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5Jan, 2018

2017 – Amazing Year for Digital Health Investments

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We now have quantitative data that 2017 was an amazing year for digital health investments, by the headline, “$5 billion (USD) was invested by venture capital firms into digital health in 2017.”  This was impressive, not just because of the size, but because it was DOUBLE the amount of what was invested in 2016.  Though the majority of these investments were from the U.S., some were from international companies.  These investments were only those made publicly; it excluded private investments, angel investors and those made by strategic relationships. It was […]
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21Dec, 2017

NEWS ALERT–Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and the Impact on U.S. Healthcare 

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On December 20, 2017, the U.S Congress after material obstacles, passed what is without any doubt a historic legislation, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA). President Donald J. Trump for technical budge reasons, as has been reported, is expected to execute and become law in first few days of 2018. Though the law was intended to cut taxes for U.S. Corporations and individuals, the new law has material impact on healthcare.  The big event on healthcare is the “repeal of the individual mandate” to have health insurance coverage as part of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), […]
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6Nov, 2017

Silicon Valley and Healthcare (Part 6)

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In our ongoing series on Silicon Valley and healthcare, we began with the discussion of Alphabet/Google’s growing interest in healthcare. We continue this series with Google, so that we can discuss Amazon, Inc. next, and then discuss other, much less prominent players, coming into healthcare. We believe that Amazon will have the largest impact on healthcare in 2018. It seems that the news of healthcare technology is clogging not only my email, but also my Twitter feed daily. As a student of healthcare for over 25 years, I have been […]
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18Oct, 2017

“Trump says ‘there is no such thing as Obamacare’ ”, according to CNBC.

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Once again, we interrupt our series on Silicon Valley and healthcare to discuss the shifting sands on the U.S. healthcare reform. I will point out that the U.S. has not gone through any real healthcare reform; it has been experiencing a poor attempt at insurance reform, with the goal of insuring more Americans. The effort of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), also referred to as ObamaCare, is not healthcare reform. In the last week, the President of the United Sates, Donald J. Trump has executed two Executive Orders […]
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7Oct, 2017

Silicon Valley and Healthcare (Part 5)

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As we continue our series on Silicon Valley and Healthcare, we move to Mountain View, California; the headquarters of Alphabet, Inc. and its monster subsidiary, Google, Inc. Later in this series, we will discuss what we think is the coming battle between Google and Amazon in healthcare, and possibly in other industries. I don’t think many companies have had the impact that Google has had in our modern world. I was fascinated when I could search what was the emerging web, on Mosaic, one of the first search engines available. […]
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14Sep, 2017

Silicon Valley and Healthcare (Part 4)

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Though Apple continues to advance in healthcare with the announcement on September 12, 2017, of the new Apple Watch, we will close this series with Part 4 for now. Later, in our future blogs, we will spend some time discussing Amazon, IBM, and other companies from Silicon Valley who are advancing into healthcare. As noted above, Apple just announced a new Apple Watch, and CNBC reported that Apple is working with Stanford University, as well as a telemedicine company America Well, to effectively turn the Apple Watch into a full-time […]
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24Aug, 2017

Silicon Valley and Healthcare (Part 3)

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In 2008, I gave a speech at a Florida International University conference, and I discussed the view that we were entering a new renaissance in healthcare. I must say, I am still amazed and saddened how so little has changed in the last nine years. As an optimist, I believe that change is around the corner, and the rest of this blog shows that hope. We have always advocated the need of transformation in healthcare, and more utilization of technologies that have already transformed nearly every other industry in the […]
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8Aug, 2017

Silicon Valley and Healthcare (Part 2)

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In our last blog, we began the conversation on Silicon Valley’s “new” interest in healthcare; let’s continue with Apple Inc. Recent reports from CNBC continue to refer to Apple’s interest in healthcare. Apple is seeking to be the “central bank for healthcare information,” “looking to host clinical information,” and is “talking to hospitals, researching potential acquisitions, and attending healthcare IT meetings.” WOW!! CNBC broke the story back in June 2017, and we have been following closely since. It would appear that Apple is trying to use applications, new processes and […]
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28Jul, 2017

Healthcare’s Disruptive Transition – Part 4

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One of the things that continues to shock us in healthcare are the costs to administer the back-office, or the cost to generate, send, process, pay and receive a medical claim. How big is this administrative cost of healthcare in the U.S.? What if we told you that the healthcare administration costs are approximately $333,000,000,000 USD (three hundred thirty-three billion USD) per year. Would you believe your eyes? Yes, the United States of America spends more in healthcare administration than many, many countries spend on healthcare in total! For instance […]
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25Jul, 2017

Silicon Valley and Healthcare (Part 1)

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The inspiration for this series of blogs was a recent report on CNBC that Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook had worn a device that tracked his blood sugar, hinting at Apple’s interest in the space. Over the last 12 months we have had many conversations, that effectively started with a question: why is Silicon Valley not having an impact on healthcare? The answers I have given, both in our home state of Florida, and in a recent visit to Silicon Valley were the same. First, healthcare is not only “complicated” […]
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