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Just this morning the FDA cleared the Alivecor electrocardiogram watchband for the Apple watch. Combined with the pulse meter built into the watch itself, this can give early warning on serious heart problems. This is but one more major step towards making us bionic people for health and augmentation, both worn and implanted. Eventually this will be one of the largest market for semis and will drive ever more sophisticated smart phones and other devices that will integrate into systems that monitor our health for both performance and health. This will also create a treasure trove of data for medical research on health and performance. Just this band will have the capability of saving literally hundreds of thousands of lives by acting as an early warning system. Since health is the US economies biggest industry, this is where the greatest opportunities for the semi/nanotech industry.
Hopefully this is one of the beginning of using technology to improve health care quality and efficiency and stop the skyrocketing health care cost.
Recently I learned that a friend's father likely would have been killed by a risky procedure due to the doctors from the treatment team did not consider all the factors presented to them. Luckily an outside doctor hired by my friend to review the case identified the error and stopped the procedure. I don't believe all this kind of incidents can be eliminated. But at least with all the advancement of AI, sensors, instruments, and semi will reduce it greatly.
Hopefully this is one of the beginning of using technology to improve health care quality and efficiency and stop the skyrocketing health care cost.
Recently I learned that a friend's father likely would have been killed by a risky procedure due to the doctors from the treatment team did not consider all the factors presented to them. Luckily an outside doctor hired by my friend to review the case identified the error and stopped the procedure. I don't believe all this kind of incidents can be eliminated. But at least with all the advancement of AI, sensors, instruments, and semi will reduce it greatly.
It definitely will and the market for health and wellness (baby boomers like myself) is HUGE! Apple is hiring a wide range of medical people and at some point in time I believe Apple will have the ultimate AI enabled platform to let us know if a catastrophic health issue is pending. The last thing I want to do is die in a Starbucks or a bed other than my own so give me a 3 minute warning and I'm good.
Until government employees and officials are not insulated from health care and retirement costs everyone else faces, the economic situation will continue to get worse since the people in charge are not seeking a solution. Silicon Valley and the tech sector are doing their best to come up with solutions and the inexpensive EKG is but one very small step. Economics and technology go together in many unique and interesting ways that are getting more complex when politics and corruption of the hidden type trump common sense. One example is veterans who never came even near a war zone and served a single hitch getting access to free health care for life, I know of many who have used at least five million in heath care and climbing due to gross personal irresponsibility. Also a persons rights stop at someone else's wallet, we can no longer finance other peoples gross irresponsibility as regard to their self inflicted health issues. They deserve preventive help, but not the right to bankrupt us all. As long as politics rule over economics, we are doomed to economic destruction. Serious campaign finance reform is needed for campaign contributions have degenerated into nothing more than thinly veiled bribes that destroy democracy. We desperately need a reformed educational structure and system for only an intelligent population can make intelligent decisions. The tech sector is the best hope for solving many of our problems/challenges and this includes a responsible social media that has become a major world wide power unto itself. Medical now comprises close to twenty percent of our economy and growing faster than our economy.
It's not surprising you know people who have "used at least five million" in health care, given the grossly inflated costs of this in the USA -- from the numbers I've seen (and experienced) privately-funded (chargeable) procedures cost many times more than in countries with more sensibly run health care systems like most of Europe, where there's also often a state-run system with much better coverage (and lower cost) than the USA.
You're correct that the USA spends a bigger fraction of its GDP on healthcare than anywhere else -- and even more so in dollars given the high average earnings compared to many countries -- and this is in exchange for a poorer service overall in many cases, but this is the fault of the broken healthcare system there. Other countries also see the rising cost/falling revenue problem, but it's nowhere near as bad.
Hmm, the USA also spends a bigger fraction of its GDP on lawyers and litigation than anywhere else -- wonder if the two are linked? ;-)
The US ranks first in medical costs by far and 37th in quality. Medical also ranks first in campaign contributions, so much for democracy. We also rank 29th in primary and secondary education quality. We desperately need high quality, low cost education if our tech sector is to stay on top. The tech sector has given us the ability to deliver high quality, low cost education and one of the people I admire most is Sal Khan, founder of the Khan Academy. The tech sector is the best hope for not only solving problems, but giving us the transparency to see them.
