Hospitals Need More than Political Reform – Healthcare Quality v Spending pt 2

November 19, 2009

My last post dove in to healthcare quality versus spending and introduced the Dartmouth Atlas as one of the key insight tools we have for healthcare spending and quality here in the US.  Essentially the Atlas takes a look at the entire country’s healthcare spending by using Medicare claim data as a proxy.  From this [...]

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Healthcare Quality Vs Spending – Pt. 1

November 16, 2009

Because of all the recent debate on healthcare reform, there’s been a lot of attention on healthcare costs and quality.  A NYTimes Magazine article this last Sunday focused on the evolving principles of effective healthcare spending. Specifically, the article focused on changing physician behavior toward using the most efficient and effective care techniques, rather [...]

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Personal Genomics – Why 23&Me Doesn’t Work

November 5, 2009

In PEHub yesterday an article about 23&Me and the financial issues it’s been having.  As an entrepreneur and having had plenty of great ideas poo-poo’ed by investors and industry folks alike, it’s really hard for me to understand why anyone would have invested in 23&Me as a company.  What I don’t understand is why highly [...]

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The Genomics of Cancer and Why It Matters

October 29, 2009
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One of the most harrowing experiences of medical school was during a surgery for a gynecologic oncology patient.  Prior to the operation we had absolutely no idea that this woman’s ovarian cancer had spread – we had only detected a spot on her left ovary.  However, during surgery we discovered that her cancer had metastasized [...]

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Genome Technology Explained, Part Three – What’s the Big Deal?

October 23, 2009
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In two previous posts I highlighted some of the coming changes in DNA sequencing and some of the up and coming companies that will help us with the onslaught of data. But I’ve neglected to begin to explain why these technologies will be so transformative and why that matters for biomedicine.  Back in 2003 both the [...]

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Cadillac Health Plans – What Does that Really Mean?

October 20, 2009
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Here’s another curiosity of mine concerning the impending healthcare reform – do people really understand what they mean when they demand “good coverage” or the “Cadillac” of care plans?
Think about the etymology of that saying: “The Cadillac of . . . . ” In essence that means the cream of the crop – you can [...]

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DNA 3-D from MIT

October 19, 2009
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This week’s issue of Science will carry an article out of MIT/Harvard’s Broad Institute that further illuminates the 3-dimensional structure of DNA.  The Science article is here, or can be downloaded from Erez Lieberman-Aiden’s (the first author) site.  Specifically, the structure described in the article wraps itself in a way such that the (very) long [...]

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Can VCs be Genuine? a.k.a. Can They Be Trusted?

October 15, 2009
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It’s been a little over a year since Sequoia’s infamous slide deck “leaked” to the internet proclaiming the end of the good times for start-ups.  The presentation contains tons of graphs detailing the oncoming downward spiral and suggested that start-ups tighten their belts in order to survive.  Clearly that was great advice, but my main [...]

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Start-ups & Entrepreneurship: Where to Start?

October 13, 2009

An amazing amount of books and sites and resources exist to help you start a business.  Whether you want to open a custom bakery shop or start the next big thing in life science, there’s someone out there willing to give you advice. Too many voices, with too many opinions, some trying to help, others [...]

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Twitter Etiquette – What’s the Right “Twitterquette?”

October 2, 2009

I recently had the odd feeling of talking with one of my wife’s co-workers, who I also follow on Twitter.  Or, rather, she’s in my twitter stream and she’s fairly prolific and often entertaining.  The conversation, while itself wasn’t odd, but I had an odd feeling because as we were talking I realized that I [...]

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