
Apple on medical tech hiring spree - lr
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/05/us-apple-hiring-insight-idUSBREA4409020140505
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mcphilip
From 4 years working leading teams in an electronic medical software shop, I
urge consumers to not assume that vendors will be good stewards of personal
data. forget the boilerplate and assurance that data will only be used in an
anonymous way.

1\. Never admit to social drinking or smoking. It goes on your permanent
record, even at just a mom and pop style clinic with paper records.

2\. Above all, never admit to recreational use of marijuana. Maybe that's an
obvious statement in some parts of the world, but living in Austin, it's eye-
opening to see how minor drug use is something to be proud of.

To preemptively address concerns about HIPAA laws, etc, being adequate
protection and that this comment is pure paranoia, two things:

1\. Snowden. Enough said.

2\. I'm personally aware of a massive DB of client data solely given to the QA
department for purposes of debugging a particularly nasty bug mysteriously
vanishing from the lockdown where it was supposedly safely stored. There are
insiders keenly aware of how profitable it is to acquire and sell medical
data...

In summary, you can no longer assume confidentially between health
providers/monitors and patient interactions, to the detriment of all involved.

EDIT:

In order to provide some actionable information instead of just warnings:

When I left the industry 6 years ago, it was still binding for a patient to
explicitly say that certain information must be kept confidential and not
shared with any party besides the physician handling the interaction. By all
means, if you have experience with 10 years of using crank, it's highly
relevant to provide that info to your HC provider. You just may want to get
assurances that the information will be kept strictly confidential. Good luck
-- the doctors and staff legitimately want to help; it's just the data miners
that want to extract much profit from you as possible.

~~~
robg
Sadly, this is the most cynical view, that while valid, I have no choice but
to fight against to see medical progress. I also work in this area and after a
decade as a publishing neuroscientist where we were bound by HIPAA rules and
my universities were liable if there was a breach.

 _I_ care greatly, and so my company does, about ensuring anonymity and
learning from the data as much as possible, if participants continue to share.
We assume anonymity before we touch one bit of data. And users always have the
option of using our products without sharing anything at all.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
To add another datapoint: I work for a large medical device manufacturer. We
often need patient databases for debugging problems in the field. Although
everyone who gets access to the raw data is HIPAA trained periodically (if
your training expires, so do your data access credentials) we have implemented
a "download database" feature that scrubs all patient identifying data before
it's transmitted over the line.

Sure, there may be some edge cases where we need that ID stuff (haven't come
across it in the years we've been doing this), but the point is that we take
patient confidentiality very seriously (and the business takes being dinged
for a HIPAA violation just as seriously).

It may sound fluffy and Pollyanna-like, but it's hard to be successful in this
field without genuinely caring about the patient at the other end of your
software.

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ThomPete
Just like we have blood donors perhaps we should think about trying to promote
the idea of data donors.

The value of continues streams of health data for the advance of medicine
cannot be underrated.

~~~
salimmadjd
Sorry a bit of self promotion. We started a similar concept in 2009 and we
launched our mHealth app in 2010 [0]. AFAIK we were the first or one of the
first to do it.

We are collaborating with some amazing researchers, but we have run into a few
bureaucratic issues. Some of the institutions we have worked with or been
trying to work with, are keep pushing for IP ownership which makes the process
more challenging at times.

[0] [http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/10/asthmamd-helps-asthma-
suffe...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/10/asthmamd-helps-asthma-sufferers-
gathers-aggregate-research-data/)

edit: typos.

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chrisdevereux
Wonder if Jobs was involved in this stuff before he died. One of the reasons
that pancreatic cancer is so serious is that it tends not to manifest itself
until it's too late to treat.

This fact, and the scope for devices that provide early warnings about serious
health issues but that integrate well into the user's life (something Apple
have traditionally been good at), is something he'd likely have been thinking
about.

(Disclaimer: Totally uninformed speculation)

~~~
3am
Not particular relevant, but Jobs had a particularly early diagnosis (edit:
and one of the few treatable forms of pancreatic cancer) but ignored his
doctors recommendations for almost a year. It is very likely this cost him his
life.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Health_issues](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Health_issues)

(I doubt this is related to the business initiative, it's probably the
fragmented market and fat margins in medical devices)

~~~
brianwawok
He was literally killed by fruit.

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debt
I wonder if ads are reaching saturation, now the next major online money-
making shift will be geared towards the healthcare sector. The healthcare
sector seems largely unexplored in most app ecosystems.

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pazra
Just not sure how many people care that much about their health/fitness, to
want to buy a device to monitor it constantly. I can see it as a
possible/likely feature of an iWatch, but is that really such a compelling
reason to buy one, regardless of how superior the interface / features are?

~~~
ThomPete
Monitoring constantly in the background is exactly what people want, in fact
its what society want and your doctor want, it's what humanity want.

The number of applications for this kind of data is infinite.

The concept of data donors will be a reality very soon.

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fidotron
It certainly isn't what your doctor wants.

The stock objection to constant mass monitoring is that many people are living
with the symptoms of serious diseases without the actual disease. Doctors are
concerned there will be so many false leads it would lead to a sort of cried
wolf situation, where when someone finally is actually ill they won't believe
it.

That concern clearly isn't baseless, but it's also short term thinking.

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scott_karana
Wouldn't a constant stream of data allow for more realistic baseline
measurements to be set?

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izzydata
Is he wearing a black shirt and bluejeans on purpose?

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return0
Healthcare is a place where there should be competition and openness that will
make these devices cheap for everyone. Apple is known for the high premiums
and ruthless lock-ins. Plus, they have a huge stash of cash to lobby the FDA
and other regulators. At least that's was the case under Jobs' leadership,
otherwise I think this is rather worrying.

~~~
curiousphil
Apple is also known for bringing technologies that other companies couldn't to
the mass market. Maybe they are worth a premium for this reason. The
healthcare industry has never been known for its budget friendliness...

