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How Big Tech is Getting Involved in Your Health Care (bendbulletin.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the I'm-feeling-lucky dept.

Apple's financing a study to see whether irregular heart rhythms can be detected with an Apple Watch. But that's just the beginning, according to a New York Times article shared by Templer421: As consumers, medical centers and insurers increasingly embrace health-tracking apps, tech companies want a bigger share of the more than $3 trillion spent annually on health care in the United States, too... The companies are accelerating their efforts to remake health care by developing or collaborating on new tools for consumers, patients, doctors, insurers and medical researchers. And they are increasingly investing in health startups. In the first 11 months of this year, 10 of the largest tech companies in the United States were involved in health care equity deals worth $2.7 billion, up from just $277 million for all of 2012, according to data from CB Insights, a research firm that tracks venture capital and startups.

Each tech company is taking its own approach, betting that its core business strengths could ultimately improve people's health -- or at least make health care more efficient. Apple, for example, has focused on its consumer products, Microsoft on online storage and analytics services and Alphabet, Google's parent company, on data... Physicians and researchers caution that it is too soon to tell whether novel continuous-monitoring tools, like apps for watches and smartphones, will help reduce disease and prolong lives -- or just send more people to doctors for unnecessary tests. There's no shortage of hype," said Dr. Eric Topol, a digital medicine expert who directs the Scripps Translational Science Institute in San Diego. "We're in the early stages of learning these tools: Who do they help? Who do they not help? Who do they provide just angst, anxiety, false positives?"
The article notes Amazon's investment in cancer-detection startup Grail, Apple's investment in the Beddit sleep monitor, and Alphabet's acquistion of Senosis Health, "a developer of apps that use smartphone sensors to monitor certain health signals."

Alphabet also has a research unit developing tools to collect health data, and it's already financed "Project Baseline," in which 10,000 volunteers have agreed to testing of their blood, mental health, and DNA, as well as monitoring of their skin temperature, heart rate, and sleep patterns.

50 comments

  1. Highly paid physicians have better things to do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Than field "WebMD" questions from their patients whenever one these home health monitors blinks red for spurious reasons.

    1. Re:Highly paid physicians have better things to do by pete6677 · · Score: 2

      Hillary Was Going To Save It.

      Bahahahahahahahahaha!

    2. Re:Highly paid physicians have better things to do by AmazingRuss · · Score: 1

      ... like sending all those goddamn faxes....

    3. Re:Highly paid physicians have better things to do by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      Hillary Was Going To Save It.

      No, Hillary told us that the destructive fiasco that is the ACA was just fine as it was, and she would do everything necessary to keep it as it was. Of course she was just pandering to the demographic (generally Democrat voters) who are on the receiving end of that massive tax-and-transfer law, so it's hardly surprising that she'd continue telling the lies that got it passed in the first place. It's a financial disaster, exactly as it was designed to be. It had nothing whatsoever to do with health care, let alone actually providing any or making it in some way less expensive. It was simply a way to tax higher-earning people and distribute that money to likely Democrat voters. Nothing more or less. The presumption was that it was going to help the Democrats hold power. Of course it immediately cost them the legislature and the good will of millions of people who saw their premiums do exactly what the law's opponents said would happen.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    4. Re:Highly paid physicians have better things to do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not a destructive fiasco, it was better than what we had previously. Sure, it wasn't good enough, but let's place blame where it belongs on the neoliberals that refuse to do anything that doesn't make massive profits for corporate interests.

      This whole business about not making it less expensive is a complete load of crap. There were provisions in there to save money The preventative care measures in particular would do just that over time. In the nearer term insurance companies were restricted in how much money they could spend on non-health related activities.

      Had the GOP not deliberately destablized the markets we would have continued to see the rate of increase decreasing and at some point a natural limit to the cost. Instead of trying to improve the ACA or replace it with single payer, they've opted to do whatever they can to sabotage the process by doing things like refusing to expand medicaid and the constant repeal votes with nothing else in mind.

    5. Re:Highly paid physicians have better things to do by kqs · · Score: 1

      No, Hillary told us that the destructive fiasco that is the ACA was just fine as it was, and she would do everything necessary to keep it as it was.

