The Center for Telehealth and Cybermedicine Research found that while enthusiasm for telehealth was high among patients and (some) caregivers, not every clinic could perceive a benefit. It is very easy, for example, to lose the advantages of this technology without first doing some preliminary research on your particular center and patients. Telehealth must be needs-driven, filling gaps in health services that are not effectively met.

In some cases, demand for telehealth may not be very high. If patients can find care at other facilities or may be reluctant to seek care for certain diseases, then telehealth may not be helpful. Similarly, if practitioners are reluctant to use telehealth tools, this reluctance may place such a system in jeopardy.

Electronic health record (EHR) integration can be one obstacle to telehealth (at least among practitioners). Aside from data security and confidentiality issues, practitioners perceive converting records to electronic format as a burden. However, conversion is becoming easier, and improvements in remote devices are allowing us to integrate many records and data of patient vital statistics into the system, including blood pressure, weight, oxygen saturation, etc.  If developed correctly, EHR adoption, remote monitoring, and health information exchange (HIE) systems can be complementary to telehealth and improve efficiencies in provision of care, improve health outcomes, and reduce costs.

Reimbursement is another issue. A project conducted by our ophthalmology division screened patients with diabetes who were at risk for retinopathy. An eye specialist looked at retinal images with a camera that didn’t require eye drops (therefore, a highly skilled caregiver wasn’t needed at the patient’s location). Two hundred patients were scanned, and approximately 40 percent of them needed referrals. Of those referrals, 5 percent were in danger of going blind without immediate treatment. Here, telehealth provided better access, improved patient health, and reduced costs of care. Yet Medicare would not cover these types of diagnostic image interpretations (called “Store and Forward”) and related referral services, because it only covers that type of Store and Forward remote services in Alaska and Hawaii. On an optimistic note: Coverage requirements can change (in fact, Medicare has already changed coverage rules for some services)!

Other obstacles to telehealth success include:

• Not thinking about sustainability. Your program may have started out with a grant, but it needs to continue operating after the grant expires. Controlling technology costs is key, as is finding out which technology is most appropriate.
• What’s the best technology? It’s always changing, making it hard to know where to turn. And often, the latest tool isn’t the best solution for a specific practice or facility. At the Center, we are always helping end-users develop the right technology mix. Often, the right mix may have to be invented.
• Telehealth may not immediately fit into a practice’s workflow. If you only have one patient using your conferencing facility, that’s a problem. Reasonable volume is key to providing adequate return on investment, as is making telehealth systems scalable to incorporate other health services. You’ll need to develop a business operating plan stating how telehealth encounters will be scheduled, how to document each encounter, what you need to build and design, how many staff you need, and what your upfront and operating costs are.
• Lack of data. Make sure you document your encounters, and analyze whether your programs are successful. How many more patients did you see? What were the outcomes? What’s the impact on costs? This data also is crucial for systems developers to create the right solutions for telehealth.

Telehealth and information technologies are needed for healthcare reform in this country. It’s going to be an interesting time, getting people connected to care. But it’s the way we do it that’s going to make the biggest difference.

Do you work for a technology company that aims to make a difference in how telehealth is practiced? Are you a health care provider who believes telehealth can make a significant impact to your practice? What, if any, are its limitations? Please tell us what you think.

At Popper and Co., we make an effort to search for technology solutions that can truly make a difference in health care, and often we’ve been skeptical of the “latest shiny new thing.” While I believe that sometimes technology apps appear to be solutions in search of a problem, we are arriving at a point in time when a happy merger between health care and health technology may be feasible. Why?

• Because we (the scientific and technology community) now understand enough about biology to adapt technology to address real clinical problems. Our knowledge of genetics alone allows us to design targeted (i.e., “personalized”) therapeutic solutions.
• Because cost and resource constraints have led to patients being more engaged in the price and quality of their health care.
• Because consumer power has forced many practitioners (and technologists) to consider the “might” of this market.
• Because new technologies facilitate fundamental health service innovation for providers as well as patients.

