6 ms·

Apple on medical tech hiring spree

55 points by lr 12y ago

pazra 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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.
  - Balgair 12y ago
    I agree entirely! I'd love to be able to track my bloodsugar all the time if I were a diabetic. Or my cortisol, so i know what triggers my stress better. However, keeping this data private is terribly important. If it were made known that Jobs had cancer, or might have been looking to see if he did, then you can predict what the stock market would do. The privacy issue here cannot be understated
    - ThomPete 12y ago
      Data doesn't need to be private just anonymized :)
      - r00fus 12y ago
        De-anonymization is a real concern. (warning: pdf link) http://www.cs.pomona.edu/classes/cs190-2012/netflix_deanon.pdf http://www.cs.pomona.edu/classes/cs190-2012/netflix_deanon.p...
        ThomPete 12y ago
        Oh I don't doubt that. Just saying that the data is much more valuable if it's in use and anonymization is one way to do that.
  - fidotron 12y ago
    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.
    - ThomPete 12y ago
      Which is why they should be proponents of this since it will allow them to confirm their objection :)
    - scott_karana 12y ago
      Wouldn't a constant stream of data allow for more realistic baseline measurements to be set?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- twistedpair 12y ago
  There are already a number of products out there like this. Check out https://neumitra.com/ https://neumitra.com/ here in Boston for a watch that monitors many of your vitals. If you'd told me in 2000 that everyone would be carrying a always wirelessly internet connected computer with light, video, barometric, acceleration, voice, and gyroscopic sensors, I'd have thought it nuts. Given that, what's a little skin conductivity, pulse, and blood pressure sensing package? Of course, the bigger problem, is do you trust Google/FB/Apple with all your health data in a time when health benefits are one's most volatile expense? You KNOW others will poach and abuse such data.
  - dominotw 12y ago
    $1500 for a watch that I am not quite sure what it does. I read through the FAQ on the website, I am still not sure what it does. I need more proof of efficacy before I shell out that kind of money.
    - robg 12y ago
      That's my startup! Sounds like we need better FAQs, thanks! We've benchmarked against $20,000 clinical research equipment for skin conductance with established research collaborators. So right now we're more a research device but working hard to bring the price down without compromising accuracy. We'll follow that same approach as we add sensors.
  - mahyarm 12y ago
    That watch is a basis watch ($200) missing an optical heart rate sensor.
    - robg 12y ago
      We've optimized for data quality as I'm a data-oriented neuroscientist with a family history of mental health concerns. So our skin conductance is research grade and we've worked hard to be as thin and comfortable as possible. That said, I'm really glad to see that Basis has been validating theirs as a sleep device. More validation is a good thing!
- king_magic 12y ago
  You'll have to pry my FitBit Force from my arm (at least until the iWatch comes along). I would love if it was part of an Apple device, and would instantly drop $200/$300 for a combination iWatch & fitness device.
- encoderer 12y ago
  Everybody has a body. And one look at recent trends in food service shows you the move people are making to (psuedo) healthy alternatives. I think this will be huge and personally can't wait.
- robg 12y ago
  At Neumitra, we were surprised by how quickly the data gets boring. So we've been pushed to build data integration into most things you do on your phone. We show how music pumps you up or cools you down, how some people really are difficult to talk to, and how places cause and relieve stress. To us, these are the killer apps of health metrics - how the ways you live your life affects how you feel.
- tomelders 12y ago
  I don't see it the same way. Everywhere I go I see people consuming health and fitness products, from easy fad diets to high end sports equipment it seems to me that people have an insatiable appetite for it. Not everyone of course, but in the UK alone the Health and Fitness industry is worth £3.6 billion. I shudder to think what the medical equipment industry is worth. I suspect that whoever can marry the two in a way that is acceptable to consumers will effectively have a license to print money.
chrisdevereux 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    He was literally killed by fruit.
- tomelders 12y ago
  I had a similar thought the other day. Taking into account the stories about his character, I could easily imagine him looking around in the hospital and decreeing every bit of hardware and software to be a "peice of shit" (excuse the language, I'm paraphrasing). Add to that his own personal experience with his health, it would be hard to imagine Mr Jobs resisting the urge to put Apple's talent to the task.
  - mmcconnell1618 12y ago
    The "Steve Jobs" biography by Walter Isaacson specifically mentioned that Steve spent a good portion of his time in the hospital designing superior interfaces for the medical devices that surrounded him.
ThomPete 12y ago
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.
- owenfi 12y ago
  John Wilbanks is working on something of that sort: http://sagebase.org/governance/ http://sagebase.org/governance/ And gave a TED talk on it a while back: http://www.ted.com/talks/john_wilbanks_let_s_pool_our_medical_data http://www.ted.com/talks/john_wilbanks_let_s_pool_our_medica...
- robg 12y ago
  At Neumitra we're building around a data co-op model. It's a data cooperative. You don't have to share your data but when you do we can better show how you relate to others. So if you tell us you have high blood pressure, we can show how you relate to others with high blood pressure. If you don't, then we can't. All of our technologies are being built to assume no data sharing too. In that case, we just show how you compare to yourself. Curious to hear feedback... EDIT: If you disagree with the data co-op, please say so!
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - robg 12y ago
    Keep in mind it's standard to do medical research and fiercely guard privacy (HIPAA). At Neumitra, we build-in anonymity before we get a single bit of data.
    - astrange 12y ago
      > At Neumitra, we build-in anonymity before we get a single bit of data. How do you do this? Have you asked people to try de-anonymizing your anonymous data?
- salimmadjd 12y ago
debt 12y ago
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.
return0 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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...
izzydata 12y ago
Is he wearing a black shirt and bluejeans on purpose?
mcphilip 12y ago
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.
- gurkendoktor 12y ago
  I agree, if everything is stored in the iCloud. But the reason I love Apple's ecosystem is that you don't (yet) need the cloud for anything. TouchID works offline and even USB contact/calendar sync is coming back. I assume an iWatch would have a Lightning port to charge it, so why not sync it with your Mac running 10.10 at the same time? Is this wishful thinking in 2014?
  - codyb 12y ago
    TouchID was never meant to be stored at the cloud level and is in fact isolated on the hardware side to prevent easy retrieval of the data. From Apple's page on Touch ID Security [1] "Secure Enclave Touch ID doesn't store any images of your fingerprint. It stores only a mathematical representation of your fingerprint. It isn't possible for your actual fingerprint image to be reverse-engineered from this mathematical representation. iPhone 5s also includes a new advanced security architecture called the Secure Enclave within the A7 chip, which was developed to protect passcode and fingerprint data. Fingerprint data is encrypted and protected with a key available only to the Secure Enclave. Fingerprint data is used only by the Secure Enclave to verify that your fingerprint matches the enrolled fingerprint data. The Secure Enclave is walled off from the rest of A7 and the rest of iOS. Therefore, your fingerprint data is never accessed by iOS or other apps, never stored on Apple servers, and never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else. Only Touch ID uses it, and it can't be used to match against other fingerprint databases." [1]http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5949?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5949?viewlocale=en_US&locale=e...

