Things & Thinks VIII
This issue of my fortnightly newsletter picks up on common threads running through Twitter hacking and Garmin ransomware, Teladoc-Livongo merger, India’s National Health Stack and often-confusing issue of being an expert. Happy Reading!
Hackers, Infosec and Healthcare
Past few weeks haven’t been kind of tech firms. By now, everyone knows that there was a huge Twitter hack, which impacted high-profile Twitter accounts incl Elon Musk, Obama and Gates. Within a week, consumer wearable/activity tracker company Garmin reported a ransomware attack, reportedly amounting to $10 million.
Such threats to data security are not new to healthcare too; according to Protenus breach barometer, more than 41 million patient records were breached in 2019, with about 48% jump in reported hacking incidents. Indian healthcare got a taste of such attacks in 2019, when a healthcare website in India was hacked and 6.8 million patient records were stolen.
Cyber security experts feel that healthcare technology is especially vulnerable to attacks due to lower awareness of healthcare professionals towards such issues. Multi-factor authentications, zero standing privileges and algorithmic detection of suspicious activities can be some of the essential tools should be some of the most elemental infosec tools we should all start adapting. With so much at stake, no wonder people are wary of sharing even anonymized data with tech companies…
Healthcare coming together?
Partnerships, Consolidations, mergers and acquisitions continue to speed up in healthcare, coming in all hues & colors, including vertical and horizontal synergies, expanding market definitions and creating new markets. Here are some of the latest examples-
- CVS Caremark, a pharmacy benefit manager firm, expanded its digital health implementation through adding 5 solutions to its Point Solution Management Service. This is an interesting model that helps PBMs’ role in becoming an intermidiary, similar to their role in managing market access for traditional pharmaceuticals.
- Livongo-one of the most successful remote digital health management company and Teladoc-a US telemedicine giant agreed for a merger (however with Teladoc maintaining their own CEO and an 8–5 split on board members, it looks more like Teladoc acquiring Livongo). The combined unit’s vision is to ‘create a comprehensive platform for consumer-centred virtual healthcare delivery’. Time will tell if this will be so, however investors in both the firms are not quite happy-Teladoc folks thinking the deal is oversized and Livongo folks thinking that this means lower growth rate.
- On the Indian front, a different story is unfolding. The much-talked National Health Stack is taking shape and private players are taking great interest in the set-up. There are also talks of consolidation in the ePharmacy market and of course Reliance is thinking of this space too…
Who has the ‘tech’ manual?
This Wired piece by Siva Vaidhyanathan really resonated with me-he writes about how difficult it is for anyone to be a ‘Tech Expert’ in today’s complex tech landscape. The whole piece is readable but here are some cool excerpts-
In 1787 we decided that we would be ruled by citizens, not by priests, professors, or professionals. We don’t insist that everyone in Congress understand how the B2 Spirit “stealth” bomber works, or how serotonin reuptake inhibitors help manage depression, or even how the internal combustion engine works. Yet we justifiably expect our government to regulate them.
And this one-
As we look at the myriad ways Google and Facebook have let us down and led us astray, let’s remember that no one has the manual. No one fully understands these systems, even the people who designed them at their birth. The once impressive, now basic, algorithms that made Google and Facebook distinct and useful have long been eclipsed by even more sophisticated and opaque data sets and machine learning. They are not just black boxes to regulators, journalists, and scholars. They are black boxes to the very engineers who work there.
I think we may not be there yet in many other fields being consummated with technology adaption esp in healthcare, but with all the healthcare technology advances, maybe we too will no longer have a manual someday?
Tidbits
- There is an ill-thought, dangerous access race for corona vaccines- ‘The resulting patchwork of agreements has raised big questions about global vaccine access and stoked wrangles over pricing, supply security and liability for possible side-effects.’
- Microsoft Excel is the driving force behind renaming of genes!
- ‘For 8 weeks, 80,000 medical practices in Germany were unable to access patient claims/encounter data from payers via the telematics system installed in their offices (Telematik-Infrastruktur, or TI)’@lisabari
How do you like this newsletter? Leave your feedback via comments (and ‘claps’!)
Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel
