Why Tech is From Mars and Healthcare is from Jupiter
7 Questions to Transcend Well Meaning Healthcare Naive or Tech Naive Acquaintances During Barbecues & Gatherings
Someone dies every 9 minutes due to a delay in information according to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Health systems are also leaving millions on the table in physician workflow inefficiency. This is what we’re tackling at Medigram in our ambition to save hundreds of thousands of lives and make health systems more financially viable.
Obviously tech giants have been wildly successful in the context of a business model based on a “best effort” level of product they offer as free products to consumers or in a fixed price retail setting. This is why I say they are from Mars; they’ve accomplished outer-worldly success. However, when it comes to healthcare, we’re talking about another “universe” completely. This post is a riff on a twitter feed I started dubbed “Tech Red Flags Coming Into Healthcare.”
The biggest differences between a consumer facing or even B2B tech scenario are technical & security, cultural, economic, and medically specific. The purpose of this post is for Medigram employees, investors, advisors, family, and friends -stakeholders, to arm you with a few questions you can ask to counter sometimes even well-meaning but potentially naive in healthcare and related technical questions when you explain your role at Medigram. This can frequently happen at barbecues where people that don’t know healthcare and/or tech ask, “Won’t some Fortune 50 company do that?” when you describe what Medigram does.
There have been numerous recent articles about companies such as IBM and Apple that can explain why Big Tech is not the automatic winner in healthcare tomorrow. Even the feds expect this not to be the case with respect to legacy Health IT vendors (pictured below). These articles and testimonials aside, this post is about arming you with questions that can help create understanding and connection with your family member or acquaintance while helping to either open their mind or neutralize a potentially uncomfortable discussion.
Healthcare has unique technical and security requirements:
At Medigram, our strongest champions in the journey have been business oriented/Board/CEO/GM former electrical engineers who have designed chips for both earth and space and happen to be passionate about transforming healthcare. What space and healthcare have in common are environments that are both literally and figuratively radioactive. Let me explain. The top chip designers know they can’t use the same chips they do here on earth as they must in space. The chips for earth’s use can’t withstand the environment of space.
I call healthcare “Jupiter” because Jupiter is the most radioactive planet. It has the greatest Electromagnetic field of all planets in the solar system according to the Juno space mission.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(spacecraft) )
Why is healthcare like space? It’s all about interference and radioactivity:
Interference blocks internet connections for mobile devices: Why desktop and mainstream mobile apps don’t work in hospitals:
Barbecue Question 1)
Are these companies’ businesses known for solving enterprise wide problems in health systems, in detail? Perhaps I have a blind spot in my work at Medigram. Tell me exactly how you see them doing that.
Barbecue Question 2)
Can your contact at Tech company X, Y, or Z explain the hospital networking and related environment for mobile devices?
Barbecue Question 3)
Can your contact describe the security and compliance requirements of healthcare in detail?
Barbecue Question 4)
Does the company you’re talking about demonstrate a keen understanding of military protocol? Many innovations in clinical medicine stem from war zones. A lot of the work and decision making in healthcare systems is similar to the military. Do you think the company you’re asking about and their workforce is compatible with that? Tell me why.
Barbecue Question 5)
Does the CEO or founder of the company understand the various types of physicians and title types in a health system and their roles and responsibilities? if they don’t understand the roles in detail, what problems will the vendor solve that the health system will pay for that you see to be competing with Medigram?
Barbecue Question 6)
How do you expect the work of Company X to impact the economics of the work the health system does? How?
Barbecue Question 7) The case whereas someone has a family member, friend or neighbor who is a doctor; two questions to try.
A) Is your doctor friend/neighbor/family technical and do they understand software, hardware, and data?
and
B) Does your friend or family member who is a doctor ALSO have P&L responsibility for the hospital or health system? What size and how many hospitals does the system have? That way I understand their vantage point better.
The role of a practicing physician is planets apart from a Chief Medical Officer’s responsibilities. Both essential, but understand the perspectives:
Comparing a doctor to an enterprise and physician executive is like comparing a developer or UI designer to a full stack engineer. As a technical investor, would you ask a mobile UI designer to comment on an infrastructure or DevOps solution or a security product? Sure, there will be occasional exceptions but generally expecting the UI designer to have an informed opinion on infrastructure subjects wouldn’t be wise for your technical due diligence. This is exactly what it’s like anytime you ask a practicing doctor their opinion on a healthcare business question unless they’ve held CxO positions in several health systems informing breadth and cross functional depth.
As an aside, we outlined the differences between types of engineers and developers in software here in this link https://qr.ae/TWyTPh
Below are roles within legacy and web apps stacks. Rarely can you have someone truly “full stack” who can pinch hit within all the roles within the stack. Most commonly, these various areas are built and managed by different developer and engineering roles. You would not ask someone who has only ever done UI design about differences between DevOps tools. Yet, this is what happens every time you ask a practicing physician about technologies that intersect with business specific health system requirements.
Why Startups and venture investing exist:
Did I leave anything BIG out or what helpful questions might you add?
[1] National Academies Press “The Space Radiation Environment and Its Effect on Electronics”
By: Sherri Douville CEO & Board Member at Medigram, Inc. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sdouville/
