TTA Archives 2005-2012

In the heart of Silicon Valley, with presumably tons of experience in covering the field, the San Jose Mercury News can still write a hectoring, obvious mess of an article on healthcare and eHealth. If we only had better IT…. ‘diagnostic devices that detect maladies earlier’…telehealth…and medicines tailored to your DNA. We have a ‘ticking time bomb that imperils the nation’s economy (as if we are not already there?) Our usual straw men appear: the aging population and ‘rich rewards’ for treating catastrophic illness (as if it will go away?) But now that we have ‘health reform’ suddenly $2.2 billion of private investment has ‘surged ‘ into the field (including biotech), and startups and tech giants’ are ‘angling’ to get a slice of a reputed $10 billion ‘innovation fund’ (really?) in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  The writer’s POV is that certainly we are witnessing the start of the New Jerusalem, although said legislation has barely gone into effect and ‘health reform’ is utterly controlled by the slow grind of HHS regulation–and the US political process.  Last but not least in the muddle of this article, the picture used is an early Health Buddy (#1, now up to #3) from the pre-Bosch days (Health Buddy then and now);  the captioner and writer could not coordinate whether there are 1,000 users or ‘tens of thousands’ (according to their CIO there are 30,000 in the VA alone; hat tip to Geoffrey Clapp of Health Hero/Bosch on LinkedIn for pointing this out.) Article.