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Rock Health's Halle Tecco, Neurotrack, Cellscope And Bioinformatics Expert To Discuss The Future Of Diagnosis At Disrupt
Over the last two years, the digital health space has been on fire and I’m excited to lead a panel at Disrupt SF on the subject.
With the healthcare market bogged down by high costs, old technology and slow-moving giants, the space is rife with opportunity and health startups have begun to emerge by the dozen. Among the many opportunities in the healthcare market, the one that appears to have the biggest potential impact on the way we interact with health is in the way that technology is changing the way doctors (and consumers) approach diagnosis.
It’s not difficult to see that the current system is broken, especially when 30 percent of all health care spending in the U.S. (or more than $750B per year) is wasted. The up-side is that doctors have begun integrating technology into their daily routines: Today, 43 percent of physicians use mobile health technology for clinical purposes. Consumers are on board, too, as 19 percent of smartphone users have downloaded health apps and 59 percent of adults in the U.S. look for health information online.
The opportunity is huge. People want tools and technology that help them manage their own healthcare — whether to access medical information or refill prescriptions — in part to help them alleviate the pains brought on by the cost of healthcare and doctors visits in the U.S. Today, technology is finally beginning to allow users to take control of their healthcare and access the kind of futuristic tools that were once relegated to the world of science fiction.
From remote diagnosis, home monitoring and wearable health sensors to electronic health records, software and hardware are coming together to improve access to healthcare, reduce costs and improve efficiency.
With all the changes rippling through healthcare in the U.S., we’ve decided to build a panel at Disrupt SF around the future of digital health — particularly how software, hardware and mobile technologies are merging to change the way we diagnose and treat disease and more. The discussion will feature Rock Health co-founder Halle Tecco, Cellscope co-founder Erik Douglas, Neurotrack co-founder Elli Kaplan, and the Gladstone Institute’s Dr. Katherine Pollard.
Few have a better perspective on the world of digital health startups than Tecco, who is the co-founder and CEO of Rock Health, the largest startup accelerator in the country that caters exclusively to startups playing at the intersection of health and technology. Previously, she worked in business and corporate finance roles at Apple and Intel, and founded the non-profit YogaBear. Tecco also has an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Douglas, too, has a unique perspective on the intersection of healthcare and mobile technology. The former research scientist, bioengineering PhD and hardware hacker turned entrepreneur, currently serves as the CEO (and co-founder) of Cellscope, a startup building technology that enables at-home diagnosis, using smartphone cameras connected to the Web.
As the co-founder of Neurotrack, a startup that’s building a platform to diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease years before symptoms occur, Elli Kaplan also brings deep experience with health technology and next-gen diagnostic tools.
Meanwhile, Dr. Pollard will share her experience at the cutting edge of scientific research, as founder and faculty supervisor of the Gladstone Bioinformatics Core and an associate professor at the Institute for Human Genetics at the University of California, San Francisco. Pollard’s lab is known for developing statistical and computational methods that enable the analysis and study of massive genomic datasets. With her research focusing on genome evolution and the relationship between DNA sequences and biomedical traits, Pollard’s work has important implications for how science identifies and treats a wide range of diseases, from AIDS to atherosclerosis.
Together, Tecco, Douglas, Kaplan and Pollard will talk about how they are building their own businesses, what they’ve learned and how they plan to leverage the changes in technology to build a healthier world.
The conference starts September 7th and runs until the 11th at our favorite location, the San Francisco Design Concourse. Stay tuned for more speaker announcements and a few surprises to be announced soon.
General-admission tickets and exhibitor packages are currently available. Buy tickets here.
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Apple's iPhone Trade-In Program Going Live Across The U.S. Today
Apple will be expanding its iPhone trade-in program nationwide starting today, according to a report from CNBC’s Jon Fortt which we’ve confirmed with our sources. The program allows customers to walk into physical retail stores and exchange an older model device for credit towards a new one. The program has already been piloted at a number of select locations over the past few weeks, TechCrunch reported previously.
The program works by giving iPhone owners a chance to trade in non-water damaged devices in good working order, for between $120 and $250 or so depending on the condition of the device, what model it is and other factors. As part of the stipulations of the trade-in, customers have to walk out with a new contract as well as a new device. It only applies to customers shopping for a new iPhone, so you can’ t just trade an older model in for store credit or towards a different purchase, according to our original sources.
