Monthly Archives: August 2012

If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Get Out of the Kitchen

Posted on August 26, 2012 by
The very fabulous Sylvia "Tsip" Levitov

I wrote most of this post while on a plane flying to New Orleans to attend the funeral of a loving family friend and adopted relative, Tsip Levitov.  She was 95 when she died last week and lived a long, wonderful life marked by incredible achievements, particularly for a woman who grew up in an era when women were expected to be wives and not much more.

Among Tsip’s professional accomplishments were to be the first woman in Miami to enlist in the US Navy in WWII.  After the war she spent many years as a bookkeeper and then as travel guide for El Al Airlines and others, accompanying tourist groups on far-flung journeys the world over.  She was a self-taught expert on chocolate and traveled the world to sample all she could before authoring a book on the topic some years back (good work if you can get it!).  She was a force of nature, the woman who “adopted” my sister and me as her granddaughters when our own grandmother died in 1999.  At that point the she and my grandmother had been best friends for nearly 85 years. … (read the rest)

Posted in General Business Issues, Girls Rule!, Uncategorized, Women in Venture Capital & Private Equity | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

8 Mobile Health Apps I’d Like to See for Patients

Posted on August 19, 2012 by
a_patient_in_hospital_gown_walking_with__1

I just saw a funny blog post by Dr. David M. Sack (via KevinMD.com )  in which Dr. Sack listed the 7 mobile health apps he feels someone needs to invent for doctors’ use.

Entitled “The 7 iPhone Apps I’d Like To See,” Sack’s app ideas range from one which sends a phony page and thus helps doctors get the hell away from annoying patients who monopolize their time, to one that translates ePocrates-described drug side effects into patient speak, to my personal favorite, one that helps doctors connect with each other by phone in perfect unison without having to play the game of “who gets on the call first,” thus rendering each equally important in their own minds.

It occurs to me that there are a number of equally compelling apps that should be created for patients who must deal with that 50% of doctors who are, by definition, worse than average at patient engagement.  In the same tongue-in-cheek spirit as Dr. Sack, and in a never-ending quest to foster better-functioning healthcare consumers, I offer you my list of the 8 iPhone apps I’d like to see someone develop … (read the rest)

Posted in Consumer Engagement, Healthcare, Healthcare Venture Capital, Innovation, Medical Comedy Relief, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Be Afraid, Be Very, Very Afraid

Posted on August 14, 2012 by
First she moves your money, then your heartbeat

The combination of medical devices and healthcare information technology (HIT) is very much upon us.  When most people think about this merger of technical fields, they are drawn to think of the way in which mobile phones are being used in medical applications, some very much in the manner of medical devices such as ultrasound imagers, cardiac and glucose monitors and even medical microscopes.

But even closer to home and at the center of the action, implantable medical devices, are now becoming more and more “wired.” We have entered an era where devices implanted into the body, once only mechanical in nature, feature software and silicon chips that provide means of sensing bodily changes in situ, self-regulating device activity, and reporting parameters to the outside world.  Pacemakers, defibrillators, insulin pumps, nerve stimulation devices, and even coming breakthroughs in orthopedic and sight-based medical technologies will extend life and make us the cyborgs we once feared but learned to love as our bodies are rescued from the aging process by man’s power over machine.

And that should make us very afraid.  Because where there is hardware and software there are problems.  You … (read the rest)

Posted in Diagnostics and Screening, Health and Wellness, Healthcare, Healthcare Information Technology, Innovation, Medical Devices, Patient Safety, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Quick Update on AARP Health Innovation@50 Life Pitch–Discount Code

Posted on August 6, 2012 by

I have received several requests for a discount code for attending the AARP Annual Meeting and associated AARP Health Innovation@50+ LivePitch event about which I wrote the other day.  The nice people at AARP have provided a code for you to get 50% off of the conference. Use code LISA50 at this link -  http://health50.org/register/.

If you are a bona fide venture capital or private equity investor, email or message me and I will give you a different code for free attendance.

… (read the rest)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Friday Medical Comedy Relief on a Monday: Life After 40

Posted on August 5, 2012 by
Sign of a good vacation

I’m headed out on vacation for a couple of weeks so have slipped into lazy mode when it comes to writing more meaty content.  Thus, you are getting my occasional Friday Medical Comedy Relief post on a Monday, so there. I’m sure I’ll post something from the road, but given the context, it will probably need to be read through martini-colored glasses.

In the interim, those of you who follow this blog regularly know I wrote about the upcoming AARP Annual Meeting and associated AARP Health Innovation@50+ LivePitch  event the other day (fyi, you can also get 50% off of the conference by using the code LISA50 on this link -  http://health50.org/register/).  I got a lot of interesting feedback, particularly from people who are building  mobile healthcare technology products that are basically for the young, healthy and, as a result, annoying.

I think it is funny how our own definition of who is old changes as we ourselves get older.  Rather than have some abstract view of what constitutes and old person, each of us begins to define old age as a function of how old we are … (read the rest)

Posted in Medical Comedy Relief, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

When I’m 64…or Thereabouts

Posted on August 1, 2012 by
button-aarphilp-206x122

To all the healthcare entrepreneurs who will read this, I am encouraging you to give serious thought to applying for and attending AARP’s Health Innovation@50+ LivePitch, taking place Friday, September 21 at the New Orleans Convention Center. Here’s why:

You may be under 50, but if you are looking to build a big company in the healthcare marketplace, you had better get yourself a fake ID. I don’t mean the kind that makes people think you’re 21, but the kind that makes people think you understand the over-50 crowd. Here’s what that crowd has to say to you, “Hell yes, you’ll still need me when I’m 64. Do you have any idea what kind of market force I wield?” In fact, according to the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey, 65% of the aggregate net worth of all U.S. households is owned by adults 50 and older.

While I am getting dangerously close to the 29th anniversary of my 21st birthday myself, twenty-five years in the healthcare industry has made it pretty clear to me where our collective bread is buttered. If you are unprepared for and or closed-minded about serving … (read the rest)

Posted in Consumer Engagement, General Business Issues, Healthcare, Healthcare Information Technology, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Innovation, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment