The debate over the future of healthcare in America often seems locked in a tired zero sum game. Either you are in favor of Obamacare or against it. Either we improve the quality of care or reduce its cost. My colleagues in the Healthcare practice of Newport Board Group think otherwise. We advise healthcare innovators and the private equity firms that invest in healthcare businesses. We believe that technology and new business models can transform how healthcare is thought of and delivered, improving quality and reducing cost.
Possibilities of New Innovations in Healthcare Technology
For example, imagine that you are on the remote plains of Southern Africa fulfilling a life-long dream to participate in a photo safari when you suddenly begin to experience periods of light headedness that progresses to numbness in your extremities. Although a few of your fellow adventurers are casual acquaintances, none are intimately familiar with your medical history and are equally puzzled by the sudden onset of symptoms. As your condition worsens, you are returned to base camp and subsequently medevac’d to the closest hospital. The EMT’s on board the helicopter stabilize you, monitor your vital signs but are unable to obtain critical health profile information from you due to your semi-conscious state.
Fortunately this occurs not in 2014 but at some point in the not too distant future. In the meantime, because of your frequent international travel and at the encouragement of your personal physician, your complete medical history is stored in a secure, cloud-based file that, with the remote intervention of your physician or a family member, can be accessed by the triage team at the African hospital. You are also wearing a Smart watch containing sensors capable of monitoring your vital signs. When this data deviates from the normative statistics embedded in your watch, the software will transmit these data automatically to your cloud-based file as well as trigger a health crisis alter to your physician along with your GPS coordinates. With a crisis mode triggered in the Smart watch, it transmits a similar alert to your Smart phone which then displays contact information for your physician and family. As a result, in spite of your incoherent state and remote location, the triage team is able to access critical information on your medical profile and conduct a video consult with your physician.
What is "Telemedicine"?
Although this may sound like an episode from Star Wars, there are technology giants like Apple and Google along with a number of venture-backed companies working on various aspects of this consumer healthcare mosaic that, in all likelihood, will make this scenario a reality. This convergence of existing technology and targeted product innovation is aimed at capitalizing on the $3 trillion annual healthcare spend in the United States.
What is being called “telemedicine” or “telehealth” has the potential to create new solutions to such challenges as distance, unexpected events and chronic conditions. New approaches to storing patient information securely and delivering it anywhere it is needed can contribute to higher quality of care at lower cost. In the next article in this series I will further discuss this trend and how healthcare investors and service providers can take advantage of it.
About the Author
Bob Hickey has a diverse background in general management roles ranging from start-ups to large corporations. He served as CEO and a member of the Board of Directors at SyntheMed, Inc., a publicly-traded company that develops and markets surgical implants derived from biomaterials.Bob led t the clinical and regulatory development program that resulted in the FDA approval of the company's key product; raised $30 million of equity financing and established an international distribution network, among other accomplishments. Learn more or contact Bob Hickey here.
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Photo Credit: By Marjorie Apel (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons
