Apple Watch shows how Medical Devices and Services will move Down Market

Medical Devices and Services will move Down Market, and Apple Watch ECG is an example.
Apple Watch ECG is an example of a medical device moving down market from professional to home use.

Via CNBC: Apple Watch can now detect your irregular heart rhythms and other problems

Here’s how it works:

Following the trajectory of Moore’s Law, medical devices will keep getting smaller, cheaper, more accurate, and easier to use. This trend has four important implications:

  1. CONTEXT: Continuous sensor monitoring will give doctors context and remote insight into what’s contributing to out-of-range readings, helping patients make healthier lifestyle decisions about diet, exercise, sleep, and stress management (the pillars of health & wellness);
  2. CONSUMERS: Increasingly, more and more medical functions will move down-market from doctors and specialists in clinics and hospitals to consumers at home and on the go;
  3. REMOTE MONITORING: Telehealth services can and will be located anywhere: across town or across state lines or international borders, once laws and regulations allow that; and
  4. PERSONALIZED MEDICINE: Artificial Intelligence will give meaning to the mountains of accumulated sensor data and give actionable insight when and as needed. Eventually, AI will play a more active role and even respond to patients’ health conditions directly. AI will even replace some of the work of doctors, causing many to resist.

There’s natural resistance to these trends within the medical community, because profits — perverse profits — are at stake. How much? Because the US spends about $3.5 trillion/year on healthcare, which is twice what other advanced nations pay for better care and outcomes, the potential is to cut that spending in half and thus save well over $1.5 trillion each year.

In my perfect world, politicians would value the economic benefits of making strategic public investments in our nation’s health and wellness. That would result in improved worker productivity, GDP and global competitiveness. If they saw healthcare as a public utility, they’d establish a different set of incentives and fund enabling research. But that’s a big IF, because they’re too corrupted by wealthy special interests. That’s why I often say fixing our broken healthcare system requires fixing our political system, and why I write so much about healthcare policy and politics.

A CAUTIONARY NOTE

My short article above comes from the perspective of a technologist and futurist looking at the possibilities. But futurists aren’t wedded to one version of the future; they consider multiple scenarios. For that reason, I must also share the dark side that comes with immense financial opportunity, and greed.

Stephen Brill in his 38-page TIME report, Bitter Pill: Why High Medical Bills Are Killing Us, described a medical industrial complex that includes the medical device industry. That industry is the subject of Bleeding Edge, a Netflix documentary. The danger is when regulatory oversight is relaxed and industry is given free reign.

 

If the medical device safety issues raised in this documentary disturb you, Dr. Zubin Damania, host of the ZDoggMD podcast, adds more perspective in this next 14-min video. He explains the conflicts of interests of industry-sponsored medical trials and the dangers of lax FDA oversight. With that insight, you’ll know what to ask your doctor before surgery.

 

Now I should note that Apple Watch ECG, AI, and Telehealth examples I mention as the subject of this post are NOT part of the medical device industry featured in the documentary. They could, however, succumb to the same influences of greed and avarice. That’s why we must craft appropriate public policies and regulatory oversights of them too. The challenge is doing that with the best interest of the public in mind — without excessive influence from special interests.

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One Comment

  1. RELATED ARTICLES:

    Health care is one of Apple’s most lucrative opportunities: Morgan Stanley (CNBC 4/8/19)

    Apple Watch ECG vs. hospital EKG: Not the results I was expecting (CNET July 2019)

    Amazon, Walmart and Best Buy quietly entered Healthcare market to disrupt an industry resisting change. The big winner? Consumers. (Inc. September 2019) I COMMENTED:

    TRENDS — This trend of retail clinics, telehealth phone consults, home healthcare visits, and home delivery matches up perfectly with what I’ve written about for five years. As medical devices keep getting smaller, cheaper, more accurate, and easier to use, many medical functions will move downmarket from physicians in doctor offices to consumers at home.

    RESISTANCE — Healthcare CEOs, who invested in political influence to reinforce their perverse profits and currently sit at the top of the mountain, now look down with fear at the tech innovators hungry for disruptive change.

    WHY — Americans are sick and tired of spending twice on healthcare as other advanced nations, and they’re demanding change. If they can’t get it politically, because this industry cartel owns the politicians, they’ll seek change elsewhere, giving companies like Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy a giant sized opening. Those wanting to disrupt US healthcare, cut spending in half or more, and save $1.5 trillion/year, or more, need to know “Why American Healthcare is So Expensive” in the first place.

    3 must-haves to hit telehealth’s tipping point (AMA December 2019)

    I’m surprised to see the AMA support telehealth rather than block it as they’ve done before. Maybe they’re seeing it as inevitable and the only way to compete with new entries like Amazon, Walmart, and CVS that combine technology with retail clinics and local sale of prescription drugs and medical devices.

    As I wrote years ago, the exponentially accelerating pace of tech innovation is making medical devices cheaper, smaller, more accurate, and easier to use. That trend is enabling disruptive new business models as more & more work of doctors in offices moves down-market to consumers when and wherever they are.

    Medical industry incumbents still need to worry about telehealth across state lines and international borders as the tech makes that easier, less expensive, and more convenient, because foreign telehealth services may someday become safer and more expensive if U.S. alternatives aren’t competitive.

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