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Google Co-Founders on Healthcare: “Thanks, But No Thanks”

thehealthcareblog.com

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Re: Google Co-Founders on Healthcare: “Thanks, But No Thanks”

#91

Post by paletoy »

micro_cam wrote: post #56

Bringing a healthcare product to market is really hard. A friend just had a good one with a proven product and sales fail simply because institutional hospitals take to long to really implement a decision to the point they will actually pay for a piece of software they want to use even if it isn't something regulated. Google certainly has the cash to sit this sort of thing out, hire sales and support people etc. Micr…

> Bringing a healthcare product to market is really hard.

I think this is the place that google might enter and play well. If google can develop a very high-level , fda certified development tool/operating-system ,such that developing fda certified products become much easier , they could have a very big win on their hands.

I've seen some research on such systems ,so it's a clear possibility. And since it's a new thing , it might need some changes in the fda, which google has the tools to push.

Re: Google Co-Founders on Healthcare: “Thanks, But No Thanks”

#92

Post by rayiner »

niels_olson wrote: post #22
gph wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but that was the one specifically mentioned in the article so I figured I'd address it.

I think the most illuminating thing about HIPAA is the fact that it lays bare just how poorly doctors and lawyers and healthcare administrators actually understand logical security in the computer science sense. I will point to the use of fax machines as a superb example. The law essentially considers PGP and a fax machine to be security equivalents. And I say that as a doctor.

I think that ignores a lot of the technology involved. A fax van be intercepted, but an email is guaranteed to be recorded by intermediate servers. In most cases, e-mail will be data mined in a webmail system. So while PGP is clearly better, I think its reasonable to say fax is, in practice, better than email. Unless you want patients suddenly getting Valtrex ads because someone sent their health records over webmail.

Re: Google Co-Founders on Healthcare: “Thanks, But No Thanks”

#93

Post by k-mcgrady »

RoryH wrote: post #79

Brin's partner co-founded https://www.23andme.com/ and that got it's nose cut off by the FDA IIRC.

Rightly so. If I recall correctly, instead of just providing the results to you they also included recommendations to try to prevent things their tests had shown you were at risk of. Their tests have never been vetted/proven accurate by anyone other than themselves so providing health advice based on them is reckless. If they were allowed to continue anyone could start their own 'DNA testing service' create bogus reports and bogus recommendations and people could get hurt.

Re: Google Co-Founders on Healthcare: “Thanks, But No Thanks”

#94

Post by michaelt »

mcculley wrote: post #90
rayiner wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly I'm okay with health data being illiquid. Everyone should be absolutely terrified of this data getting into the hands of the same people that try to predict if you are pregnant to sell you crap, or use your credit history or Facebook posts to deny you a job. The future in that direction is "Google Gattaca."

I'm not. The illiquidity is why different healthcare specialists can't share data about me without resorting to a ten finger interface that leads to transcription errors. I want my general practitioner and my spine specialist to be using the same database for records, test, and scans. I'm okay with being embarrassed if it means living longer and better.

I wish I believed we could make a database shared between my GP and my spine specialist without my records also being shared with all insurers, employers, marketing companies, security services, medical researchers, credit rating agencies, and anyone who slips any hospital employee a hundred bucks.

Re: Google Co-Founders on Healthcare: “Thanks, But No Thanks”

#95

Post by mike_hearn »

vacri wrote: post #51
zenbowman wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the regulation has allowed people to die when there was a chance they would have lived without it. Regulations on advertising and OTC drugs are absolutely needed, but stopping a doctor from prescribing a risky drug to a terminally ill patient who will die without it anyway is counterproductive. The main reason people aren't healthy has nothing to do with the medical system or regulation. It has everything to…

stopping a doctor from prescribing a risky drug to a terminally ill patient who will die without it anyway is counterproductive. And if the patient survives, but has a debilitating condition that was a side-effect of that risky drug, then claims he was going to survive anyway and now his life has a shattered quality because the doctor prescribed an drug that hadn't been fully cleared yet? It's not as black and white…

Governments can test and give a stamp of approval to new drugs without punishing people who ignore their advice.

Re: Google Co-Founders on Healthcare: “Thanks, But No Thanks”

#96

Post by mherdeg »

tn13 wrote: post #40
zmmmmm wrote: post #35

It's worth noting that highly regulated industries are not necessarily bad for startups to enter, exactly because they throw up particularly high barriers to large companies. Google can't enter health without accepting the full baggage that comes with that - people worried about their privacy, every random nutter looking to sue them and get a payday, FDA breathing down their neck every step of the way, etc. A small s…

It sounds very contradictory. In most of the heavily regulated industries such as healthcare or insurance, one of the economic efficiencies are a better understanding of the complex law, startups can not solve this inefficiency in their favor.

Well-loved YCombinator startup Stripe spent a bunch of its early time wrangling with the complexity of the payments industry precisely so that their customers wouldn't have to.

Re: Google Co-Founders on Healthcare: “Thanks, But No Thanks”

#97

Post by tempodox »

I tend to believe that Goog won't do it. Imagine going from kingpin of the Internet, making the rules as it suits you, to an area where you're subject to laws made by others, just like everyone else. They wouldn't be that special any more. Methinks, they're too spoilt for that.

Re: Google Co-Founders on Healthcare: “Thanks, But No Thanks”

#98

Post by happyscrappy »

kgarten wrote: post #34
gph wrote: post #6

Healthcare is heavily regulated, and I understand why some companies would be reluctant to branch out into it. But that doesn't mean the privacy and legal concerns surrounding HIPAA regulations are unwarranted. Yea, it would be nice if we lived in an ethical utopia where we wouldn't have to feel worried about people looking through our health records. But we don't. I would not feel comfortable with my health records…

Why don't they just buy an island make their own country with their own rules?? ;)

They are just waiting for a spot on the map to open up. Something between Spain and Greece would be nice, it's much warmer there.

Re: Google Co-Founders on Healthcare: “Thanks, But No Thanks”

#99

Post by BrokenEnso »

mcculley wrote: post #90
rayiner wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly I'm okay with health data being illiquid. Everyone should be absolutely terrified of this data getting into the hands of the same people that try to predict if you are pregnant to sell you crap, or use your credit history or Facebook posts to deny you a job. The future in that direction is "Google Gattaca."

I'm not. The illiquidity is why different healthcare specialists can't share data about me without resorting to a ten finger interface that leads to transcription errors. I want my general practitioner and my spine specialist to be using the same database for records, test, and scans. I'm okay with being embarrassed if it means living longer and better.

I'd like for that database to be something that I control. This is, something that I carry with with me, like a usb stick; and that I have the software/tools to view it. Then I could actually take read though any notes and maybe take a more active role in my health.

Re: Google Co-Founders on Healthcare: “Thanks, But No Thanks”

#100

Post by happyscrappy »

vertex-four wrote: post #75
jamra wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as the laws continue to adapt in order to protect people from discrimination, we are on the right track.

This is the USA, it's about 40-50 years behind even my country (the UK) on discrimination-related law and practice, and law related to societal issues in general. One could argue that this is just the set of trade-offs that the US has made for itself, but the real-world results are looking grim.

What do you mean? Is being left handed considered a disability?
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