Is healthcare too much for Big Tech’s Google and Apple? Look at the track record. And David Feinberg’s $34M Cerner package.

August 24, 2021 | by

With Google scattering Google Health to the four winds of the organization--the heck with what employees recruited for Health think of being reorg’d to, say, Maps or YouTube and falling through the corporate rabbit hole–more detail has leaked of Apple’s struggles. This time, on the scaleback list (a/k/a chopping block) is Health Habit. It’s an app in the Apple Store that connects users with AC Wellness, a doctor’s group in Cupertino, California. The ‘eligible participants’ are restricted to Apple employees. From the app site, they can check weight, nutrition, blood pressure, and schedule wellness checks. It seems to be the typical ‘skunk works’ project that’s not ready for prime time, but its public fate seems to be poorly timed and simultaneously, overblown because they are–well–Apple. 

Bottom line, is healthcare once again proving rather resistant to being leveraged by technological solutions? Those of us who go back to the Stone Age of health tech, or those of us who joined in the Iron and Bronze Ages, remember when you couldn’t get into a conference cocktail party without a “wellness” app. (You say you’re in behavioral and remote patient monitoring for older adults? Oh, look! A squirrel!)

Microsoft was going to dominate consumer health with their HealthVault for personal health records (PHRs). We know how that turned out–dead apps, Fitbit an also-ran bought, Pebble and Misfit going to the drawer of failed toys, Jawbone t-boning plus Intel and Basis written off in 2017, and HealthVault unlamentedly put out with the trash at the end of 2019. Oh yes, there was an earlier Google Health for PHRs, which died with a whimper back in 2012 or so.

The press releases crow about Big Tech’s mastery of complexity, yet going off on their own without partners–or even with partners–never seems to work. In the industry, it makes for a few good articles and the usual rocket launching at places like Forbes, but the pros tend to treat it with a shrug and pull out a competitive plan. Glen Tullman, founder of Livongo who will never have to worry about paying for chateaubriand for two for the next billion years or so, stated the obvious when he said that patients cared about the overall experience, not the tech.

Speaking of experience, Amazon Care promises the best for its employees and enterprise accounts–a one-minute telehealth connection, a mobile clinician if needed within the hour, and drugs at the door in two hours. All with direct pay. This has met with skepticism from telehealth giants like Teladoc and Amwell with established corporate bases. There’s also CVS Health and Walgreens. The Editor has opined that care isn’t Amazon’s game at all–it’s accumulating and owning national healthcare data on Amazon Care and Pharmacy users that is far more valuable than whatever is spent on providing care and services [TTA 16 June]. Will Amazon really be able to pull it off?

Paddy Padmanabhan, the author of Healthcare Digital Transformation, lists a few more reasons It’s Too Hard For Big Tech In Healthcare in his HealthcareITNews article here….

  • Healthcare is a part-time job for Big Tech
  • Big tech firms want to solve the healthcare problem by themselves
  • Selling technology is not the same as selling healthcare services

…but holds out some hope that the initial success of “digital-first and virtual-first providers of healthcare emerging as challengers” will point the way for them.

And speaking of Google Health and former employees, Cerner’s necessary SEC disclosure today of new CEO and president David Feinberg, MD’s compensation package was sure to create some talk in Googleville among his now-scattered team. $34.5 million over the next 15 months is structured as follows:

  • $900,000 base salary
  • a target cash bonus of $1.35 million
  • a one-time cash bonus of $375,000 stock
  • $13.5 million in Cerner’s restricted shares for 2022
  • $3.375 million in stock shares for the fourth quarter of 2021
  • a new hire award of $15 million in restricted stock shares to offset his equity loss with Google. 

Whew! Becker’s HealthIT

Swoon or mourn? Smartwatch action: Misfit, MS HealthVault, Glance

June 26, 2014 | by

The smartwatch is nowhere near dead (check the beautiful Withings Activité at CEWeek), but its future, along with pure fitness bands, is a complicated thing. Three moves by small to giant companies further add color to (or complicate) the picture, including an ‘aftermarket’ add on for your current watch:

  • Misfit joins up with the Pebble smartwatch. The Misfit Shine, which has enjoyed much appreciation by the D3H as the ‘elegant button’, announced it will distribute its tracking app and algorithm technology to smartwatch makers. Pebble is the first and not exclusive. Sonny Vu, not known for his subtlety, is quoted in VentureBeat: “If I kept making just fitness trackers, I would be out of business in 12 to 18 months.” Misfit will continue to sell Shine in the US and internationally for at least another few quarters to meet demand for a fitness-only tracker. It shows you how quickly the weather changes: with $23 million in hand, and a Series B last December of $15.2 million, they are pivoting–quickly. John Sculley and other bluechip investors like Khosla Ventures and Norwest Capital obviously see a boulder in the road.
  • Microsoft moving to get into the smartwatch biz. Their patent filing of 2012 was just the first move but both Forbes and VentureBeat have confirmed rumors the device is a go. And they have a core of techies (Xbox) to work on it and the perfect place for the data: Microsoft HealthVault. Nothing like a smartwatch to jolt some life into a moribund PHR!
  • Love your plain old watch but just want to soup it up? Slip Kiwi Wearables’ Glance under your watch instead and get fitness tracking plus smartwatch functions. Kiwi already has the app for the Kiwi Move but Glance seems to have more such as interaction with your phone calls. Think of it as an aftermarket accessory, especially if you’re a traditionalist in watch form factor and/or don’t have the long green for Withings. In Kickstarter funding now with a price point of $65, but they are less than halfway towards their $150,000 goal with only six days to go. Gizmag