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About Lisa Suennen
Yes, it’s me
Most Popular Posts
- Government as an Engine for Innovation
- The Machine That Goes Ping!
- Smoke on the Water: Fireworks in Cleveland
- Hey, Where Is Everybody Going?
- mHealth: Hallelujah or Bah Humbug?
- Age is a High Price to Pay for Maturity
- Where The Boys Are…And Not The Girls: Tales from the 2012 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference
- Safe Travels?
- Sugar, Sugar
- Disney’s Habit Heroes: Evil or Evil Genius?
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- TMI, Dude!
- 96 Ways To Say “Bite Me”
- Man! I Feel Like a Woman!
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Recent Posts
- Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
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- Avengers Assemble! Prepare to Defend Your Healthcare Coverage
- War is Hell
- Breaking Research: Beer Makes Men Smarter, Women Make Men Stupider, World Achieves Equilibrium
- A Woman’s Work
- Friday Medical Comedy Relief: Crystal Clear
- Driving My Life Away, Looking for a Better Way…to Engage Consumers
- Choosing Elephantoplasty Wisely
- Give ‘Em That Old Razzle Dazzle
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Monthly Archives: December 2011
11:59 and Not a Second Later
Okay, I know it’s kind of cheating, but I am re-posting my column from New Year’s 2011 where I turned Auld Lang Syne into an ode to venture capital. Why? you ask. Because I haven’t been able to come up with another decent New Year’s song to parody and I have been drinking far too much this holiday season to come up with something entirely new. Let’s hope that some of that cell regeneration stuff that my colleagues are funding will help me out in the year to come.
As for potential alternative New Year’s songs to work with, there is an unfortunate dearth of options. Unlike Christmas, which is full of good music that everyone knows, New Year’s has been left in the dust. There is, of course, Barry Manilow’s Just Another New Year’s Eve, but I deemed that too depressing; plus it has become remarkably unhip to admit you know the words to Barry Manilow songs. There’s also Dan Fogelberg’s Just Another Auld Lang Syne; you remember–the one that starts, “I met my old lover in the grocery store…” Had to ding that one for being … (read the rest)
Posted in Healthcare, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Private Equity, Random Thoughts of the Day, Uncategorized, Venture Capital
Tagged auld lang syne, healthcare private equity, healthcare venture capital, new year's songs, psilos, venture capital
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Croaking in a Winter Wonderland
If you are reading this, you have already dodged 2/3 of the bullet.
I read a sobering statistic this week that heart attacks are more prevalent in December and January than any other time of year in the U.S. More specifically, if you are seeking to experience the full religious effect of Christmas, you have a great chance of seeing God personally on that day since December 25th is one of the three most common days of the year to die of a heart attack. If the heart attack doesn’t kill you on Christmas proper, don’t despair; you will have an equally good chance to watch year-end football from inside the Pearly Gates since the next two most common heart attack death days are December 26th and New Year’s Day. Place your Rose Bowl bets early and hand the ticket off to a loved one just in case. Prediction: Badgers make Oregon quack like a duck.
Doctors don’t have a full understanding of why the heart decides not to go on during these specific days, but they have several hypotheses. Much to my surprise, none of them include:
- The
Healthcare Reform is Coming to Town!
Last year about this time of year I wrote a parody of Twas the Night Before Christmas about the coming of healthcare IT and meaningful use. I decided to make these holiday parody songs an annual event. I figure I have years of material, as there are so many ways of ruining an otherwise joyous holiday gem by mixing it with healthcare and public policy.
This year’s victim: Santa Claus is Coming to Town, was written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie in 1934. The original lyrics to the song can be found HERE. The song is a little weird because it lets kids know that Santa Claus is watching them all the time like some sort of red velvet-clad big brother machine. If the children aren’t good they won’t get any presents for Christmas, so the song has the extra-added attraction of veiled threat. Kind of reminded me of what’s happening with health reform and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). For those in the healthcare industry, there is definitely a feeling the eyes of government are upon them. Insurers, employers, medical device and … (read the rest)
Posted in Healthcare, Healthcare Policy, Healthcare Reform, Uncategorized
Tagged affordable care act, cms, healthcare, healthcare reform, PPACA, psilos
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Age is a High Price to Pay for Maturity
Age is a high price to pay for maturity—Tom Stoppard
So it’s my birthday this week and each year it is getting just a little harder to be excited (yay! It’s my birthday!) vs. horrified (oh crap, am I really that old?).
