Catalyst at Berkeley

Big news for the future of healthcare.

Apple partners with IBM Watson Health Cloud to bring secure cloud, data analytics to HealthKit... IBM on Monday announced a new cognitive computing platform called Watson Health Cloud that will, in cooperation with partners Apple, Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic, offer custom tailored data analytics services to healthcare professionals.

There are real problems out there -- keeping track of blood sugar and insulin levels for diabetics, measuring peak flow for asthmatics, and in Silicon Valley the norm is focusing on what's trendy.

"People with chronic diseases don’t suddenly decide that they’re over it and the novelty has worn off. Tracking and measuring—the quantified self—is what keeps them out of the hospital"

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/where-fitness-trackers-fail/

Wearables Are Totally Failing the People Who Need Them Most | WIRED Fitness tracking companies need to start embracing the FDA and making devices and apps for the old, the chronically ill, and the poor.

Get Ready for HEALTH TECH EDU

Case Study for the need for healthcare reform or innovation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/us/drive-by-doctoring-surprise-medical-bills.html

"He was blindsided, though, by a bill of about $117,000 from an “assistant surgeon,” a Queens-based neurosurgeon whom Mr. Drier did not recall meeting."

These costs "..may involve out-of-network providers who bill 20 to 40 times the usual local rates and often collect the full amount, or a substantial portion."

The effect -->

Total Medical Costs for US: $2.8 trillion.

Annually.

After Surgery, Surprise $117,000 Medical Bill From Doctor He Didn’t Know In a growing practice, medical assistants, consultants and other hospital staffers, often called in without patients’ knowledge, are charging hefty fees.