In response to a related article by David Shaywitz, Popper and Co. strategic advisor Paul Sonnier had this to say:

While we need to be cautious about broad generalizations when it comes to digital health (which includes non-FDA-regulated consumer solutions) and the business sectors where it is having a direct impact, drug development – an area of focus in Mr. Shaywitz’s Forbes piece – is certainly seeing the integration of wireless technologies in a beneficial way. For example, new, “virtual clinical trials” enabled by smartphones and other apps allow patients to register and participate in drug trials without visiting a clinical site. Moreover, monitoring clinical trial participant compliance and relevant vital signs via wireless health devices can provide a greater level of detail and confidence in study data and conclusions, which is also of benefit in obtaining FDA clearance. DNA sequencing, too, which has been described as “bio-digital health,” allows for more targeted clinical trial participant selection and a movement away from population-based medicine. These examples alone illustrate digital health’s potential to improve biopharma’s bottom line and, ultimately, create better, more individualized health care.

Finally, here are some thoughts on the topic from Popper and Co. co-founder Ken Walz:

Many new emerging technologies have disruptive potential; including smart phones for clinical trials, remote diagnosis and data interpretation, for example. And there are some areas of health care in which patients and practitioners may be more amenable to adopting new technology. But not every part of medical practice is welcoming technology with open arms. It’s important to note that many of the areas that aren’t as accepting happen to be the more challenging areas of medicine. To assess the fate of all technology based on its current lack of proven utility in specific niches of health care may be setting the bar needlessly high.

In fact, targeting areas that are less “sexy,” but nonetheless important—e.g., process workflow improvement, better use of sensors, remote monitoring of patient compliance, and online appointment scheduling and lab result access—could deliver a great deal of value through new technology adoption.

Where do you see the most ideal matches between technology and health care? What challenging areas of medicine might be better postponing marriages with technology for another day? Do you have specific questions about the convergence of technology and health care that you’d like to pose to us? Share with us here.

At the Center for Telehealth and Cybermedicine Research at the University of New Mexico, we studied the ability of telehealth tools (e.g., video connections, conference calling, electronic record sharing) to improve access and outcomes of rural New Mexicans suffering from a variety of health problems. In that role, we have been the incubator for several applications of telehealth designed to integrate the technologies that address important healthcare needs and gaps in access. One example was hepatitis C. While this disease is curable, multiple treatments are required and patients must be monitored for adverse effects. Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) was initially incubated in our Center under the leadership of Dr. Sanjeev Arora. That project was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrating how the program provided community healthcare providers with the expertise and tools they needed to treat hundreds, if not thousands, of people who previously were receiving no care for hepatitis C. In addition, outcomes of these remote patients were as good as outcomes of patients who traveled (often hundreds of miles) to the University’s medical center in Albuquerque.

This model was successful enough that it is now being expanded into other treatment areas, such as cardiology, rheumatology, and even adolescent psychiatry. For example, adolescents on Indian reservations, who have very high rates of suicide, are benefitting from counseling. Once the patient and practitioner are familiar with the technology, online counseling sessions are very similar to face-to-face encounters.

In addition to improving patient outcomes and access to care, telehealth can reduce costs in the clinic. At the University of New Mexico, our head of neurosurgery worked with The Center to set up a system where surgeons could view patient CT scans through a secure web portal. Because of this system, 44 percent of risky patient transfers were avoided, simply by looking at the scans remotely before surgery.

In rural New Mexico, the access improvements of telehealth appear obvious (though telehealth doesn’t work in every situation, an issue I’ll discuss in a future post). But the technology can also work in urban areas, bypassing transportation and traffic congestion problems by bringing virtual care to the patient. This is health care where it’s needed, when it’s needed.

One effect of health care reform that isn’t making headlines is that increased demand for services will be placed on a limited resource: existing health care providers. But telehealth systems will help meet this new demand by providing services to nearly everyone. For example, Dr. Arora, one of the few liver specialists in New Mexico, stated as we helped start his project that he couldn’t personally treat the 30,000 New Mexicans with hepatitis C at that time. But with the help of specialists—such as Dr. Arora and his team—at the touch of a button or the click of a mouse, community practitioners can readily access experts.

What do you see as the limitations of telehealth? Is rural New Mexico a truly unique niche for this technology? In my next post, we’ll discuss the importance of setting up an operating plan, and more cost-cutting benefits of telehealth. In the mean time, if you have any questions about my telehealth study or work, please post them here.

There is no successful treatment for osteoarthritis, but an intriguing talk we saw at TedMed 2011 made a connection between this disease and telomeres, the “caps” on the end of chromosomes that play a strong role in aging.

