President Donald Trump touched a raw nerve with the executive order to ban, temporarily, visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Amid the wide global outcry, there were also calls from international clinicians and academics, including Nobel laureates, to boycott medical meetings in America. Yet at the same time, health professionals here in the US and elsewhere appear […]
Donald Trump has big pharma in the crosshairs. Using classic #TrumpSpeak, the soon to be 45th President of the United States hinted recently that Medicare, the biggest buyer of drugs in the US, could soon be able to negotiate drug prices directly with the pharmaceutical industry. This is something big pharma has spent years and […]
Google is in hot water. First of all, the artificial intelligence (AI) focused branch of the organization, Google DeepMind, recently held a public meeting on the hot topic of accessing NHS patient information. Google already has access to 1.6 million patient records, and plans to build an electronic portal that allows patients and doctors to […]
“Mobile is eating the world.” Next June will see the tenth anniversary of the launch of the iPhone. Without a doubt, the impact of the smartphone has been enormous, and for healthcare providers the continued growth in smartphone use has major implications going forward—especially since more than half of patients/consumers now say that they want to be […]
In simple supply and demand terms, there are now more people living with chronic disease than there are doctors and other professionals around to help them. So how can the practice of medicine respond to this particular challenge? Here in the United States, there is growing interest in exploring the potential value of shared medical […]
A recent clinical trial’s finding that digital health technology (also known as mHealth) failed to reduce healthcare costs is raising eyebrows on this side of the Atlantic. For naysayers the results will most certainly reinforce their belief that mHealth is a fad, which distracts from the real business of medicine, and that more investment in […]
New technology companies need the oxygen of someone else’s money to survive and grow, that’s how capitalism works. Here in California, multi-million dollar investments and eye-watering billion dollar company valuations are everyday news. The ultimate goal of new technology companies is to gain “unicorn” status as rapidly as possible i.e. be valued at more than […]
Apparently one in 20 searches on Google are for health related topics. At the moment typing in a medical condition (such as diabetes) on Google produces links to reputable sites and online patient forums. However, beyond the first page of a Google search, the quality and accuracy of the listed domains becomes more questionable, with searchers […]
According to Twitter, 2014 was the year of the selfie. The Oxford English dictionary defines a selfie as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.” Selfies began only a few years ago, but have reached epidemic and global proportions—and a new […]
It might be cool, but will it make a difference to health? This is still the unanswered question after the launch of the latest must-have device from Apple, 30 years after the launch of the original Mackintosh computer in the same building in California. Due to be released next year at a starting price of […]