of “latent” innovators is far larger than the number of actual innovations, and why we all have at some point generated great ideas that we never bothered to implement. Here are a couple of mine: rent-a-friend – a service that enables tourists to hire locals for advice or simply some company – and location-based dating via an app that finds your nearby matches based on personality profiling. As with most of my ideas, these have since been successfully implemented by others, who also happened to have them.

The key difference between creativity and innovation is execution: the capacity to turn an idea into a successful service, product or venture. If, as William James noted, “truth is something that happens to an idea”, entrepreneurship is the process by which creative ideas become useful innovations. Given that entrepreneurship involves human agency – it depends on the decisions and behaviors of certain people – a logical approach for understanding the essence of innovation is to study the core characteristics of entrepreneurial people, that is, individuals who are a driving force of innovation, irrespective of whether they are self-employed, business founders, or employees. The research highlights several key characteristics (in addition to creativity):

An opportunistic mindset that helps them identify gaps in the market. Opportunities are at theheart of entrepreneurship and innovation, and some people are much more alert to them than others. In addition, opportunists are genetically pre-wired for novelty: they crave new and complex experiences and seek variety in all aspects of life. This is consistent with the higher rates ofattention deficit hyperactivity disorder among business founders.
Formal education or training, which are essential for noticing new opportunities or interpreting events as promising opportunities. Contrary to popular belief, most successful innovators are not dropout geniuses, but well-trained experts in their field. Without expertise, it is hard to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information; between noise and signals. This is consistent withresearch showing that entrepreneurship training does pay off.
Proactivity and a high degree of persistence, which enable them to exploit the opportunities they identify. Above all, they effective innovators are more driven, resilient, and energetic than their counterparts.
A healthy dose of prudence. Contrary to what many people think, successful innovators are more organized, cautious, and risk-averse than the general population. (Although higher risk-taking is linked to business formation, it is not actually linked to business success).
Social capital, which they rely on throughout the entrepreneurial process. Serial innovators tend to use their connections and networks to mobilize resources and build strong alliances, both internally and externally. Popular accounts of entrepreneurship tend to glorify innovators as independent spirits and individualistic geniuses, but innovation is always the product of teams. In line, entrepreneurial people tend to have higher EQ, which enables them to sell their ideas and strategy to others, and communicate the core mission to the team.

Even when people possess these five characteristics, true innovation is unlikely to occur in the absence of a meaningful mission or clear long-term vision. Indeed, vision is where entrepreneurship meets leadership: regardless of how creative, opportunistic, or proactive you are, the ability to propel others toward innovation is a critical feature of successful innovation. Without it, you can’t attract the right talent, build and empower teams, or ensure that you remain innovative even after attaining success. As Frances Bowen and colleagues recently noted, there is “a vicious circle [whereby] innovation leads to superior future performance, but such investment can also give rise to core rigidities and hence less innovation in a future time period.” In other words, innovation leads to growth, but growth hinders innovation… unless innovation is truly ingrained in the organizational culture, which requires an effective vision.

In short, there is no point in just hoping for a breakthrough idea – what matters is the ability to generate many ideas, discover the right opportunities to develop them, and act with drive and dedication to achieve a meaningful goal.

Ideas don’t make people successful – it’s the other way around.

More blog posts by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

More on: Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Innovation

TOMAS CHAMORRO-PREMUZIC

Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is an international authority in personality profiling and psychometric testing. He is a Professor of Business Psychology at University College London (UCL), Vice President of Research and Innovation at Hogan Assessment Systems, and has previously taught at the London School of Economics and New York University. He is co-founder of metaprofiling.com. His book is Confidence: Overcoming Low Self-Esteem, Insecurity, and Self-Doubt.

business, startup