As part of Popper and Co.’s efforts to bring you the latest in health care innovation, strategy and business development, we are highlighting new research that shows that telomere shortening associated with aging can not only be influenced by stress and psychological states of mind, but also may accelerate the development of osteoarthritis.

A recent paper reported that in cartilage cells (chondrocytes) of patients with osteoarthritis, telomere lengths were shortened much more than patients without the disease. In this study, a Danish research team used a newly developed universal single telomere length assay that measures telomere lengths. The team found that telomeres were much shorter in cells that were nearer to the damaged areas of the joint. In addition, higher numbers of shortened telomeres were found in more severe cases.

This study is remarkable because it is one of the first studies of telomeres in human patients, and because it made use of a new assay technology that could more precisely measure telomere length and relate it to disease progression. Other papers have made connections between osteoarthritis, oxidative stress and telomere length.

All of this points to new therapeutic possibilities for osteoarthritis. Could reversing telomere shortening halt osteoarthritis? Or is it already too late when you see telomere shortening? How could we control oxidative stress on chondrocytes to prevent  or slow the progression of osteoarthritis? Do you see this as having therapeutic promise for the life sciences industry? Let us know what you think.

Roche’s aggressive move may be motivated by an optimism that arose from whole genome-sequencing on the individual level. We noted this rising tide of optimism early last year, and many advances have been reported since then. We’re certainly seeing many examples of the application of next-gen sequencing to diagnose disease and to help match the right drugs to the right patients. Examples of companies that are staking claims over the early application of targeted sequencing of specific panels of genes for diagnostics include our client Multiplicom, which develops CE-marked, multiplexed PCR kits to generate templates for next-gen sequencing, and Foundation Medicine, which is using targeted sequencing to help diagnose certain cancers and to guide the treatment of cancer patients.

But when viewing the widespread adoption of DNA sequencing, there’s a vast difference between the targeted sequencing of selected panels of genes, exome sequencing, and whole genome sequencing. As noted in our coverage of the 2011 Molecular Med Tri-Con, the challenge of interpreting the large reams of data gathered from scanning the full genome remains the elephant in the room.  We will be attending this year’s Tri-Con later this month and look forward to hearing about progress in this regard.

In addition to the challenge of data analysis, we still face some persistent technical issues. Although the cost of DNA sequencing is declining rapidly, there are significant improvements to the technology that are yet to be realized. Speed, cost, and accuracy will be key drivers of clinical and diagnostic DNA sequencing. Although costs are declining rapidly, most next-gen sequencing platforms are somewhat error prone and they have relatively slow cycle times. The accuracy problem is overcome by re-sequencing samples to a high level of coverage or redundancy to help eliminate stochastic errors.  High sequence coverage is also needed to identify cancer causing mutations that are present at low frequency and in samples that often contain a mixture of both healthy and cancerous cells.

In clinical applications where patients’ lives are at stake, an accurate diagnosis is crucial. So improved accuracy will not only generate more reliable data, but will also reduce the computational burden, and lower the overall cost and the time required for analysis. Achieving the 1000x sequencing coverage that is required for cancer-related applications is a weighty burden. Sequencing platforms with higher levels of accuracy, lower cost and higher speed will provide a significant advantage. LaserGen is a forward-thinking company (and Popper and Co client) that has developed advanced sequencing chemistry with greatly improved accuracy, reduced cycle times, and lower cost relative to existing next-gen chemistries. This combination of improved speed, cost, and accuracy could help to drive more widespread adoption of next-gen sequencing for clinical and diagnostic applications.

Also, as noted in a recent Bloomberg News article about young twins whose illness was clearly identified via genome sequencing, many obstacles, including lack of health insurance coverage for sequencing, will likely impede progress. Until payers wrestle with a future that includes a populace that is well-informed about their genetic predispositions, even affordable gene-sequencing may find itself relegated to a pile of non-insurable “preventative” claims. And as mentioned earlier—we still do not fully understand the function of every part of the genome.

Ultimately, I believe Roche’s acquisition of Illumina—if it goes through—will be good for the gene sequencing industry, good for Roche’s competitors and good for healthcare consumers. The buyout of Illumina helps validate the idea that sequencing will become part of the diagnostic and clinical toolbox in the near future. Whether companies realize this and plan accordingly, or whether the wave simply carries everyone along, remains to be seen.

Do you agree that this is a good move for the diagnostics and sequencing industry as a whole? What might it mean for your company or your spot in the life science industry? Please share your thoughts with us here.

