Providing healthcare is a giant pain. Escalating costs and an aging population are causing a political divide. They are also pushing government budgets to the breaking point.
A pair of startups have a fix. Doctor on Demand and Healthy.io want to use software and the smartphones most of us can’t live without to slash costs and revolutionize healthcare.
As the name suggests, Doctor on Demand focuses on scheduling. The software facilitates video consultations using a smartphone. After the session, the doctor can order tests or even write prescriptions.
Think of it as Facetime, but with your doctor.
For Hill Ferguson, chief executive of the San Francisco startup, the big benefit is empowerment. The patient gets to decide when the consultation happens and even where the lab work is completed. That is a big improvement over being “told where to go by your provider,” says Ferguson.
Healthy.io is pushing the smartphone angle even further. It wants to turn the device into a piece of medical equipment. Time reports the process starts with a physical test kit sent by mail. Users provide a urine sample on a card, scan the results with their smartphone camera and send that data to the doctor. The analysis happens immediately.
Cutting out the laboratory opens up more efficient opportunities for early detection. In the long run, these factors slash the cost of providing care.
According to reports from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the U.S. spent $3.2 trillion providing healthcare in 2015, or $9,990 per person. And the national health expenditure grew 5.8% in 2015, representing 17.8% of the gross domestic product.
This means the United States spends more for healthcare than any other country. While it makes sense: Rich countries spend more on services. It is not clear that the U.S. is deriving good value.
Many studies show that America does not receive superior outcomes despite high expenditures. In fact, health outcomes continually fall below the United Kingdom, another rich country, despite spending roughly three times more per capita.
Technology companies hope software can change that. Alphabet (GOOGL), through its wholly owned subsidiary, Verily, recently announced a 10,000-person, four-year study in conjunction with Stanford and Duke universities.
Each subject will wear a custom wrist sensor capable of continuously collecting heart data. Additionally, every year, they will undergo detailed medical tests, offering blood, sweat, urine and even tears. The goal is to digitalize everything and then use powerful machine-learning software to learn more about general health and preventative measures to reduce costs.
The past two decades have seen a software revolution spawned by digitalization. Software changed the way we consume media and buy products and services. Decidedly analog experiences were transformed into bits of data that could be manipulated and optimized with software. The result was plummeting costs.
I’m constantly on the lookout for investments to take advantage of the new digital world. It’s a big story that will provide many winners. Healthcare, despite all the advances in medicine, is largely untouched by digitalization. That is about to change. Make sure you are ready.
Best wishes,
Jon Markman
