HEALT H CARE A NA LY T I C S
Will Apple, Google
usher in new era in
healthcare analytics?
The two giants have
all the technology, talent
and financial firepower
needed to drive analytics
into the consumer health
space by enabling a
platform play for various
data generating devices
and apps.
2014 is turning out to be an interesting year for
the healthcare industry. On the healthcare technology
front, this year has spurred 16 acquisitions since Jan.
1. State and federal government health insurance
exchanges finally started to operate at scale, offering affordable health insurance coverage to millions.
Twenty-six states and Washington, D.C., expanded
their Medicaid program as of May 2014, making a
large number of patients eligible for the safety net.
These are all good things that add to the success
of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as
Obamacare.
At the same time we are just beginning to
see the impact of the new patient inflow on our
health system in the form of emergency room overcrowding [1]. Opponents of the ACA argue that the
expansion of coverage without expanding the
primary care physician network across the nation
will lead to disaster. It remains to be seen which
way the pendulum will swing.
APPLE’S BIG SPLASH WITH HEALTHKIT
BY RAJIB GHOSH
24
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Meanwhile, Apple has released its HealthKit product that connects multiple devices and apps. It has
shown promise to become the health data repository
A N A LY T I C S - M A G A Z I N E . O R G
W W W. I N F O R M S . O R G