Out of the Hospital, Into the Home

Posted on | October 26, 2007 | 1 Comment

If Tech is going to transform Health it needs to think outside the box

A couple of weeks ago, the tech giants gathered in San Francisco for the Annual Web 2.0 Summit. But if you closed your eyes, you’d have thought you were at a health care meeting. And at the head of the table was Google, forecasting the arrival of a full service Health Platform in early 2008.

No secret here. I’ve been saying for some time that Google has been fast at work behind the scenes to bring its immense data storage and search capacities to bear on medical care, customized research and lifespan health planning. Now they’re saying it aloud. Taking over the health space from Adam Bosworth, who recently left the company, Marissa Mayer said “expect a lot of activity in the coming months.” She added: “If you look at health care, there’s already a huge user need, people are already using Google more than any other tool on the Web to find health information….And the health care industry generates a huge amount of information every year. It’s a natural core competency for us…”

Google is not totally alone. Take Microsoft, for example. It has committed to tying the Internet to personalized health care, and recently bought Medstory, a new company that specializes in health information search software. Microsoft has also announced HealthVault, which is a set of personal health-record tools under patient control. Microsoft, like Google, is coming out from behind the screen. It is also on record as being in the middle of building a broad consumer health platform to include searches, records, prevention, healthy behaviors and care planning.

The problem for the tech health care wannabees? Traditional thinking. Understandably, they turn to traditional health care players and powerhouses for advice. No surprise that companies like Intel, with a real interest in Health, were initially focused on hospitals as their customers. Google’s Mayer similarly barks up the wrong tree in seeing online records as improving MD throughput of patients and therefore positively impacting doctors’ incomes. Tech primary concentration on the hospital – medical office loop is way behind the curve. The real promise is in repositioned health care around a new primary loop, from home to care team and back to home. If tech companies really want to get into health care they need to realize we have plenty of status-quo thinking. What we need is bright young innovators willing to steer health care down a very different path.

Category: Google, health care, health care reform, technology, Web 2.0 Summit

Comments

One Response to “Out of the Hospital, Into the Home”

mitchell
December 28th, 2009 @ 10:35 am

Your Post Out of the Hospital, Into the Home : is interesting.I like reading Posts on summit health…Please keep posting on summit health.