Let me explain: The telomere protects our chromosomes from becoming tattered and damaged. The enzyme telomerase helps maintain a healthy cell. As telomerase levels and activity diminish over time, our telomeres shorten and no longer divide, our cells age and no longer function properly; they then die, and well, eventually we die.

Shortened telomeres do not divide properly and can throw our bodies out of balance, leading to increased inflammation and illness. Telomeres are influenced by non-genetic “lifestyle” factors such as well-being, diet and exercise.  Telomere length may be influenced by psychological stress and depression, and such states as “seeing red” and “rumination.” The recent TEDMED 2011 talk by Calvin Hurley and Elissa Epel on how stress ages cells and cuts telomeres short brings up some interesting ideas on how to possibly alter stress-shortened telomeres. Depending on the type of stress, the level of stress, and the meaning we assign to that stress, it can change our physiological state and increase blood pressure, heart rate, and levels of insulin and cortisol—all of which influence our biology.

In some respects, we have the potential to create our own “wireless” applications through the messages we send from the brain to the rest of the body. In addition, messages sent from the environment can change the “connections” in our nervous system. This idea originated more than 100 years ago, but it is an area that continues to receive a lot of interest and attention.

Thoughts and well-being influence the many cellular activities in our body that in turn influence health or illness. Simple activities like mindful meditation, exercise and relaxation may positively influence how our cells age.

In the search for better and innovative ideas to create ‘quality of life,’ some of the onus may be on us to implement change in our daily activities by embracing stress-reducing activities that provide high value.

Do you think that our mental state can forestall aging at this chromosomal level? Or, is this an artifact of cell biology research that might not be applicable to humans? Does this present a new area for therapy (or at least therapeutic research for life science companies)? Share your thoughts with us.

CP: Paul, tell us what happened in Vegas that shouldn’t stay in Vegas?

PS: There were two themes that will—and should—escape Vegas and transform our health. The first theme, digital health, was underscored by Eric Topol’s keynote address and hardcover book release. This was the most cogent expression I’ve seen of the convergence of consumer health, clinical care, research, and life sciences. Greg Lucier, CEO of Life Technologies, illustrated the second theme with his announcement of the company’s new $1,000 genome sequencer, which has the ability to be used in a doctor’s office. Lucier explained that technology is moving medicine into the “genetics age.”

CP: Ken, what did you take away from the OneMedForum and the Digital Health Summit?

KW: Generally, the panelists at OneMedForum (who represented private companies) were optimistic about the impact of innovation on healthcare quality, but were less optimistic about investment in these innovations. They also cited the usual impediments to progress – regulatory hurdles and reimbursement issues.

There were also some standouts among diagnostics and device companies, including:

• Invuity, a late-stage medtech firm, which has developed a device to deliver direct illumination, without heat, to assist surgeons.
• BrainScope, another late-stage firm, which has developed a non-invasive way to rapidly diagnose and assess traumatic brain injury.
• Ridge Diagnostics, which is developing diagnostics for neuropsychiatric disorders, including clinical depression.

At the Digital Health Summit, John Sculley, the former CEO of Apple who is becoming familiar to the many people reading the recently published biography of Steve Jobs, compared the current state of the digital health industry segment to that of the PC business in the early-1980s. We can only hope that some of the young companies in this space grow to play as important a role in our lives and our economy as Apple, Microsoft and IBM have.

CP: Shane, what were some key observations from the JPM conference?

SC: There was a bit less optimism here among instrument and tool companies, as the presenting companies from this sector seem to be struggling to maintain growth rates. Reduced (or flat) funding within the academic market is having an impact on sales, even though academic markets constitute no more than 20 percent of those companies’ revenues.

Future sales growth and manufacturing of product may depend on the success of these companies in getting into markets in China, India, South Korea, and Brazil (though North America and Europe will continue to be important).

As Paul mentioned, the announcement of large-scale, low-cost genome-scanning technologies shows the remarkable progress in next-gen DNA sequencing. At the same time, we’re seeing more software tools to support data analysis and cloud-based tools that make this technology accessible to more labs.

Clinical markets for sequencing could expand to $24 million in the next few years, while cancer and newborn sequencing markets could explode, perhaps up to $300 million. But the biggest market of all? Consumer sequencing, says Illumina CEO Jay Flatley, now that the technology is easier to use, and more affordable.

