For the last five 12 months or so, digital health has been the Rodney Dangerfield of investment sectors, acquiring much more consideration than respect, and garnering far more page views than dollars.
Nonetheless, two important occasions reported in the final many days suggest all this might be about to modify.
1st, Fortune’s Dan Primack broke the news on Saturday that Castlight Health — a startup co-founded by former U.S. Chief Technological innovation Officer Todd Park in 2008, with the intention of providing increased transparency to healthcare costs – has secretly filed an IPO an astonishing valuation of all around $ 2B is anticipated. That’s each remarkable development and significant money, and suggests it is feasible to win – and win big – in digital wellness.
2nd, two complimentary reviews from final Friday collectively propose that Apple Apple is starting to get healthcare really seriously.
For starters, the New York Instances reported that Apple executives met with the FDA in December 2013 to discuss mobile healthcare applications.
In addition, 9to5Mac, a web site devoted to “Apple Intelligence,” claimed that the following version of the iPhone operating technique, iOS8 – slated for release later on this yr – will introduce an application codenamed “Healthbook” that is “capable of monitoring and storing fitness statistics such as steps taken, calories burned, and miles walked,” in accordance to 9to5Mac. This working technique is also anticipated to facilitate integration with Apple’s rumored “iWatch,” a device anticipated to come equipped with an extraordinary assortment of wellness-monitoring capabilities.
Apple’s pursuit of wellness – and especially FDA-worthy merchandise, if they materialize – has the likely to be game-altering, however a essential concern, as Union Square Venture’s Fred Wilson perceptively observed, is “whether Apple will make it straightforward to get our data out.”
In other words, will Apple emulate Epic, a notoriously closed EMR (see here and right here) that’s earned the enmity of a lot of (such as Rock Health’s Co-Founder and CEO Halle Tecco, who pointed out at a current, outstanding DFJ Entrepreneurial Believed Leader speak that the Epic programs at UCSF and Stanford apparently can not even communicate with every other), but has constructed a tremendously effective product and business? Or will Apple try out to develop a a lot more open ecosystem, as championed by most other EMR vendors, who have a tendency to celebrate interoperability but frequently struggle for income.
It’s also crucial to acknowledge that, devices, apps, and breathless tech headlines not withstanding, Silicon Valley hasn’t disrupted healthcare – not even near. Disruption eventually calls for credible evidence of either improved outcomes, lowered costs, or each, yet turning information into affect is exceptionally challenging. We should celebrate passion – but not confuse it with the progress we hope it permits.
The guarantee, nevertheless, is unmistakable. In between Castlight’s anticipated $ 2B exit and Apple’s enthusiastic embrace, digital health’s robust likely may possibly ultimately be too tactile for customers, traders, and even health care solution firms to responsibly disregard.
With An Anticipated $2B IPO And Really like From Apple, Digital Well being Might Last but not least Get Respect
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