As I perused my nearly age-appropriate issue of AARP Magazine this week I noted that one of the articles in it said that cultivating feelings of gratitude can lead to physical changes that improve health (and therefore, I am sure, lead you to feel younger). I must admit, I have a tough time feeling grateful about those lines around my eyes. Maybe it’s just because my memory has become so age-impaired that I can’t remember to feel grateful about having the opportunity to get older. Whenever someone says to me, “Getting older isn’t so bad, it beats the alternative!” I want to beat them to death with a pair of dentures. Mark Twain once said, “Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been,” but he’s dead so what the hell does he know?”
I guess there must be some people out there who revel in their aging process. … (read the rest)
mHealth: Hallelujah or Bah Humbug?
3600 people and I went to the mHealth Summit earlier this week in Washington, DC and, having spent the better part of 48 hours listening, I am still not sure what to make of this emerging healthcare sector.
Given the incredible energy and high attendance at the conference, it would be easy to get caught up in the hype that surrounds mobile health and it’s many potential uses. There were an enormous number of companies present and news of many new financings (e.g. HealthTap receiving $11.5 million from Mayfield, Mohr Davidow and others).
For those of you not yet familiar with the buzz word, mHealth is basically what you get when you cross healthcare with mobile phones. It is essentially the love child of Ma Bell, Hippocrates, Dr. Oz and Steve Jobs. For the true believers, and there are a lot of them, mHealth is the answer to the healthcare systems prayers. By bringing texting and Wifi and reams of personalized data to the fingertips of the masses, healthcare will right itself, costs will decrease and angels will sing. Can I get a Hallelujah?
The entrepreneurs in the mHealth space … (read the rest)
Posted in Diagnostics and Screening, Health and Wellness, Healthcare Information Technology, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Innovation, Uncategorized
Tagged alivecor, asthmapois, cellscope, consumer engagement, eric topol, fooducate, healthcare IT, healthcare private equity, healthcare venture capital, mhealth, mHealth Summit, mobile health, patient safe solutions, psilos, weltel, west wireless institute
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Do You Believe in Magic?
As health and science have entered the popular discourse in a greater way these past several years, there has been an upsurge in scientific literature delivered in an accessible pop culture format-science for the Everyman, if you will. Especially popular among the books that have migrated from the lab to the NY Times Bestseller list have been those about the way humans think and why. Over the last few years I have noticed a myriad of what I will dub pop science books out there about the brain and cognition. There have been books that illuminate How We Decide and how we make decisions in the blink of an eye (Blink). I have seen books about how kids brains develop (very slowly, I might add) and how the brains differ by gender. The Female Brain has been a big bestseller among the pop culture-inclined, with it’s 187 pages telling the tale of how a woman’s brain changes as she matures and how that affects her parenting, sexual and partnering experiences. Perhaps none of you will be surprised to learn that the companion book, The Male Brain, … (read the rest)
To Heck with Pedro, Vote for VentureValkyrie!
Hello everyone, one of my readers and friends very graciously nominated me for Healthline’s Best Healthcare Blogs of 2011 Contest. If you think this was a good idea, I would appreciate it greatly if you would go to the website, found by clicking HERE or at http://www.healthline.com/health/best-health-blogs-contest or and use the search tab to find VentureValkyrie and vote. You may have to have Twitter or Facebook account to vote, which is annoying, but do what you can.
Turns out you can vote once every 24 hours for the same blog (just like voting for mayor in Chicago) and keep doing so until January 31st, so feel free to use this as your way of completely ignoring thethings you are supposed to be doing so to surf the Internet instead every time the mood strikes you.
Thanks very much and warm regards to all, Lisa
Posted in Uncategorized
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Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear
I wasn’t planning a series of blog posts on ridiculous medical devices, but after my last post about the bionic contact lens I realized that the product I will now introduce to you provides an even better reason for venture investors to throw up their hands and run from the medical device field.
I’m not sure exactly what it is that drives the Japanese medical device industry to build products in the form of sea mammals, but this is also my second post about that topic, the first being the one called I, Robot Seal some months back about a robotic seal used to improve the psychological state of nursing home residents. Go figure.
In this installment of oddly-conceived sea mammal medicine, I submit to you the Jukusui-kun. What is a Jukusui-kun, you might ask? Well, sit back, grab a harpoon and I’ll tell you. Jukusui-kun is a robot polar bear disguised as an intelligent pillow to help prevent snoring and sleep apnea. Yes, you read that right. It is basically a therapeutic stuffed animal that is intended to treat a fairly serious set of medical conditions. A little … (read the rest)