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About Lisa Suennen
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- From Russia With Love
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- When “Cloud-based” Means Technology, Not Heaven: Report from AARP Health Innovation@50+
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Recent Posts
- The Star Thrower, or How Healthcare Looks to Consumers
- Medical Technology and Kubler-Ross’ Five Stages of Grief
- There Is No “I” in Team, But There Is In “Win”
- A Soda A Day Keeps Your Lifespan Away
- Investor Comedy Relief: The Missed Investment Opportunity
- Psilos Releases Annual Healthcare Outlook Report: A Golden Age in Healthcare Investing
- Discounts on Two Upcoming Conferences for Venture Valkyrie Readers
- Digital Health: The Cat’s Meow
- School Daze
- Showcase Your Start-up at the AARP Health Innovation@50+ Event-Viva Las Vegas
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Tag Archives: psilos
There Is No “I” in Team, But There Is In “Win”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5uWRjFsGc”
“The team with the best players wins.”–Jack Welch, former Chairman & CEO, General Electric
Last week I had the pleasure of moderating a panel of accelerator and angel investor representatives in the course of teaching my healthcare venture capital class at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Together with my teaching partner, Dr. Jeff Rideout of Trizetto, our goal each year is to leave MBA students with a sense of what it is really like to work with entrepreneurs and how to evaluate and oversee venture investments in the healthcare field. In this particular class last Thursday, Jenna Rose of HealthBox, Don Ross of HealthTech Capital and Geoff Clapp of Rock Health came over to help us talk to the class about the earliest of early stage endeavors and the issues that separate great young start-ups from the ones that go belly-up in the goldfish bowl before you can say, “What was your market entry strategy again?”
What struck me from this nearly two-hour conversation was how often the conversation came back to the importance of having the right management team, no matter where the primary topic … (read the rest)
A Soda A Day Keeps Your Lifespan Away
Last week an article was published in the clinical journal Diabetologia that described a significant study performed in Europe. The study demonstrated that people who drink even one can of sugary soda per day raise their risk of Type II diabetes by 18%. The results echoed those of a previously performed U.S. study that suggested a 25% increase in Type II diabetes among those who drank one 12-ounce can of soda per day, on average. There was a huge amount of press about this study, including stories from CBS News, Huffington Post and other major media outlets. Unfortunately there was no immediate call for people to have to submit to background checks before purchasing a six-pack of Coca Cola.
By saying that I am not trying to belittle national gun control efforts, which I fully support. To the contrary, both issues need far greater efforts in the interests of public health in my opinion. There are about 30,000 gun-related deaths per year in the U.S., two thirds of which are suicides and all of which we should work to avoid, in my personal opinion. There are also about 230,000 Type … (read the rest)
Posted in Consumer Engagement, Health and Wellness, Healthcare Policy, Healthy Eating, Preventive Health, Uncategorized
Tagged beverage institute for health and wellness, bloomberg soda law, coca cola slogan, diabetologia, dr pepper slogan, one soda per day study, pepsi slogan, psilos, soda and diabetes, type II diabetes and soda, work it out calorie calculator
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Digital Health: The Cat’s Meow
I know I have been a bit of a sourpuss (foreshadowing alert) on the whole digital health marketplace. While I fully acknowledge that there are some great technologies and great apps and even great business cases for the use of digital health products, a large number of the digital health ideas currently being touted as the cure for what ails our healthcare system are far from the cat’s meow (foreshadowing alert). Too often entrepreneurs come to investors with products that are cool but are not really broad enough to be businesses. Also common are digital health-focused service ideas that have great concepts behind them but which are barking up the wrong tree when it comes to a business model (foreshadowing alert). While I admit there is more than one way to skin a cat (and, again), it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there (yep) and if one is going to create real value from an investment in the digital health field, we are going to need some new tricks.
