I'm Praveen Suthrum. After 16+ years of building and running NextServices, a healthcare technology/management company, the challenges and opportunities in the industry leap out at me. I also get early access to industry trends and changes.
Whether you are seeking to start or grow your healthcare business, my weekly insights will make you spot opportunities and stay on top of your game. It'll help you think differently about healthcare.
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All in Technology
At HIMSS 2017, IBM's chief Ginni Rometty reassured in a keynote that there will be "new collar jobs" because of advances in cloud computing, data, and AI.
We are bravely marching towards cognitive computing in healthcare. However, the world of healthcare technology is dotted with isolated islands that make this march a huge challenge.
Since 2009, US spent $27 billion to digitize medical records. The cornerstone of digitization is to make health records available for patient care when needed.
In other words, the objective is to make electronic health records interoperable. This means, developing systems using common standards so that information can be exchanged without difficulty.
As I reflect on what I learnt in 2016, I see two somewhat conflicting world-views of health: upgrading and moderating.
One promotes upgrading the human body much like software. In this case, our biological processes can be considered as algorithms that can be improved upon. The other view calls for moderating our dependence on medicine by influencing elements surrounding health, such as food and environment.
Let’s consider both views.
I loved Google Labs, an online site where you could stop by and test drive the company's latest projects and innovations. Google discontinued it in 2011. In fact, I found this list of discontinued Google products and counted more than 75.
It’s more complicated to create an engaging app than many business managers expect, especially in healthcare, one of the most complex industries. There are often different, opposing forces at work that make the task more challenging.
Just as with Mobile and Wearables, we are at the cusp of yet another technology becoming a big part of our daily lives. Revolutionary technology cooks for a long time in research labs, starting in spurts before finally taking the leap mainstream. After its long journey from the days of the Sensorama in the 1950s, Virtual Reality (VR) is ready to get real.
