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About Lisa Suennen
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Monthly Archives: July 2010
Can You Hear Me Now?
In my last post I talked about robots and other technologies used for remote monitoring of patients who are seeking to lose weight or achieve other healthcare goals. One of the biggest challenges with remote monitoring systems, particularly as it relates to consistently and frequently monitoring people with chronic illness, such as heart or lung disease, is compliance. Even when the technology is sitting right there on their kitchen counter, as the Autom or Health Buddy does, sometimes people just ignore it. If you let the system know you were experiencing shortness of breath or a rapid, irregular heartbeat, your doctor could be on the phone to you in well, a heartbeat. Instead, that fancy remote monitoring device sometimes gets used as a handy dandy towel rack, just like that exercise bike in your bedroom does an excellent job of holding up your clothes.
Of course, we all recognize this is just human nature. Your spouse says to you, “don’t talk on the cell phone while you’re driving, “ and, while you’re responding with “don’t tell me what to do, “ you slam into the back of a Mercedes. Human … (read the rest)
“Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave?”
For those of you not quite old enough to remember it (or who aren’t movie buffs), that was a quote from HAL the robot in 2001 Space Odyssey. HAL is a robotic/computer system that communicates with the crew, expressing emotions both positive and negative.
In a story that ran July 20, 2010 in the Wall Street Journal, I learned that Hong Kong-based Intuitive Automata has developed a robot designed to help individuals combat obesity by actively communicating with them. The product is a cute little robot that looks the spawn of a talking ET and the iPad. HAL is back, but hopefully this time he is on a mission for good.
Known as Autom, the little dude (or should I say dudette…they say it’s a girl) is meant to sit on the kitchen counter and track your eating and exercise behavior, but also give you tips on how to improve compliance with diet and exercise plans. It communicates with the user literally by talking. According to the article, these conversations are formulated after users input information about their diet and exercise regimen that result in prompts from Autom … (read the rest)
The Shaman will see you now….
Each day I receive a compilation email from the NY Times that lists all the articles about healthcare and medicine that are included in that day’s edition. I know, pretty lazy, but at least it enables me to stay up-to-date on the latest and greatest medical topics deemed worthy of coverage by the Times without having to go through the laborious task of unfolding it myself.
Today’s email had seven healthcare articles listed, a pretty typical number. But what struck me about today’s list was that 3 of the 7 articles dealt with issues that are clearly outside of what would be considered mainstream medicine. The first article, entitled Weekdays, the Adman Worked. Sundays, the Shaman Healed, is about a guy who is an advertising executive by day and who, in his free time, practices shamanistic healing for all manner of chronic illnesses and other serious conditions. For those of you unfamiliar with the practice, Shamanism encompasses the belief that Shamans are intermediaries or messengers between the human world and the spirit worlds; they treat ailments/illness by mending the soul.
My favorite part of the article:
“…Itzhak … (read the rest)
Posted in Healthcare Reform, Healthcare Venture Capital, Venture Capital, Women in Venture Capital & Private Equity
Tagged ACA, affordable care act, alternative medicine, ARRA, complementary medicine, glenn beck, healthcare, healthcare reform, leeches, life sciences, medical technology, shaman
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Girls Rule: Amy Belt and Beth Falk
Back to my women in venture capital focus for a moment, as I want to promote the efforts of two colleagues to create very professional and useful venues for people who happen to be women (as opposed to women who need to make a big deal out of it) to connect around issues that matter to us in health care and finance.
Amy Belt, currently a Vice President at Advanced Technology Ventures (and a fellow UC Berkeley grad, Go Bears!), is in the throes of organizing a conference for women in medical technology. The conference, which is in the formation stage but is likely to occur in September of 2011 in Northern CA, will be focused around key issues in the med tech sector in the post-health care reform era. I like her focus here, which will be, essentially, “alright already, med tech people; stop talking about the damn lemon and let’s get to figuring how we make lemonade.”
The planned conference will be targeted towards women (VCs, entrepreneurs, representatives of the med tech industry and other healthcare executives with an interest in medtech) but not about women, which … (read the rest)
Government as an Engine for Innovation
I’ve been thinking a great deal about the newly formed Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. (CMI). This entity was established as a result of the Affordable Care Act (the new healthcare reform legislation) and its purpose is to “research, develop, test and expand innovative payment and service delivery models that will improve the quality and reduce the costs of care for” patients covered by CMS-related programs. The legislation gives this entity over $10 billion dollars initially and broad authority to figure out new ways of doing things better and differently than before. What is great about CMI is that they have the authority to run their programs much more like a business would without many historical governmental constraints. That’s great news for innovation, which is sorely needed in the U.S. healthcare system.