55 points by lr 12y ago

pazra 12y ago

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 12y ago
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.
- Balgair 12y ago
  I agree entirely! I'd love to be able to track my bloodsugar all the time if I were a diabetic. Or my cortisol, so i know what triggers my stress better. However, keeping this data private is terribly important. If it were made known that Jobs had cancer, or might have been looking to see if he did, then you can predict what the stock market would do. The privacy issue here cannot be understated
  - ThomPete 12y ago
    Data doesn't need to be private just anonymized :)
    - r00fus 12y ago
      De-anonymization is a real concern. (warning: pdf link) http://www.cs.pomona.edu/classes/cs190-2012/netflix_deanon.pdf http://www.cs.pomona.edu/classes/cs190-2012/netflix_deanon.p...
      - ThomPete 12y ago
        Oh I don't doubt that. Just saying that the data is much more valuable if it's in use and anonymization is one way to do that.
- fidotron 12y ago
  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.
  - ThomPete 12y ago
    Which is why they should be proponents of this since it will allow them to confirm their objection :)
  - scott_karana 12y ago
    Wouldn't a constant stream of data allow for more realistic baseline measurements to be set?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
twistedpair 12y ago
There are already a number of products out there like this. Check out https://neumitra.com/ https://neumitra.com/ here in Boston for a watch that monitors many of your vitals. If you'd told me in 2000 that everyone would be carrying a always wirelessly internet connected computer with light, video, barometric, acceleration, voice, and gyroscopic sensors, I'd have thought it nuts. Given that, what's a little skin conductivity, pulse, and blood pressure sensing package? Of course, the bigger problem, is do you trust Google/FB/Apple with all your health data in a time when health benefits are one's most volatile expense? You KNOW others will poach and abuse such data.
- dominotw 12y ago
  $1500 for a watch that I am not quite sure what it does. I read through the FAQ on the website, I am still not sure what it does. I need more proof of efficacy before I shell out that kind of money.
  - robg 12y ago
    That's my startup! Sounds like we need better FAQs, thanks! We've benchmarked against $20,000 clinical research equipment for skin conductance with established research collaborators. So right now we're more a research device but working hard to bring the price down without compromising accuracy. We'll follow that same approach as we add sensors.
- mahyarm 12y ago
  That watch is a basis watch ($200) missing an optical heart rate sensor.
  - robg 12y ago
    We've optimized for data quality as I'm a data-oriented neuroscientist with a family history of mental health concerns. So our skin conductance is research grade and we've worked hard to be as thin and comfortable as possible. That said, I'm really glad to see that Basis has been validating theirs as a sleep device. More validation is a good thing!
king_magic 12y ago
You'll have to pry my FitBit Force from my arm (at least until the iWatch comes along). I would love if it was part of an Apple device, and would instantly drop $200/$300 for a combination iWatch & fitness device.
encoderer 12y ago
Everybody has a body. And one look at recent trends in food service shows you the move people are making to (psuedo) healthy alternatives. I think this will be huge and personally can't wait.
robg 12y ago
At Neumitra, we were surprised by how quickly the data gets boring. So we've been pushed to build data integration into most things you do on your phone. We show how music pumps you up or cools you down, how some people really are difficult to talk to, and how places cause and relieve stress. To us, these are the killer apps of health metrics - how the ways you live your life affects how you feel.
tomelders 12y ago
I don't see it the same way. Everywhere I go I see people consuming health and fitness products, from easy fad diets to high end sports equipment it seems to me that people have an insatiable appetite for it. Not everyone of course, but in the UK alone the Health and Fitness industry is worth £3.6 billion. I shudder to think what the medical equipment industry is worth. I suspect that whoever can marry the two in a way that is acceptable to consumers will effectively have a license to print money.

