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The excitement of the health care industry – I would hardly like to call it infectious or contagious, but fear that would be in bad taste – and it is abundantly clear FortuneThe Brainstorm Health conference in San Diego this week.
Keller Rinaudo, founder and CEO of Zipline International, a company specializing in the delivery of medical supplies by drones, has seduced the public with images of the important work his for-profit company is doing in Africa. The highly funded start-up is much more than a curiosity, and its technology greatly exceeds the annoying quadricopters. Zipline drones are planes that land by an innovative tail hook mechanism.
Technology is transforming health care, primarily for the good. Hal Barron, Scientific Director of pharmaceutical giant GSK, explained how his company uses genetic targeting to double the chances of experimental drugs reaching patients, from 10% to 20%. Harvard epidemiologist Caroline Buckee described a project in Puerto Rico that used satellite imagery and mobile data to track epidemics so they could be treated more effectively.
This kind of enthusiasm always has disadvantages. Health leaders love to talk about fashionable technology. Find solutions to the chronic problem of underserved people, not so much. When Cleveland Clinic's Toby Cosgrove (and now Google Cloud Advisor) asked Bruce Broussard, CEO of mega-insurer Humana, for his views on "Medicare for All," the insurance chief murmured a vague eulogy for "the Government "an answer.
Peter Sands, the former banker who heads the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said that "the business world is not really interested in global health but in the world. environment". His group studied the situation of Fortune. 500 and learned that 74% of companies applied environmental policies, while only 10% were officially dedicated to health in the world. And many of them are health care companies. According to Sands, environmental activists have done a much better job with business and the global health community itself is deeply suspicious of business. "I think the global health community needs to look closely at its commitment," he said.
To conclude on a positive note, psychologist Lisa Damour explained why stress and anxiety are a bad thing and are good for us. (Tip: most of the things we are wired for tend to be at least a little beneficial.) The title of my summary of Damour's presentation is "Writing this article has been stressful. That's okay, experts say. "
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