      She actually said that the ACA was okay but we could make it better.

      When the ACA passed, conservatives said it would kill jobs, raise the deficit, cover fewer people, have death panels, and collapse on its own. Liberals said it would not affect jobs, not raise the deficit, cover many more people, not get between a doctor and patent, and work well.

      Notice that the conservatives were wrong on every point. I mean, it's easy to be correct sometimes and wrong sometimes, but to be WRONG EVERY SINGLE TIME is pretty impressive.

      Even now, despite many efforts to kill the ACA, it keeps on limping along, and conservatives cannot come up with a single idea to improve it except for "let's take health care away from our base! WIN!!" Trump is the weakest, most impotent president we've had in the last 100 years, but he did do one thing that Obama never could: he made the ACA popular!

      Back to TFA: I don't know which of these attempts to use technology to improve health will work. Maybe all, maybe none, but I suspect that the "analyze big data" approach will be most successful in the long run. Maybe not to improve individual results so much, but it can help determine causal factors and the effectiveness of treatments far better than current meta-studies can.

    6. Re:Highly paid physicians have better things to do by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      The preventative care measures in particular would do just that over time

      Sure, but of course you don't get to USE such things. Because all of your monthly disposable income is now consumed by your 500% higher premiums, preventing you from having any money to spend at a doctor's office. Because even after you spend a fortune every month for ACA-compliant insurance, your deductible also went up by several hundred percent, and so a typical couple might have to spend close to $30,000 before they get ANY benefit from their shiny new health insurance, EVERY YEAR.

      But the bill got passed because Obama promised that your monthly cost would be about the same as a mobile phone bill. That most families would save over $2500 a year. You know, complete lies. We have the team of people working for him and Reid and Pelosi on the record saying they knew that the only way the bill would pass was if they lied about the costs and benefits. Or in this case, the loss of benefits, and the crippling new costs.

      Had the GOP not deliberately destablized the markets

      The "markets" were state-by-state from day one. And your theory doesn't explain why solidly blue states (legislatively, and executively) have insurers fleeing and residents getting stuck with enormous increases in their premiums and deductibles. It has to be repealed so that the partisan Democrats who rammed through the first version - which is nothing but a tax-and-redistribute mechanism - might have to actually face reality instead of lying again.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    7. Re:Highly paid physicians have better things to do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was better in some ways, worse in others. Federal spending on health care was cut with the ACA, and the individual mandate, while having obvious benefits in terms of the the insured base, forced people into paying for insurance with inferior conditions, lining the pockets of the health insurance companies handsomely.

  2. Good Grief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't want any of these parasitic corporations sticking their greedy hands into healthcare.

    1. Re:Good Grief by mikael · · Score: 1

      They are already there. Many doctors use Apple workstations or PC's to view online patient notes and bookings. That in turn requires networks and servers.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    2. Re:Good Grief by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      I don't want any of these parasitic corporations sticking their greedy hands into healthcare.

      The parasitic corporations are the ones that get self-serving legislation passed to consolidate their monopoly on some aspect of health care. Competitive businesses are the kinds of business we need more of.

      The tech sector can make a lot of operational improvements to the system, such as digitizing those paper records, that simply save money and aggravation without fundamentally changing the system. Why should we have to make out those goddamned paper personal record sheets every time we visit a new specialist? All of the data we put down on them, such as our current list of medications, should be in one database that can be accessed to pull down whatever part of the medical record they need. For accuracy, every item in that record that doesn't change should be captured once and never deleted. If the date in my childhood when I had chicken pox is medically important, we shouldn't be running the risk that I will not remember it accurately for the next practitioner.

    3. Re:Good Grief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What we need are collaborative technological enterprises which do not use any opportunity to manipulate and squeeze users/customers; which do not spy on you for the US government; which do not dodge taxes by fake-moving themselves off-shore; which do not gulp up most potential alternatives (competition or no); which do not encourage you to buy junk; which do not censor content to fit their political agenda or that of the US or other governments; do not employ armies of under-paid, oppressed workers hidden away far from their shiny corporate headquarters ... so, not Google, not Apple, not Microsoft, not Amazon nor their ilk.

