Google’s new takeover target? CMS: 5 must-read stories from MedCity News this week

Top stories this week included the remarks of a Biogen VP on Google, and Alphabet's earnings report this week - particularly as it could relate to healthcare.

Google Opens New Berlin Office

While some of the week’s top news in the business of healthcare included, again, Martin Shkreli – and his flouting authority at this week’s congressional hearing on drug pricing, it was Google that really excited the interest of our readers. A top executive at biotech giant Biogen made the bold claim that Google’s interested in ultimately becoming the payer. And Alphabet, Google’s new parent company, released earnings for the first time under its current incarnation. We analyzed how the earnings this quarter might be reflective of its activities in healthcare.

1. Biogen VP: Google wants to be a payer – and take over CMS

Google’s next takeover target? The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, or so says Adam Koppel, Biogen’s vice president of corporate development and strategy.

“We asked them the question: What is Google’s business model? What is it they are really trying to do?” said Koppel, speaking on a panel at this week’s Harvard Business School Healthcare Conference. “They want to become the payer.”

2. For healthcare, Google’s cloud computing, machine learning developments steal Alphabet earnings spotlight

For anyone hoping for juicy details about Alphabet’s healthcare and life science interests, its fourth quarter earnings call offered slim pickings. But if you listened to the bigger picture, the push to reorganize Google’s cloud-based business offered plenty to think about. The company made frequent references to machine learning and apps in its Google for Work services, and the growth of mobile search.

3. Theranos Doomsday Clock: A full timeline of its rise and fall

Will Theranos bleed out? Time will tell – which is why we’ve assembled a comprehensive timeline (doomsday clock?) of this unicorn’s stealthy rise and meteoric fall. We’ll keep this timeline updated as news continues to emerge about Theranos. Tick tock:

4. The role of design and engagement in connected health

Just a few years back, we toiled to get information out of what were then ‘dumb’ sensors – blood pressure cuffs, weight scales, glucometers and the like.  Both the engineering required and the patient involvement needed to make these early systems work were burdensome.  The first phase of this journey was enabled by now nearly-obsolete home hub devices which typically used analog phone line connections and modem technology.  The patient had to connect wires to set it up and then push a button to upload any data, hoping the transmission would go through. Sometimes the patient thought she was transmitting when, in fact, no data was flowing.  Often, connections would work one day and break the next.

5. What do physicians hate about EHRs (infographic)

Not surprisingly, usability has been the No. 1 issue. Clinicians complained most about the time they wasted documenting cases or looking at a computer screen rather than their patients.

Surprisingly, perhaps, was how few cited lack of interoperability as a failing of EHRs, given the focus policy-makers and pundits have put on that issue of late. Could it be that in a fee-for-service world, practitioners aren’t terribly concerned if they have to order duplicate tests because they aren’t able to get results from elsewhere? Are they placated by faxed referral notices and discharge summaries?

 

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