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Posted Comments -Ex-Apple CEO Invests in Telemedicine

Health telemonitoring market is moving quickly with many major players including Xerox, Medtronics, others.  Posted comments on Fierce Medical Devices article: Ex-Apple CEO investment in remote health monitoring market. Link to article and comments at http://tinyurl.com/lwchryc

Here is copy of my posted comments:

MDI, Xerox’s Healthspot investment are moving us in the right direction-using internet and telemonitoring technology to improve healthcare and create value. As example, look at one area – prenatal care and chronic conditions treatment in rural areas with 25 percent of population but only 10 percent of physicians- you realize very quickly the benefits offered by these emerging healthcare telemonitoring applications. But we can and should be doing more here. Several observations:

— We need standardized EHRs and adoption now being driven by ACA’s Meaningful Use rules. Integrating EHRs with remote monitoring and analytics, we create exciting new opportunities linking to medications for compliance, drug efficacy, adverse effect tracking, and so on. EHR adoption is over 90% in many countries and we are about 60%- we can do better here. EHRs provide the transactional data to support “big data” analytic solutions.

–No doubt telemonitoring and kiosks will improve healthcare and hopefully achieve the $6B projected healthcare savings. All players should emphasize analytics, how analytics will be used to support clinical care decisions, how patient data to personalize healthcare, develop improved treatment modalities and so on. These analytical tools exist, can make a difference, and help address the 30% of all medical errors due to misdiagnosis. Very high leverage and upside here but I do not hear these discussed- they should be

–New ACA regulations/penalties imposed to reduce readmissions are forcing institutions to establish new processes to address after discharge patient tracking- while the emphasis of these “kiosk centric” ventures has been mostly walk-in users, I see several major hospital related markets such as readmission reduction and others which I believe will be significant.

–Pharma clinical trials demand working with 1,000’s of patients and closely tracking their meds during the Phase I/II trials. Networks of remote kiosks provide an excellent vehicle to support new drug clinical trials more efficiently than done today

No question exciting times and strong growth ahead in the remote telemonitoring and medical monitoring device market – lets do what is needed here to use these new offerings to create value and improve our healthcare system

Paul B. Silverman

Paul B. Silverman writes about entrepreneurship, healthcare, analytics, and strategy management and serves as Advisor, Speaker, Educator, and Managing Partner of the Gemini Business Group, LLC, a new venture development firm, and author of “8 Building Blocks To Launch, Manage, And Grow A Successful Business.” He also serves as Adjunct Professor in the School of Business at George Mason University. See more at Paul B. Silverman Blog and sign up for Entrepreneurship Today! email updates to track latest new venture developments.

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Comments – NPR: Surprise Medical Bills: ER Is In Network, But Doctor Isn’t

Posted comments today on NPR story about ER billing problems using ER services in Texas. Ironic, as noted in my comments,  Texas is one of the states that has pushed back most strongly on ACA efforts to improve our healthcare system. So if you do have an emergency while traveling in Texas, on the way to the ER in the ambulance, I suggest make sure you check that you are covered for both hospital and doctor costs. Looks like “every doctor  for himself” there- what a way to run a healthcare system. We can fix this and I believe with modifications ACA is the vehicle to accomplish this objective.

You can read my comments and the NPR article at http://tinyurl.com/pfd5zwe

Paul B. Silverman writes about entrepreneurship, healthcare, analytics, and strategy management and serves as Advisor, Speaker, Educator, and Managing Partner of the Gemini Business Group, LLC, a new venture development firm, and author of “8 Building Blocks To Launch, Manage, And Grow A Successful Business.” He also serves as Adjunct Professor in the School of Business at George Mason University. See more at Paul B. Silverman Blog and sign up for Entrepreneurship Today! email updates to track latest new venture developments.

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