  3. Birth of cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Soon we'll be able to brag about our cholesterol level on Facebook :)

    1. Re: Birth of cool by UrbanMonk · · Score: 2

      I'm glad someone brought up cholesterol. High cholesterol is actually a symptom of weak blood vessel walls. Cholesterol acts as a bandaid preventing aneurysms. However, this bandaid can clog your arteries if your condition is severe. Imagine all the blood vessels in your body thinning, your body will produce large amounts of cholesterol. How do we prevent thinning of your blood vessels? By entering a weekly reminder on your PDA: less smoking, less alcohol, less sugar, more exercise, more vegetables and last but not least more Vitamin C from organic sources.

  4. hold up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    tech companies want a bigger share of the more than $3 trillion spent annually on health care

    Each tech company is taking its own approach, betting that its core business strengths could ultimately improve people's health -- or at least make health care more efficient.

    Nope, had it right the first time. They don't care at all about patient outcomes unless of course it means they can stand on a stage and take credit for whatever good it does as if they personally cured the disease.

    1. Re:hold up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Silicon Valley knows that, in order to make something great, start by finding a pain point. It is the 0th step of product development. Think about Uber. It is a unicorn, and wow does it hemorrhage money, but it found and fills a pain point.

      Silicon Valley is going to start with the pain point of "healthcare hurts", and they are going to engage there. That is how they "capture market share".

  5. It's about time by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

    As soon as an Uber for health care arises, I'm downloading the app.

    1. Re:It's about time by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 2

      I dunno. I think I'll wait for the first N rounds of guinea pigs to weed out the "random guy with a knife who tricked the app into thinking he's a surgeon". Keep in mind that Uber made wave primarily by disregarding regulations, including safety regulations - esp. when starting up. After all, they weren't the first rideshare program, just the first to not even pretend to follow the rules.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    2. Re:It's about time by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      What I want to see Silicon Valley bring to healthcare is its willingness to take risks in trying new things and its contempt for legally engrained monopolies.

    3. Re:It's about time by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      It's a general contempt for legal regulations. Some of these do make it hard to start a company. But they also help society in general function.

      Taxi regulations, for instance, help keep a shitload of taxis off the road. That does raise prices, but on the other hand it's annoying as hell when a bunch of Uber/Lyft drivers are pulling up in an unregulated fashion around a major event. They all cause massive traffic jams.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
  6. Oh Please! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Each tech company is taking its own approach, betting that its core business strengths could ultimately improve people's health -- or at least make health care more efficient

    .

    They don't want a slice of the $3 TRILLION healthcare market; that implies that other will give up their revenues. They want to ADD to it.

    So, the insurance company - who isn't going to do anything to reduce their revenues - will demand that we wear $$$$ tech device to reduce their claims and costs (increasing their profits) - at OUR expense (OK, maaayyyybe with a small token reduction in premiums).

    We have the worst and most expensive healthcare system in the Industrialized World and all these claims are just nonsense so they can get their hooks into the healthcare industry and drain our finances even more.

    Thanks to losing the genetic lottery, I'll be going deeper into medical debt in '18 - and ruining my credit because I have no choice but to make a lot of medical for profit businesses eat it; a bankruptcy lawyer a bit richer and ruined credit for 7 years.

    Happy New Fucking Year.

  7. Who do they think they're kidding? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They're going to take all this biometric data and use it to further flesh out the profiles they have of every single person on the planet they can get to, and sell that data to marketers and who knows who else. None of these devices or apps are legitimate Medical Devices, they don't have to be approved by the FDA, and they don't have to adhere to HIPPA regulation either, so they can do whatever they want with the data and you have no say in it -- other than not using any of them to start with, and oh by the way ditch your smartphone if you want any modicum of privacy.

  8. VCs on Healthcare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When I was in NYC I went to a bunch of meetings. One of them had a Venture Capital guy talking about what sort of business was likely to get funding. Healthcare tech firms were likely to get backed, but only if they collected a lot of user data and had a lock in.

    1. Re:VCs on Healthcare by tomhath · · Score: 1

      Fixed it for you:

      Businesses were likely to get backed, but only if they collected a lot of user data and had a lock in.

  9. Dear Big Tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As someone who works in your field, please fuck off. Your incessant tracking and monetization of social interaction has destroyed a large part of what I once loved. Please stay the hell away from my healthcare.