Enter into my consciousness one of the best new tricks I have seen yet. I read about it in the Huffington Post … (read the rest)
Posted in Digital Health, Medical Comedy Relief, Uncategorized
Tagged body worn health sensors, digital health, mhealth, necomimi, neuroware, psilos, shippo
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School Daze
This is the longest stretch I’ve gone without writing since I started the blog two years ago. The reason for the lack of production is this: I’ve been on (and am still on) a 10-day trip with my family to look at colleges. My daughter is at the age where next year she will finish high school. So off we went to eyeball all the places she might consider as the ideal location at which to arrive after breaking my heart by leaving home.
It has been an interesting if grueling journey: somewhere between a rock star concert itinerary and the Bataan Death March. 6 states and 13 schools in 10 days. We should have gotten t-shirts with the names of each location printed on the back for a truly authentic vibe. Given the pace and the hours and the driving, no writing time for me. All my extra time has been spent wishing my kid were little again.
The higher education system is interesting in that it is the only other significant U.S. economic sector where the end-user of the service is not typically the payer of the … (read the rest)
The Napster-ization of Healthcare, Coming to a Theater Near You
Two weeks ago I had the good fortune to be invited back to the South by Southwest Conference (SXSW) to participate as a judge of a digital healthcare start-up competition. SXSW, which takes place in Austin, TX, is historically an indie music gathering that has evolved into a massive mainstream music conference as well as a monumentally huge film festival, like Sundance times twenty. There are literally hundreds of bands and films featured around town. There has now evolved alongside this a conference called Interactive that draws more than 25,000 people and focuses on technology, particular mobile, digital, and Internet.
In other words, SXSW has become one of the world’s largest gatherings of hoodie-sporting, gadget-toting nerd geniuses that are way too square to be hip but no one has bothered to tell them. Imagine you are sitting at a Starbucks in Palo Alto, CA among 25,000 people who cannot possibly imagine that the rest of the world still thinks the Internet is that newfangled thing used mainly for email and porn. SXSW is a cacophonous melting pot of brilliance, creativity, futuristic thinking, arrogance, self-importance, ironic retro rock and … (read the rest)
Posted in Consumer Engagement, Digital Health, Healthcare Information Technology, Innovation, Uncategorized
Tagged apple healthcare, Chilmark, CommonWell Health Alliance, downloaded, Epic, health data interoperability, healthcare IT, healthcare technology, innovator's dilemma, jody holtzman, napster, open systems, psilos, sxsw interactive health, the movie, Wang, x/open
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I May Be Dead But You Can’t Get Rid of Me That Easily
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfNVfiqKBeM”>I
OK, I have officially seen it all. I happened to catch Bill Maher’s blog the other day, which is not something I normally read. It was the headline that got me: Posthumous Posts. The article, which you can read HERE, is about how there are no less than three–count them, three–companies which have been established to allow you to….wait for it….tweet after you die. Or post to Facebook from your comfortable perch 6 feet underground. Or otherwise remind people that while you may be dead, you are not forgotten despite their best efforts to do so.
There are numerous people out there who still say, “I’ll die before I start using Twitter!” and this is exactly the market for which these companies have been waiting. Seriously, these three enterprises, which are called DeadSocial, IfIDie and LivesOn, are there to enable you to send out that last grand message, or set of infinite messages, to those who succeed you in life. As Bill Maher correctly notes, the best tag line here is that of LiveOn: “When your heart stops beating, you’ll keep tweeting.” God I wish I … (read the rest)
Give Me Mediterranean Food or Give Me Death!
On Tuesday I flew on a business trip from Germany to Boston. As with all these long flights you can never have enough to do to keep yourself occupied when sleep eludes, so on the way into the plane I grabbed the International Herald Tribune (which announced this week it will be henceforth be known as the International New York Times), it being the only paper plane side where every word didn’t start and end with “furter”.
I was captivated right away by the top front page story called “Diet Brings Clear Benefits for the Heart, Study Finds,” which details a recently completed scientifically validated study that demonstrates that the so-called Mediterranean diet is not only delicious, but may reduce heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease by as much as 30%. Viva Italia! is what I have to say to that. (here is a link to the companion story at the NY Times site).