Apple’s intentions for building its own in-store trade-in program were originally outed back in June, when it was revealed that it would partner with Brightstar Corp., a distributor of mobile devices, in order to offer the deal to users. Apple has previously offered up iPhone trade-ins via PowerOn thanks to its “Apple Recycling Program,” but this is in retail stores instead of only working via mail, and specific to iPhones, rather than covering a range of Apple hardware.
The program is launching well ahead of the rumored debut of the next version of the iPhone, which is supposedly slated to be revealed at a September 10 event and could go on sale around September 20. Apple likely wants to give its retail staff and users time to get used to the program and become aware of its availability, as well as perhaps help clear out inventory channels ahead of the launch of new devices in the fall
We’ve reached out to Apple for additional comment and will update if they provide more info.
Update: Apple has provided the following satement regarding the program’s launch today –
iPhones hold great value. So, Apple Retail Stores are launching a new program to assist customers who wish to bring in their previous-generation iPhone for reuse or recycling. In addition to helping support the environment, customers will be able to receive a credit for their returned phone that they can use toward the purchase of a new iPhone.
Twitter Launches A Beta Testing Program On Android
Twitter is the latest startup to launch a beta testing program on Android, via the Google Play app marketplace. The company has begun taking sign-ups for its “Twitter for Android Experiment Program,” which will allow users to register to test the latest, unreleased builds of Twitter’s Android application.
Users interested in becoming Twitter for Android beta testers can join this Google Group, which then provides further details about the Twitter for Android Experiment Program. The program’s goal, explains Twitter, is to “help us improve Twitter for Android and make it more accessible to people around the world, across a range of Android devices.”
Users who participate in the beta testing program will receive a notification to update their app when new builds are ready, and this build will replace the current Twitter for Android app on your phone. In other words, if using Twitter is mission critical for you on a day-to-day basis, this may not be the beta for you as Twitter warns that “some features may not function as expected” – a nice way of saying a test build is likely to be buggy.
But on the flip side, Android beta testers will get to play around with new features before Twitter launches them publicly, and they may also get a chance to try out features that Twitter decides to never actually ship.
After you join the Google Group, to continue the process of becoming a tester, you have to Visit this link to then opt in to the program. Again, users are warned that test builds may be unstable and contain bugs, but if you choose to proceed the final step is to simply download the Twitter app from the Google Play store.
News of the Twitter Beta Program was first spotted by a couple of Android watching blogs, including Planet Android and Android Police.
Twitter for Android beta testers will certainly have their hands full with new features to try out, given the number of experiments Twitter has been running lately. The company recently began testing a new “TV Trending” box at the top of the timeline, as well as a feature which alerts you about live events that are happening nearby. Each time Twitter declined to comment about these initiatives, instead pointing TechCrunch to its blog post about “Innovation through experimentation.”
The company also radically overhauled their “Conversations” view feature this week, to make the service more accessible to new users. These changes aren’t meant only to make the Twitter product itself better, but also to help the company generate new revenue streams through advertisements and partnerships, ahead of an IPO.
We’ve reached out to Twitter for comment on the beta program and will update when we hear back.
Twitter is not the only company to turn to Google Play as a beta testing grounds. Other social services have also begun running beta tests there as well including both Snapchat and Facebook.
FwdHealth Tracks And Reports Your Health To Employers In An Effort To Cut Insurance Costs
There’s no doubt that the cost of healthcare in the U.S. is a hot topic of debate, but a new startup called FwdHealth is looking to join the conversation. The idea is pretty simple.
FwdHealth is an app that links up with all of your existing fitness and wellness apps (for now that includes RunKeeper, MapMyRun, and FitBit, but the list continues to grow) and sends that data, aggregated and organized, to your employer. As it stands now, employers are reimbursed for having a healthier workforce, but sending that proof to the insurance companies isn’t always so simple.
FwdHealth allows employers to track the health and wellness of their employees, respond accordingly, and catch a break on costs after demonstrating that their employees are healthy.
Eighty-seven percent of the over $2 trillion spent annually on healthcare goes to the cost of the care itself, such as the work doctors do, emergency room visits, medication, and procedures. While most health tech companies are looking to reduce processing and administration costs, FwdHealth is focusing on reducing the need for care, thereby reducing the overall cost of health care at a particular organization.
To that end, FwdHealth focuses on giving employers the power to incentivize their workforce into healthy living, inevitably saving on health care costs in the long term.
FwdHealth is a SaaS solution that runs on a tiered subscription model with customers ranging from employers to insurers, or anyone in charge of population management. FwdHealth will also be offered as a white label technology so that city employee wellness plans won’t run into any conflicts of interest.
For now, the app is only available on Google Play, but the web dashboard and an iOS app will be available in early fall.
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