Yeah, I know, it’s late but the procrastinator in me still got time to talk about 2019 in the end of the crazy year that has been 2020. I could see back then in mid 2019 that we were moving towards telemedicine but nothing could have prepared us for the tsunami that came in 2020, but that’s for a later post.
Coming back to 2019, let’s see where my expected trends for 2018 landed, starting with the much touted company that finally got named Haven with the wise Dr. Gawande at its helm but sadly not much progress to show. This proves to me the very complex challenges in Healthcare, if nothing else. The movement of big tech into Healthcare has certainly gathered pace with Amazon starting with low hanging fruit in prescription fulfillment while Apple is pushing its devices into this space with personal health slowly but surely. Google continues in its attempts at what it does best, to become the biggest health data company replacing current sources CMS and eventually overtaking them which stokes fears and opens up exciting possibilities at the same time.
All in all it was a mixed bag out of 2019 but there is progress for sure. Balancing the needs for efficiency versus equitable access to Healthcare for all continues. The push for technology to solve healthcare across populations continues against the demands for the most personal of issues in data privacy. I personally doubled down into pursuing the possibilities of Telehealth and it seems like a good decision in hindsight looking back at 2019 from the monster that 2020 turned out to be!
Rad@Sami 