Next up? Paul has helped to organize an event focused on the integration of life science technology developments into digital health. “Personalized Medicine: How Genomics and Wireless Technologies are Making Healthcare More Predictive, Preventive, Personalized and Participatory” will take place in San Diego on January 24. Stay tuned for more learnings around medical and life sciences innovation, as we’ll report them in this blog.

Did you attend JPM12, OneMedForum or the Digital Health Summit? Do you have takeaways to share with our readers and us? Do you agree that this is the year we will see the power of the consumer in digital health? We look forward to hearing from you.

Paul Sonnier, our third strategic advisor, already has given us—and you, our clients–invaluable advice on the brave new world of digital health. His perspective is vital to understanding the innovations that are opening doors to new paradigms in consumer health and influencing healthcare across the board.

Paul most recently served as vice president of partner development at the Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance (WLSA), a global trade organization that is dedicated to creating value and improving health globally, through the convergence of communications technologies, consumers, caregivers and all sectors of life sciences and technology.

If you are on LinkedIn, and particularly if you are a user of the Groups feature, you may recognize him as the founder of the 8,000+-member Wireless Health group. This group serves as an ethical, curated forum for advancing professional knowledge and relationships among individuals interested in the super-convergence taking place between the digital world and the “medical cocoon,” as dubbed by Dr. Eric Topol. This includes the four domains of what comprises digital medicine (genomics, wireless sensors and devices, imaging and health information systems) along with technological forces ranging from the Internet to mobile connectivity. Since its inception in 2009, the group has increased in scope to include the full digital transformation of consumer health, healthcare delivery, and medicine.

Jumping in with both feet, Paul is attending the Digital Health Summit in Las Vegas this week and will have takeaways to share in future blog posts. Notes Paul, “For some analysts, the feeling is that ‘mHealth’ is stuck in neutral. But digital technology is everywhere and mobile connectivity—enabled by wireless—is one of the driving trends in health, healthcare, as well as the broader consumer markets…” We hope you’ll stay tuned for more insights from Paul.

Via this blog, our Twitter stream at @Popperandco, and through “real-life” interactions, we look forward to continuing to provide you with front-row seats to life science innovations – now with extra depth in digital. And, we’re glad Paul will be helping us by adding his unique expertise and perspective.

Questions for Paul? Thoughts on the potential affects of digital in healthcare? Please share your comments with us.

Ken:

Every year we look forward to the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference as an opportunity to renew industry acquaintances, look for business opportunities on behalf of our clients and to do a pulse-check on the outlook for the coming year. The overall sentiment at JPM is often cited as an industry barometer and by Tuesday or Wednesday we’ll all be reading and hearing about “the mood at JP Morgan.” Hopefully, this year that mood will be “optimistic.”

Recently, other conferences have taken advantage of the swarm of life science professionals descending on San Francisco by scheduling events that complement rather than compete with JPM. For example, the OneMedForum takes place across the street from JPM’s venue with a focus on emerging companies and panel discussions; this forum is distinctly different from JPM, with its packed agenda of (mostly) public company presentations.

Paul:

Could this be the year we see tangible traction vis-a-vis the convergence of genomics, consumer health, and clinical health care? I’ll find out how close we are at the Digital Health Summit at CES, the Consumer Electronics Show. I’m looking forward to hearing Greg Lucier, CEO of Life Technologies, talk about his company’s intentions for the digital health space (one of Life’s goals is to drive the cost of a complete genome analysis below $1,000).

Also, world-famous cardiologist and digital health visionary Dr. Eric Topol will release the hardcover (non-digital) version of his book, The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care. I’m also hoping to see a demonstration of Qualcomm Life’s 2Net Platform. Paul Jacobs, the CEO of Qualcomm – the parent of Qualcomm Life, which is its wholly owned subsidiary – will discuss the platform’s ability to catalyze the ecosystem of digital health innovators.

We’ll bring back our impressions and views of these exciting meetings and what they mean for you – our life science clients, but feel free in the mean time to let us know how you view our industry as you face the year ahead. Please post your comments below.

