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With Microsoft following Google on the way out of EHRs, it is disconcerting that Apple is getting in on the game...


It is official, Microsoft is exiting the Health Records business altogether, shuttering HealthVault completely and sending consumers elsewhere. In lieu of admitting defeat, they are issuing hyperboles about looking at the enterprise and so on. That is just fine. Like Google, they have probably learned that their holier than thou attitude doesn't extend to many areas of healthcare.

Why Apple is worse

I must admit. I have never been a fan of Apple. Most of what they have done involves being second, or third, or fourth in class, slapping pricey labels on things and bully vendors. And their things are getting more expensive all the time. And honestly, while the media hypes about how Apple is the next best thing since sliced bread (pun intended), you have to take a few things into consideration.

First, they said the same thing about Google and while they were "verily" solving blood glucose monitoring on Powerpoint, er, Google Slides. We know how that ended.

Second, Apple is a very controlling company, with closed systems in silos. Unless you are apathetic or ignorant, how can you call that a good thing for healthcare?

Third, they charge well above what their services are worth, and so once again, I repeat, unless you are apathetic or ignorant, how can you call that a good thing for healthcare?

Fourth, and this is stated with quite  bit of pleasure - remember Apple maps? 

So, there is no guarantee that they will succeed, and should they do so, I am almost certain it is not a good thing. 


EHRs are complex. Patient privacy is involved. Data vulnerability is an ever-present danger. Healthcare is already very expensive - adding unreasonably expensive products and services from vendors does not make any sense. It may be slightly better than giving out fake contracts worth millions of dollars to your friends for PR - paging Seema Verma, but that does not make it a good thing!

Anything related to healthcare needs to be part of the long game. The problems are complex, there is a lot of politics involved, and cost-efficiency is a must. Tech companies, especially of the Google kind think that they can use customers as guinea pigs, releasing products in wishy-washy cycles, and remove features, or shutter products and services on a whim. This is NOT how healthcare problems will be successfully solved. 

Can T. Rex play Ping-Pong? 

Besides the go-it-alone-because-we-know-everything approaches that Apple and Google (although, they now have Verb Surgical) like, there is the Approach IBM took with an entirely different problem - using Watson to solve cancer by pairing up with M.D. Anderson. 

I liken that to two T. Rex (the word has no plural, mind you), deciding to play Ping-Pong and then after much agonizing effort, finding out, they have really short forearms, and should have taken the time to consider that first. 

Today, especially when it comes to the Artificial Intelligence hype cycle, "partnerships" are being announced at such a breathtaking pace that it is hard to keep up. Nothing wrong with partnerships, but you have to make sure that it is strategically sound, is actually complementary and clearly steers away from being a partnership, only in name, where one party just dumps their technology and a lot of funds and grants to desperate researchers and practitioners!

So what would drive success with EHRs?

Well thought, secure, planned and executed products, that are iterated in an evolutionary manner through testing and improvement. The approach, whether a solo effort, or a partnership or involving several partners, needs to put patients first and take a humble approach to a problem no one has solved yet! 

There are several experts who have spent their lifetimes thinking about digitization. Playing the game without involving them is just irresponsible. It is also important to play the long game, be respectful of patients and not change features and products on whim. EHRs and emails are completely different. 

Interoperability should be more than a nice bell or whistle, and something you actually strive for. Along with that should come some degree of openness - more the better, so that it is not a dog-eats-dog approach, but rather a co-operative, collaborative one, acknowledging that not everyone wants to be bound by your product or service. 

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References:

1. Microsoft's Exit: https://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/microsoft-will-officially-shut-down-healthvault-later-year?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpSbU5qaG1ZakJoWlRBMSIsInQiOiJuTFBLUm9uRzc2MGh6bjQ1b1hPSExvUlZLb3dRcDI4cTFhRytZNmJoZ0ZUWHRDbTNJTmRHcm5GenM5dUhSS1hvTE51QVRyMFg3eE4rODRCclRwQjNcL2hxeGZmRFdJeUtOVXF0akFtRk54ZForTnJaaG1pSHdZRk9LU2RrSjk4b0YifQ%3D%3D

2.  Image of health tools: https://www.pexels.com/photo/assorted-doctors-tools-935869/

3. Image of silos: https://pixabay.com/photos/silo-tanks-blue-sky-blue-sky-2133890/

4. Image of office equipment: https://picjumbo.com/download/?d=elegant-office-desk-equipment.jpg&n=elegant-office-desk-equipment-close-up&id=1

5. T. Rex Graphic: https://unsplash.com/photos/hYKG311mff8

6. Success Graphic: https://www.pexels.com/photo/marketing-school-business-idea-21696/


This post first appeared on Medical Devices, Biotechnology, Bioengineering And The Like, please read the originial post: here

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With Microsoft following Google on the way out of EHRs, it is disconcerting that Apple is getting in on the game...

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