The Mediterranean diet is basically what they eat–wait for it–in the areas around the Mediterranean Sea, and includes such staples as olive oil (4 tablespoons per day believe it or not), certain … (read the rest)
Posted in Consumer Engagement, Health and Wellness, Healthcare Policy, Healthy Eating, Preventive Health, Uncategorized
Tagged diet reduces heart attacks, diet reduces heart disease, healthy eating, medicaid heart disease, mediterranean diet, mediterranean diet study, psilos, rachael ray evoo
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Aging in Place with Robot and Frank, the Movie
Last week I covered the Grammys, now I’m giving you my Oscar pick for healthcare-related film of the year. But first, a preface:
One of the most pervasive healthcare business trends I have seen in the last year or two is the formation of companies seeking to help people “age in place,” aka live out their golden years comfortably at home rather than in a facility. Nearly 15 years ago, when I first started in the health investment area, this was also a rich target for entrepreneurs, whose business models mainly focused on service innovations involving actual people visiting seniors at home. Psilos also made one such investment, in Caregiver Services, Inc., which has grown to a business of considerable size.
The challenges in these human-based businesses were and remain how to scale cost-effectively and maintain quality as the business grows. In other words, how do you ensure availability of an appropriate supply of appropriate people to care for seniors at home in a reliable and effective way? Despite a burst of initiatives, start-ups in this area trailed off and the various companies across the country have consolidated significantly.… (read the rest)
Posted in Digital Health, Health and Wellness, Healthcare Information Technology, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Uncategorized
Tagged AARP Health Innovations @50+, aging in place, caregiver services, evermind inc, home monitoring technology, home sensor technology, psilos, robot and frank, senior living
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Next Up On the Red Carpet
It’s awards season, as anyone who watched the Grammys or Golden Globes and is anticipating the Oscars knows. The Grammys appeared on TV last night and were a great mix of old and new performers giving it their all for a wanting audience. Much of the host talk was about the dress code requested by the Grammy’s producers (with a particular focus on women’s nether regions and how they should be a little less visible than, say, J Lo’s parts typically are), but the show was actually about musical excellence in all its many forms. If you missed the rendition of The Band’s song The Weight by Elton John, Mumford & Sons, Zac Brown, T Bone Burnett, Mavis Staples and Alabama Shakes you should go watch it (there is a video link HERE). Fantastic music at its best resulting from the collaboration of many who would otherwise never be found in the same sentence, much less song.
I can imagine it is very difficult for these award show judges to pick out who is “the best” when looking at music or actors. In a way that is kind of … (read the rest)
Posted in General Business Issues, Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Innovation, Private Equity, Uncategorized, Venture Capital
Tagged deloitte 2012 technology fast 500, fast company 50, healthcare IT summit, healthedge, omniguide, patientsafe solutions, psilos, seechange health, wall street journal next big thing
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Consumer Reports: Medical Journal for the Masses
In the March 2013 issue of Consumer Reports, sandwiched between an article called “Best TVs” (just in time for Super Bowl) and one called “Microwave Mystery: When do wayward ovens warrant a recall?” is an article entitled “Save Your Life.”
This article, ensconced as it is in the most widely respected national consumer advice magazine, is about what cancer screening tests are out there and which you, as a patient, should and shouldn’t bother seeking out. Wow. I guess this whole consumer engagement in healthcare thing is for real. You can’t get more “consumerish” than Consumer Reports.
In this particular article, which starts with the premise that “cancer screening remains stuck in a 1960s view of the disease,” there is a rating scale that helps the reader determine whether a variety of commonly prescribed cancer screening tests have benefits that outweigh the harms of having such tests. Just like they do with TVs, microwaves and interior paints (all reviewed in the same issue), Consumer Reports uses a 5-point scale illustrated with red or black dots to help consumers navigate through the tests most commonly prescribed. It is … (read the rest)