    P.S. I am not a product. People stopped being products in this country when we ended slavery.

    Sincerely AC

    1. Re: Dear Big Tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slavery never ended. The end was only declared in a typical libturd democrazy fashion.

  10. Parasites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looking for a new host.

  11. Core strengths by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    betting that its core business strengths could ultimately improve people's health -- or at least make health care more efficient

    For a lot of tech companies, core strengths primarily include raping customers for their data. And then apply "AI" to turn that data into "insights" that they can sell to other companies keen on raping those customers some more. Sounds like a great fit for health care.

    Maybe that's a bit cynical. But medical data is something to be particularly careful with, and a lot of these tech companies don't exactly have a great track record of respecting privacy.

    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    1. Re:Core strengths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not cynical and there is a very real problem, but there are also very real mitigation solutions, as well as some startups who really understand this. If you care about this issue, please subscribe to this non-profit's newsletter.

    2. Re:Core strengths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An potential employer may not hire you if they know you have "potential" health problems, or a current employer may lump you into a layoff if they suspect health issues.

      Insurance companies will raise rate, that's a given, if they suspect you may cost them later.

      The government could use health information against you in ways you could never even dream of.

      Tech could save hundreds of thousands of lives, even millions, if we could only trust tech companies, which we cannot.

    3. Re:Core strengths by BoRegardless · · Score: 2

      Most medical apps I have reviewed are not "raping customers for their data." They are offering either products or tracking or suggestions on how to deal with existing medical conditions. The FDA issued clearance for 51 mobile apps in 2017 (see: www.mobihealthnews in the last week)

      I view these as incredibly helpful for people with existing medical conditions, but unfortunately, the average age on Slashdot is not the age range of the people needing help. And believe me these people really need it.

      Not one person in a hundred can guess what the most frequent reason for retiree hospitalization is. I have even stumped doctors with this!

      It isn't anything that appears on the nightly news, where cancer, heart disease, pulmonary problems, obesity & diabetes are the "popular" items of the day. ADEs (adverse drug events), mostly caused by prescription medications, alcohol, aspirin, NSAID painkillers, herbs & supplements" are the most common source of retiree hospitalization.

      Do you realize that 80 million people with chronic illness and 5 or more prescription meds are out there juggling their medications and symptoms and a lot of them are still trying to hold a job? Can you imagine how difficult it is for them to understand and manage 5 medications which can have real and sometimes dangerous ADEs (adverse drug events.)

      Mobile apps & soon sensors can REALLY help people.

    4. Re:Core strengths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Most medical apps I have reviewed are not "raping customers for their data." They are offering either products or tracking or suggestions on how to deal with existing medical conditions.

      That is the lobster in the date. Some patients will enjoy the lobster and have a good time. The data rape.... comes a bit later in the evening, for the clients who don't want to continue the relationship but whose numbers have already been posted as an easy lay in every rest room in Silicon Valley. Or Boston. Or Austion. Or anything else an excited startup can sell the data to enhance their revenue..

  12. And then we have EPIC who dominates med records by BrookHarty · · Score: 2

    A big problem, Medical tech market stinks, monopolies, no real standards that work 100%, no open source, no real interconnectivity that works well.
    They still use fax in many places its so bad.

    We got the big monopoly megacorp EPIC that uses its per user fee and dominance as a stranglehold on medical records. Not part of a network, ok, we can FAX you the information. WTF...

    The reason the US pays so much, we have too many middle men that are charging for everything rising the costs, there's no low cost open source solutions for everything, but the companies use TONS of opensource middle themselves.

    A leading cause for expensive software, government regulations have to be devloped into existing medical software. If you pass a bill, that costs is going somewhere, new revisions, some vendors own most of the market, book, expensive upgrades, end user is gonna pay for it with higher medical insurance paying for it.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    TIL, Medical IT is a shitshow of closed source, over regulation and monopolies that are making everything expensive thats driving up costs.

  13. The issue with Big Tech's involvement... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... is that it drags along Big Marketing's involvement. The Big Tech companies are not in this in order to help people, but to open up a new data collection stream, and subsequently a new revenue stream. This would be a great idea if I could trust Big tech with my health data but, as Microsoft has shown with Windows 10, Big Tech is more interested in aggressive data collection than customer privacy..

    1. Re:The issue with Big Tech's involvement... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you care about this issue, please subscribe to this non-profit's newsletter.

  14. Insurance companies slowing tech by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 2

    I asked my dentist (who's heavily involved in medical/dental research at Tufts) about health research, and he noted that health care has a lot of diagnostic techniques that can't be used.

    He explained that the insurance companies are afraid the new diagnostics will turn up problems in people that otherwise wouldn't be found until they're too late to fix and that, actuarially speaking, it's cheaper to let the problems go on and let the patient die. Also, it's possible the patient would die from random chance before the condition is found.

    I have no idea if this is correct, but I can remember lots of "promising new" techniques and devices here on slashdot and other places over the years - yet the last new device that we actually got is the MRI.

    (And for the longest time your insurance company wouldn't pay for an MRI - even though it was in widespread use - because it was deemed "experimental".)

  15. $10,000 per person per year? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No wonder health insurance is so expensive.

  16. Great! by jenningsthecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The average American's headlong rush to have their every step, tic, twitch, friend, activity, and Web search monitored by big corporations, is going to make it so that NOBODY can get health insurance without signing up for 24/7 monitoring of every fart, belch, heart flutter, and midnight snack. Stick a fork in Privacy's ass and turn it over, 'cause it's falling-off-the-bone done, courtesy of folks who are too stupid to have a clue of where their own TRUE self-interest resides. Fuck me gently with a chainsaw - it'd be kinder than seeing myself sold down the river by a bunch of bleating sheep masquerading as humans. Christ, even the button I'm about to click on is telling me to Submit!

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    1. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NOBODY can get health insurance without signing up for 24/7 monitoring of every fart

      I don't know about you, but mine are rich and mellow with a blend of equal parts sulfurous rotten eggs and fermented fish and just a hint of rancid butter rolled into a whiff of moldy vegetables. I can hear it now, "Hey Siri, do you want to smell my farts?" I'm sure that she will be happy to comply, as always.

  17. What healthcare? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I live in Sweden and here you only get treatment if you are dying (and lucky). Ain't socialism wonderful?

    1. Re:What healthcare? by Picodon · · Score: 1

      Aw, unlucky you, you should really come to the US! Here, we may not have as many physicians (about 1/3 fewer) per capita as you have in Sweden, but we compensate for this through many innovative techniques:
      (1) The uninsured and the underinsured can’t afford to clog our healthcare system, which frees precious resources for the better endowed.
      (2) The shorter life expectancy (about 3 years less than Sweden) ensures that those pesky always-ill seniors won’t waste our trained personnel’s time.
      (3) The higher infant mortality rate (double that of Sweden) ensures that the weaklings (who would be a drain on the system) are culled early, further optimising efficiency.
      (4) High throughput: your appointment with a physician will typically result in you not seeing an actual physician (merely a nurse, or perhaps a physician assistant, if you’re lucky). If you’re extremely lucky, the physician may stop by for a minute or two on his way to the bathroom. However, do not fear, you will have plenty of quality time to go through the financial paperwork with our abundant financial office staff.
      (5) In spite of this, you may still experience some abnormally long waiting list, due to your insistence on using one of the select few providers that your private health insurance provider requires you to use to remain eligible for partial reimbursement of costs. But, no worries! Here, there is freedom of choice and you are always welcome to choose any other healthcare provider and paying out of your own pocket (and it may be as inexpensive as just about twice what one would pay in Sweden, if one had to pay out of pocket in Sweden!).

  18. I hope they eat it ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The only way that economics 101 allows healthcare prices to skyrocket while the quality of health care goes through the basement, especially in the presence of an apparent free market and healthy insurance market, is that a very few folks, enough to collude, own both. If you own the insurance AND the healthcare then you can be okay charging $400 for a doctors office visit to a primary care physician instead of the $100 it was 10 years ago. This is because you aren't paying that $400 to the doctor, you are paying them the same $75 for 15 minutes they also made 10 years ago, and you are keeping the $325.

