Digital Health Roundup
A newsletter about digital health, innovation, leadership and productivity (9-26-22)
Hi Everybody,
I have spent the last couple of weeks thinking deeply about designing a comprehensive digital health program within a health care system encompassing education, innovation and most of all sustainable clinical operations. If you are interested in having a conversation about this or actually doing this at your institution, I would love to connect and learn more. For now, this is what I have been reading,
Hamid
Science Roundup
TLDR: Activity trackers improved physical activity, body composition, and fitness (i.e. 1800 extra steps per day, 40 min per day more walking, and reductions of approximately 1 kg in bodyweight). However, the effects for other physiological (blood pressure, cholesterol, and glycosylated haemoglobin) and psychosocial (quality of life and pain) outcomes were typically small and often non-significant.
This is a concept that I have been thinking about a lot recently. What exactly is digital literacy? Can we measure it in a reliable way and improve it?
The authors define digital literacy as “ an individual’s ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise health information from electronic sources and apply the knowledge gained to addressing or solving a health problem”.
The eHealth Literacy Questionnaire (eHLQ) aims to measure that
The eHLQ consists of 35 items, with 7 scales representing the 7 dimensions of digital health literacy
Using technology to process health information
Understanding of health concepts and language
Ability to actively engage with digital services
Feel safe and in control
Motivated to engage with digital services
Access to digital services that work
Digital services that suit individual needs
This paper summarizes the approaches by many leading institutions for adopting digital technologies. A great “how to guide” for implementing digital technologies
Regulatory Roundup
We call this technique skating the line because firms launch products on the low-risk general wellness side of the regulatory line (which FDA does not have jurisdiction to regulate) but may eventually skate across that line and market them as devices (which FDA does have jurisdiction to regulate).
A producer may use the wellness space as a testing ground or launchpad for an eventual regulated device, refining and testing the product to ‘maturity’. Even products that never mature into a device may nevertheless yield valuable commercial insights for the firm, all without the cost and inconvenience of FDA scrutiny.
Industry Roundup
Redesign Health, a company that builds other healthcare startups, raises $65 million in fresh capital. The round brings the company’s post-money valuation to $1.7 billion. via Fast Company
Verily Announces $1 Billion Investment Round to Fund Continued Growth via business wire
Interesting Stuff Round up
Werner Herzog Is 80 and Loving It: ‘Time Is on My Side’
Interview with Werner Herzog as he turns 80. He is phlegmatic about ageing: "It sounds like statistics. I do not really relate it... I’ll do what I do until they carry me out feet first." He doesn't fear death. "We shouldn’t make a big fuss about it. I think that fear basically has to do with our relationship to our own demise. If you have settled that, most fear will probably disappear
While AI Artists Thrive, Detractors Worry—But Both Miss What's Coming
As a given technology evolves, and with it our understanding of its potential, people’s skills will get sharper—and, in the case of the creative kind, our judgment of what deserves praise, harsher. But not everyone’s skill set will develop accordingly. Once photography matured, it was very easy—for experts, at least—to recognize if a pic was the deed of a professional photographer or an amateur one. Again, the same will happen with AI art models. Only those who are willing to take the time and dedication to, first, understand their inner technical workings, second, explore what’s possible to create with them, and third, master the skills required to get it done are those we will eventually call artists—or AI artists.
Notes on Progress: An environmentalist gets lunch
Part of the motivation for living more sustainably is feeling like you’re doing your bit. If what we ‘need’ to do is at-odds with what feels right, then that’s a problem. That means that the societal image of sustainability needs to change. Lab-grown meat, dense cities, and nuclear energy need a rebrand. These need to be some of the new emblems of a sustainable path forward.
It’s only then – when the image of ‘environmentally-friendly’ behaviours line up with the effective ones – that being a good environmentalist might stop feeling so bad.
I started the isolation journals during the pandemic and have been following Suleika’s journey and her cancer diagnosis. She is an incredible writer and human being. I definitely recommend subscribing to her newsletter. This from the latest publication :
That feels so strange to say, since so much has changed in the last seven years. Back then, I had endless yearnings: to find love, to have a home of my own, to write a book, to establish a career. Miraculously, I have found all those things, but I’m still yearning. It’s different now, in that it’s not specific things, just the word: more.
Thank you again for reading my newsletter.
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Talk Soon,
Hamid