Among the key objectives that the administration has discussed is how to transition the collective mindset from one of healthcare to one of health. In other words, if a person is healthy, they do not need health CARE. This is a very important distinction; it puts the emphasis on prevention and wellness as opposed to what … (read the rest)
Antidote to the Baconator: Apps for Healthy Kids
A quick antidote to the Baconator post: Tim Marklein at Weber Shandwick sent me an article about a cool competition now underway in which GE, the USDA and Michelle Obama have created a challenge to motivate American entrepreneurs, software developers, the public, and students to create an on-line game or tool that can use “fun” to teach kids and/or their parents about how to get kids to exercise and eat healthy. I have to admit–kind of a cool idea that manages to combine health and entrepreneurship. I like it.
I’ll pause for a moment to allow you to digest the irony that today’s method for engaging kids in exercise and healthy eating is to keep the kid sitting in front of their screen even longer. The sound of a kid’s joy long ago metamorphosed from “Wheeeeeeee!” to “Wii!”
Anyhow, the Apps for Healthy Kids challenge was to create either:
- Games that educate through engaging the user in an entertaining experience, or
- “Tools” that empower users to access, visualize, sort, mash, track, or otherwise better understand data in ways that will inform user behavior.
In so doing, the develop must … (read the rest)
Baconator? Make Mine a Triple!
So I was sitting here on the couch watching Tim Lincecum, Cy Young-award winning pitcher, throw a full game shut out against the NY Mets (Go Giants!) and along comes a Wendy’s commercial for (dramatic pause)….The Baconator. I was so amazed by the grandiosity of this thing that I looked it up on-line at Wendys.com and lo and behold, not only is there a Baconator (it is really hard to type that without hearing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice in my head) but there is an honest-to-god Baconator Triple! Somewhere in Washington, D.C., Michelle Obama, who has made healthy eating her personal political platform, is reaching for a stiff drink.
Wendy’s Baconator Triple is about the size of Marge Simpson’s hairdo on a humid day and boasts the following features:
- 3 one-quarter-pound beef patties
- 9 slices of bacon
- 3 slices of American cheese
- Mayonnaise
- Bun
- Ketchup
- Tomato and lettuce available so that you can say you had a vegetable
- Pickles are optional (oh no, I couldn’t possibly)
This gourmet delight has—brace yourself—1360 calories, 820 of which are from fat. The current dietary guidelines suggest that the average adult should eat … (read the rest)
U.S. Medical Innovation: Win the Pennant or Strike Out Looking?
Yesterday I attended a meeting of a group of venture capitalists and NVCA representatives who came together to discuss the formation of a new industry group focused on preserving the spirit and business of medical innovation that has for so long been the unchallenged purview of the United States. The group is tentatively to be called MedIC , which stands for the Medical Innovation and Competitiveness Coalition. Notably, the group’s Chairman is Dr. Beth Seidenberg, a life sciences partner at Kleiner Perkins, and the lead organizer is Kelly Slone, Director of Federal Life Science Policy of the National Venture Capital Association. Great to see such a show of gal-power driving the effort to address such a critical issue for our industry.
The U.S. healthcare ecosystem, to use a trendy VC word, has long been notable for its global leadership in the development of new drugs, new medical devices, and other healthcare products and services. Despite its limitations and challenges, our medical industry has for decades been the go-to incubator of a seemingly boundless array of new medical inventions that spread throughout the world. Bash America all you want, but … (read the rest)
Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition
I love that Timothy Leary quote (the title above). And in a time when venture capital fundraising requires nerves of steel and the patience of a saint, we welcome the news from San Francisco’s DBL Investors that they have closed approximately 2/3 of the $150MM target for their 2nd fund. DBL’s two managing partners are Nancy Pfund and Cynthia Ringo. Of the team of 5 at DBL, 3 are of the XX-chromosome variety, making them a highly unusual group. Gotta love a VC fund where there is a line for the ladies’ room.
DBL expects to complete the fund by year-end and continue their focus on investing in healthcare, IT, consumer products and clean technology companies in the Western U.S. Key to their strategy is DBL’s focus on the “Double Bottom Line” to which their name refers. It is intended to guide their portfolio selection towards companies that can deliver top-tier venture capital returns while enabling social, environmental and economic improvement in the regions in which they operate. DBL’s team spends time thinking about things like how the companies in which they invest can positively impact their communities on … (read the rest)
We’re Number One! Er, I Mean Seven!
A report just released compares the performance of the American health care system with those of Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. This report, which was issued by the Commonwealth Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based private foundation focused on improving healthcare, says the U.S. ranks seventh out of seven in overall healthcare system quality and efficacy, despite spending the most per capita.
Despite having the costliest health care system in the world, the United States is last or next-to-last in quality, efficiency, access to care, equity and the ability of its citizens to lead long, healthy, productive lives. According to the report, the U.S. spends the most on health care, at $7,290 per capita per year (in 2007—it’s gone up since then). That’s almost twice the amount spent in Canada and nearly three times the rate of New Zealand, which spends the least. The Netherlands, which has the highest-ranked health care system on the Commonwealth Fund list, spends only $3,837 per capita. The Netherlands? Isn’t that the place with the wooden shoes? The average person can’t even locate that on a map. And yet they are … (read the rest)