    The only way that our implosion of quality can coincide with such a vast expansion of insurance, allegedly a much wider market with more demands, and more ability to push prices lower, is collusion. It is not a free market.

    Therefore, I hope high tech eats them both. I hope google or amazon find the holes in the laws that they engineered, and sucks all their money out. Whomever it is that engineered it, they are literally "drinking blood". They are literally profiting at an increase of suffering, an increase of loss of quality of life, and an increase in loss of duration of life. Whoever engineered the system, I personally think Mr. Berkshire Hathaway and Obamacare are part of it, is drinking blood. They deserve to to have their blood drank.

    It would be really freaking ironic, laser guided karma perhaps, if one of the Chinese companies cracked the code. I hope Jack Ma, or Andrew Ng does it. They can bleed out these predators until actual market economics can kick back it. It might be the only thing that could save the US healthcare system.

    For the morons who invented the massive parasite: it kills the organism. You should figure out the damage already done, because China and India already have and are already staged for substantial health tourism. Federalizing healthcare, for the profit of the parasite, means the system already died. If you can't measure that, then you shouldn't be in business, because you can't measure anything, and someone else (your better) has been doing your thinking for too long.

    - Formerly (a Zen and the art) Phadreus

  19. HealthCareVC's by sdinfoserv · · Score: 1

    Venture Capitalists, the "investors", don't give 1 sh!t about improving lives, they only care about making money. Case and points: The VC's the purchased the rights to the blindness gene therapy shot - $1 million for the treatment. Because, they figure they deserve a percentage of how much more you will earn by not being blind .... or the VC's that purchased the rights for the leukemia shot.. that's right a shot that cures leukemia - can be yours for $700K.. It's important to note that most people have lifetime maximum of $1m or $2m on their health care policies. So really 1 treatment of either of these and it wipes out your health care usage for the rest of your life.
    Or what about Elizabeth Holmes & Theranos... she doesn't care about lives, only making hers better with regard to fame and fortune - no matter who gets hurt.
    No, the trend is investment backed health care the requires enormous profits. The US will soon be a country of heath for the wealth only.

  20. more arguments for single payer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The average American's headlong rush to have their every step, tic, twitch, friend, activity, and Web search monitored by big corporations, is going to make it so that NOBODY can get health insurance without signing up for 24/7 monitoring of every fart, belch, heart flutter, and midnight snack. Stick a fork in Privacy's ass and turn it over, 'cause it's falling-off-the-bone done, courtesy of folks who are too stupid to have a clue of where their own TRUE self-interest resides. Fuck me gently with a chainsaw - it'd be kinder than seeing myself sold down the river by a bunch of bleating sheep masquerading as humans. Christ, even the button I'm about to click on is telling me to Submit!

    with single payer, your health costs are just paid for, no need for justification or fraud or lies or any investigation of any of that stuff

  21. Cuba by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    When it comes to life expectancy, Cuba is on par with US, but spending 3 time less money for health. I am not sure the fix for US is to add more greedy mega-corporations to the system.

  22. The opposite? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd be rather interested in whether you can detect an Apple watch based on cardiac arrhythmia.

  23. Food for thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    iDoc - Robin Cook's book "Cell"

  24. Waiting for a use ... by gordguide · · Score: 1

    I have no interest in a connected watch product. However, should the Apple watch or a third-party watchband that connects to an Apple watch start to offer the ability to monitor my blood sugar levels 24/7 in real time ... this can't be said too strongly ... I will buy one. Period, Full Stop.

    Obviously this means that the way forward for the watch products is through Health Care. It has massive potential, actually.

  25. HIPAA, HIPAA, HIPAA by thoughtlover · · Score: 1

    So, when the first big company gets sued for not properly securing their patients, **ahem**, their customers' device history (and other related data), where will the finger-pointing begin and end --I'm looking at you, Fitbit, but it may as well be newer cellphones.

    I can see engineers blaming it on having to use third-party data-storage platforms... then board members claiming their company and devices are clearly not a physician or to be interpreted as one, therefore can't be liable for violating any health-related law.

    But that won't help any of the people who's health profiles are there for anyone to scrutinize, whether it's a possible employer, insurance company, or the general electorate. Cue the jokes about possible scenarios...

    --
    No sig for you! Come back one year!