Former Apple CEO on Future of Medical Technology

Nice piece on FastCompany Former Apple CEO John Sculley On The Future Of Medical Technology And Health Care's Killer App 

As a trail blazer for original tablets in the 80's it must be gratifying to see the uptake of the iPad and it's competitors. In his mind not going to start with a single "killer app"

I think that the health care industry is so complex that it doesn't necessarily start with a single killer app. You go back to the early days of the personal computer--when I joined the industry, we really didn't know what the killer app was going to be. All we knew was that it was going to be possible to create very low-cost, shrink-wrapped applications. It wasn't for several years until we understood that electronic spreadsheets, word processors, and eventually desktop publishing would become killer apps.

But some combination of a solutions integrated and focused on ease of use. The technology has reached a point of penetration and ease of use that makes adoption that much easier in healthcare

So the intimidation of technology is no longer the issue now that it was just a few years ago.

I'd add one thing - the disruptive technology must include ease of interaction and data capture that does not inhibit adoption and as highlighted in this piece on MedScape EHR Voice Recognition: An End to the 'No Eye Contact' Problem which highlights the significant contribution of effectively speech enabling EHRs to

allows for maintenance of the doctor-patient relationship by minimizing the attention paid to the laptop computer inevitably and uncomfortably sitting between a physician and patient when using the point-and-click method

The same is true with other healthcare technology that can interfere with the clinician-patient interaction. As John Sculley said: "You combine those conditions and it creates an opportunity for entrepreneurs to come in and find disruptive solutions."

Posted via email from drnic's posterous