Handout readers,
This week coronavirus took the main stage. There’s a lot of great coverage about the virus and the response to it. I’ll be trying to highlight those stories that relate to our regular topic of the intersection of healthcare, tech, and business. I’ll also include, at the bottom of the newsletter, a collection of articles about the virus that don’t fit into our regular topics but are still worth your time.
If you’re part of the effort to take care of the sick, thank you for the work you’re doing and all the work you’re going to be doing.
For everyone else: stay home, stay healthy.
-Isaac
Things That Happened
This test will be timed. The FDA approved Roche’s fully automated high-volume coronavirus diagnostic within 24 hours of receiving the application. An FDA official quoted in the story: "Since the beginning of this outbreak, more than 60 developers have sought our assistance with development and validation of tests they plan to bring through the Emergency Use Authorization process.” The general consensus is that the real number of cases in the United States is being masked by our inability to adequately test the population - hopefully this changes soon.
Wishful linking. President Trump announced Friday that Google had 1,700 engineers putting together a website that’d help Americans determine if they needed to get tested for coronavirus. According to Brian Barrett and Louise Matsakis in Wired, Google was, like the rest of us, hearing this for the first time during that press conference.
GP-Yes. South Korea’s Ministry of the Interior and Safety released a mobile app to track, using GPS, the whereabouts of Koreans who are meant to be under quarantine. It’s both voluntary, and working. Read more about it in the MIT Tech Review.
In the red. Qventus set up a tool for demonstrating predicted health system capacity during a coronavirus related surge in demand. It’s not good. Typically, hospitals view empty beds as inefficiencies, which means they’re usually operating at or near capacity. A massive influx of patients will be a strain on facilities and staff. Aaron Carroll tells us why this is the biggest thing to worry about.
Getting ready for the flood. Some hospitals are readying themselves for increased demand by cancelling scheduled elective procedures and other non-urgent visits. Others, well, aren’t.
Things To Read
“AI will not save us from the coronavirus,” says Will Douglas Heaven in the MIT Tech Review. He details all the ways machine learning is working on the problem, and the various roadblocks the technology and the people behind it are facing. The promise: we could detect it earlier in populations, diagnose it faster in individuals, and identify vaccines and treatments more quickly. The problems: data is hard to acquire, we need a lot of it to train accurate models, and most importantly, we need people to listen to it and take action.
A look inside Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute, a team using social networks and other publicly available data to understand how the way humans move influences the spread of disease. From Benedict Carey in the NY Times.
Required reading. David Cutler, professor of Applied Economics at Harvard, takes us through his policy proposal for reducing administrative costs in the American healthcare system. What you won’t find here: technology more advanced than an API, single payer, or vague hand-waving talk of “synergy.” The savings, which he estimates at $50 - $75b annually, stem from creating a centralized clearinghouse for insurance claims, improving prior authorization workflows, and creating programmatic access for individual’s health data.
Even if you aren’t interested in Cutler’s proposals, his paper is a fantastic summation of the size and depth of our healthcare system’s administrative inefficiencies. These are hard problems that need solving (calling all startup founders).
“At Aetna Inc., which was acquired by CVS Health Corp. , many insurance plans this year have dropped co-payments for members if they go to the drugstore chain’s MinuteClinics.” Anna Wilde Mathews reports in the WSJ from the front lines of healthcare’s front-door wars. This simple notion that patients can be directed to lower-cost specialty providers, or even avoid or postpone the need for specialty care altogether, is what’s driving the fevered rush to own the front door of healthcare. Mathew’s details how insurers are setting up their own primary and urgent care networks and the effect it’s having on the landscape of options for care.
“Another study found that for each additional A.A. meeting attended, health care costs fell by almost 5 percent, mostly a result of fewer days spent in the hospital and fewer psychiatric visits.” Aaron Carroll and Austin Frakt laid out a convincing argument this week in the NY Times for why Alcoholics Anonymous is the most effective alcohol cessation treatment program, even when compared with medical and professional behavioral intervention.
“A.A. meetings are ubiquitous and frequent, with no appointment needed — you just show up. The bonds formed from the shared challenge of addiction — building trust and confidence in a group setting — may be a key ingredient to help people stay on the road to recovery.” One key takeaway: sometimes tech and advanced professional techniques won’t be the best way to help patients get better.
Coronavirus Central
There’s a lot to read on coronavirus. Here’s the stuff I found particularly interesting or helpful.
Easily digestible simulations that demonstrate how critically important social distancing is in fighting a pandemic from Harry Stevens in the Washington Post.
Here’s how Singapore managed the coronavirus outbreak and avoided the systemic collapse we’re seeing in other countries. Adam Rogers in Wired.
NY Times reporter Donald McNeil describes how China has curtailed the growth of infection rates in an interview with Rachel Maddow.
How to do social distancing right. Dr. Asaf Bitton of Ariadne Labs.
Thanks for reading The Healthcare Handout, a regular update on tech and business in healthcare from Isaac Krasny. Criticize, praise, hire, or otherwise get in touch with Isaac via isaac@healthcarehandout.com, or on twitter @isaackrasny
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