Podcast: How Big Tech Is Targeting Healthcare

Silicon Valley tech giants made significant moves into healthcare over the past year, from Apple’s smartwatch featuring a built-in ECG reader to Amazon’s purchase of the online pharmacy PillPack and Google’s work in artificial intelligence (AI) for diagnostics. But how will big tech move the ball forward in 2019?

The short answer: in any number of ways. But don’t be surprised by any additional steps that big tech makes into healthcare in the year to come.

>> READ: 5 Most Popular Podcasts from Data Book’s First Year

Welcome to the season three premiere of Data Book, the health-tech podcast with good stories and better insights. My co-host, Tom Castles, and I are excited to return to your headphones, smart speaker, car stereo or wherever it is that you listen. In our third season, we promise you this: We’ll never waste your time, and we’ll do our best to never bore you.

So, in honor of 2019, we welcome Kate McCarthy to the podcast. She’s vice president of growth and innovation at the late-stage health-tech startup ClearDATA and a former healthcare analyst for Forrester.

In Kate’s second visit to Data Book, she unravels big tech’s most important healthcare initiatives of the past year and examines how Amazon, Google, Apple and other tech companies might act in the year to come. Plus, Kate offers some practical advice to health system and physician leaders who must identify, vet and implement high-tech healthcare solutions.

But before we get to those predictions, Tom and I take a look at what’s next for the prediction machines: AI. This is a fly-by storytelling session covering some of the most exciting, disappointing and unique AI use cases. How did Flint, Michigan use machine learning to find and replace lead pipes? And can AI put an end to password sharing on streaming services like Netflix?

It’s all meant to provide a glimpse of what could be next for the technology that many folks seem to love to hate.

And one more thing: Data Book isn’t just a Healthcare Analytics News™ podcast anymore. We also represent MedTech Boston, a powerful health-tech publication covering medical innovation in Boston and beyond, which we recently acquired. I hope you’ll check it out, if you haven’t already.

Thanks for listening.

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