chrisdevereux 12y ago

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 12y ago
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 12y ago
  He was literally killed by fruit.
tomelders 12y ago
I had a similar thought the other day. Taking into account the stories about his character, I could easily imagine him looking around in the hospital and decreeing every bit of hardware and software to be a "peice of shit" (excuse the language, I'm paraphrasing). Add to that his own personal experience with his health, it would be hard to imagine Mr Jobs resisting the urge to put Apple's talent to the task.
- mmcconnell1618 12y ago
  The "Steve Jobs" biography by Walter Isaacson specifically mentioned that Steve spent a good portion of his time in the hospital designing superior interfaces for the medical devices that surrounded him.

ThomPete 12y ago

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.

owenfi 12y ago
John Wilbanks is working on something of that sort: http://sagebase.org/governance/ http://sagebase.org/governance/ And gave a TED talk on it a while back: http://www.ted.com/talks/john_wilbanks_let_s_pool_our_medical_data http://www.ted.com/talks/john_wilbanks_let_s_pool_our_medica...
robg 12y ago
At Neumitra we're building around a data co-op model. It's a data cooperative. You don't have to share your data but when you do we can better show how you relate to others. So if you tell us you have high blood pressure, we can show how you relate to others with high blood pressure. If you don't, then we can't. All of our technologies are being built to assume no data sharing too. In that case, we just show how you compare to yourself. Curious to hear feedback... EDIT: If you disagree with the data co-op, please say so!
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- robg 12y ago
  Keep in mind it's standard to do medical research and fiercely guard privacy (HIPAA). At Neumitra, we build-in anonymity before we get a single bit of data.
  - astrange 12y ago
    > At Neumitra, we build-in anonymity before we get a single bit of data. How do you do this? Have you asked people to try de-anonymizing your anonymous data?
salimmadjd 12y ago

debt 12y ago

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.

return0 12y ago

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 12y ago
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...

izzydata 12y ago

Is he wearing a black shirt and bluejeans on purpose?

mcphilip 12y ago

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.

gurkendoktor 12y ago
I agree, if everything is stored in the iCloud. But the reason I love Apple's ecosystem is that you don't (yet) need the cloud for anything. TouchID works offline and even USB contact/calendar sync is coming back. I assume an iWatch would have a Lightning port to charge it, so why not sync it with your Mac running 10.10 at the same time? Is this wishful thinking in 2014?
- codyb 12y ago
  TouchID was never meant to be stored at the cloud level and is in fact isolated on the hardware side to prevent easy retrieval of the data. From Apple's page on Touch ID Security [1] "Secure Enclave Touch ID doesn't store any images of your fingerprint. It stores only a mathematical representation of your fingerprint. It isn't possible for your actual fingerprint image to be reverse-engineered from this mathematical representation. iPhone 5s also includes a new advanced security architecture called the Secure Enclave within the A7 chip, which was developed to protect passcode and fingerprint data. Fingerprint data is encrypted and protected with a key available only to the Secure Enclave. Fingerprint data is used only by the Secure Enclave to verify that your fingerprint matches the enrolled fingerprint data. The Secure Enclave is walled off from the rest of A7 and the rest of iOS. Therefore, your fingerprint data is never accessed by iOS or other apps, never stored on Apple servers, and never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else. Only Touch ID uses it, and it can't be used to match against other fingerprint databases." [1]http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5949?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5949?viewlocale=en_US&locale=e...