Technology in Health Care

Bad is the standard in health care technology. That is for certain. I am referring to the technology of data management, workflow solutions, provider networking, etc. Why is this so? There are a lot of reasons. But the one I would like to highlight in this post is the lack of good techies in health care. Let me explain and address the technorati as well.

Most of the cool tech tools and apps are coming from programmers and developers who see a problem or opportunity then set about solving or seizing. Not so in health care. Very few involved in direct patient care (where we desperately need current tech deployed) can write the lines of code, design UIs or do anything closely resembling the skills required to bring this needed tech to fruition. We (providers) are really good at health care, which you should be as stoked about as we are about kickstands on the Evo, credit card payments on your iPhone, the Starwalk app, Twitter, Google and so forth. We are not good at design, develop, deploy for stuff that we really need.

Buried within the situation I just described is the enormous complexity of the health care system. It is not an environment given to innovation, which can be quickly brought to the deploy phase. There are significant considerations not important to the general tech community. And I have come to believe that the best and brightest developers, programmers, entrepreneurs and VCs flee from this space like it is the Black Plague of death. But here is something the technorati all-stars need to realize, if you neglect this space YOU will pay for it personally and likely, deeply regret the neglect. I am completely confident in that statement, not because I am a prophet, rather because I know everyone on earth occupies a body which will at some point in time need health care. I see it everyday, suffering, pain, confusion, sadness, despair. These are not descriptors of the rare encounter with patients nor is it usual to certain populations. If you are 23 and healthy you have a legitimate reason for a big disconnect in what I am saying. But most people never tune into their health until it is too late. We need the tools of technology to help us help us all be healthy.

Typically we see giant projects deploying legacy software at huge cost with little ability to respond quickly to users ( patients and providers) needs. We need agile development with resonable costs. We need apps that work. We need UIs that either look like what we are used to or are such design miracles that we don't need hours of training to figure out how to use them. We need ways to gather the enormous amount of data that is generated during patient/provider interactions. We need good ways for patients to access their providers. We need good ways for providers to access each other. I could keep going, but I think you get the point.

What I am trying to do is light a fire that will cause some serious disruption in health care. There are some very exciting discoveries, which will have huge potential impacts on our health. We need good technology to help us. My personal favorite area of promise is epigenetics. If we only had good ways to collect massive amounts of data about us and our behaviors. Then we could make some serious headway in this promising field.

That's it. We need your help. It's cool to be the mayor of Starbucks in Palo Alto. But it really sucks to have cancer! Think about that for a while.