While the lexicon for mHealth (an amalgam of “mobile” and “health”) is diverse and overlapping, a natural theme emerges if we look at the genesis of the term. The PC and ever-smaller, more powerful computer microprocessors spawned the digital revolution. Recently, we’ve seen the mobile revolution taking hold, wherein digital tools and wireless technologies have converged to allow us to be connected consumers, patients, and professionals. Now we are seeing a digital health revolution, wherein mobile, and the connectivity it provides for us, is enabling a new paradigm for health. Moreover, this phenomenon is spreading throughout the entire life sciences and health care ecosystem, including all strategics. To characterize all of this as simply being a combination of mobile and health is not only ambiguous (the term “mobile” has often been used interchangeably to mean a cell phone or mobility), but is somewhat disingenuous to the fundamentals that are driving this paradigm shift. Of course, mHealth is a very catchy and accessible term – and proponents have steadily broadened its meaning – so it’s often easier to make a concession in many modes of communication rather than fight a good-natured but losing battle!

In terms of how the overall ecosystem and, in particular, businesses are leveraging digital, wireless, and mobile, there are varying schools of thought and analyses – not surprisingly, the prism one views it through shapes the assessment.

For some analysts, like John Moore at Chilmark Research, the feeling is that “mHealth” is stuck in neutral. But this perspective is often colored by the framework of mHealth being mostly about health apps and mobile tools in healthcare settings and in population health management, and about smartphone health apps for consumers. The healthcare status quo is precisely what many are trying to disrupt, hence it will be those who can succeed at the peripheries, in novel ways, which may effect changes in the current business and reimbursement models. Necessarily, these innovations are going to see sporadic success, at least initially. Dr. Joe Kvedar, Director of the Center for Connected Health in Boston, echoes this same sentiment in his recent blog post “Is disruption of mainstream healthcare the answer to our crisis?”.

In an effort to track some of the better known startups making progress, healthcare startup accelerator Rock Health has compiled an extensive list of Digital Health Startups which, not surprisingly, are not household names. In total numbers these are small, but they represent the first wave of the digital health revolution coming our way.

As a bit of confirmation from an investment perspective, Dr. Mohit Kaushal, co-manager at the $100M West Health Investment Fund, indicated that one payer was planning to acquire 30 companies (MobiHealthNews). Counter-balancing this, yet another investor, Lisa Suennen, a respected commentator on the health innovation business, takes the view that investments are mostly stalled.

If we change our perspective once more, and look at the world while focusing on wireless technologies converging with health and healthcare, one segment of that market – remote patient monitoring – has seen revenues double in the past four years and this is expected to double again in the next four, according to research firm Kalorama (news). Moreover, wireless technology companies like Qualcomm, which is known for its wireless technology, particularly cellular phone chipsets, announced a new wholly owned subsidiary, Qualcomm Life, at the Summit. The new entity has launched an enabling wireless health and medical device platform hub device plus cloud data management platform called “2net,” which many hope will help catalyze the efforts of the 40-plus current partners and many more companies hoping to more-efficiently deliver wireless health solutions. Moreover, Qualcomm Ventures has established a $100M investment fund, which includes one particularly exciting company, AliveCor, whose primary product is the iPhone ECG, invented by Dr. Dave Albert.

From a clinical research perspective, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has an mHealth Intra-Institute Interest Group, which tracks some 200+ research projects utilizing mHealth and wireless technologies. These tools are making monitoring and data gathering in clinical trials more efficient and powerful. Pharmaceutical companies and Clinical Research Organizations (CROs), like Quintiles, are also leveraging wireless tools in trials.

In summary, digital technology is everywhere and mobile connectivity – enabled by wireless – is one of the driving trends in health, healthcare, as well as the broader consumer markets. No less than CES, the annual consumer electronics show that highlights trends in all things digital that consumers love, will hold its second annual Digital Health Summit this year in Las Vegas (co-located with the main CES conference).

As Dr. Eric Topol, one of the keynote presenters at the mHealth Summit puts it: after having digitized everything else in our world, we are now digitizing man. (I highly recommend Dr. Topol’s 2009 TEDMED talk.) Not too long ago that would have been a very scary proposition (e.g., visions of robots taking over the world!), but the luddites are present in limited numbers these days. Quite simply, the imperatives for change – unsustainable healthcare costs, reduced access, an aging baby-boomer population, and marginal outcomes due to our “sick care” system – are being met head on by the new digital health technologies and concomitant emerging new business models. Ultimately, as digital meets health, resistance is futile. And that’s a good thing.

What are your thoughts on the potential ability of Digital Health (or mHealth) to meet current health and health care industry challenges? How are you, your patients or your customers using Digital Health today? We’d love to hear from you.