6 min reading time

Uber owns zero vehicles but has 150,000 drivers in the US alone.

Airbnb owns zero rooms but has 650,000 available for rent.

I was at a conference a few months back where the speaker insisted this type of disintermediation will find its way to healthcare too.

I’m skeptical, and so is the author of this TechCrunch article: http://medgroup.biz/no-uber

He writes, “In the wake of ACA, nearly one hundred companies sprang up to fulfill the promise of Obamacare and make healthcare a consumer-driven, retail industry, where old work rules would be broken, novel business models established and new companies could command billion-dollar valuations in a short span of time.”

And continues, “Can we really expect true disruption… In a space that demands that new companies file 50 different sets of forms for each state, the regulation in healthcare is unrivaled by any other industry?”

Yes, people want information and perhaps their own health data. And online tools will facilitate these.

But medical devices?

I can’t fathom an Uber for:
• Wheelchairs where the manufacturer gets cut out somehow,
• Surgical instruments,
• Diagnostic equipment, etc.

Can you? How would it work?

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Discussions You May Have Missed

Needle-Less (or Needless) Blood Sampling Device
(115 likes)

10x talk: The Theranos 483 Warning Letters
(see what I did there?)

What would happen if ACA shuts tomorrow?
(interesting debate)

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Resources

FDA Draft guidance on 510k for changes in devices

FDA wellness devices policy

Medical Devices Group Advisory Board
https://medicaldevicesgroup.net/your-advisory-board

Upcoming medical device events
https://medicaldevicesgroup.net/events

Past Medical Devices Group webinars
https://medicaldevicesgroup.net/webinar

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Make it a great week.

Joe Hage
Medical Devices Group Leader

P.S. We park the good stuff at http://medgroup.biz/MDG-SITE Register there now to stay up to date.

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Ryuichi Matsushita
Licensed Nurse
I agree with Carlos de Deus, innovation will continue to drive different business models and healthcare is no different. The business models we as healthcare innovators come up with will most likely not be exactly like Uber or Airbnb, but the concept of spreading the cost to other parties (patients, private practice, facilities, etc) to reduce the initial costs through already existing assets (patient mobile device, hospital infrastructure, etc) will depend on the the consumer environment and the environment we operate in as a whole. We all must understand that despite any of our disagreements (or agreements) with any new technology or business concept, we must adapt to the changes the consumer behaves in and let go of “the old ways” or get left in the dust like the Taxi companies.

Carlos de Deus
Market Access, Patient Advocacy, Government & Public Affairs Professional
I really believe on change, disruption by this point of view is just like that, the moment things change the way they have been done, and 30 years ago, nobody would think the bizz model some disruptives companies do like Amazon, Uber, AirBnB, and Dell do today would be possible. But changes happen in different steps, or paces around the globe, depending on culture, education, knowledgment, and most important, access to other changes, just because in most time of them, they are what is now called innovations.

Arjun Sharma
Medicool, Cardialen, Cyberheart
Bob, you are correct that physicians, hospitals and insurers have no incentive currently, to charge less. The federal and state initiatives are creating a small price pressure but are opposed by many.

Bob Dodge
Retired
Sorry, premature button pushing on previous post. Theranos was attempting to disrupt the current testing market through technology miniaturization, but there is no evidence that the business model was actually there to provide lower cost.

Bob Dodge
Retired
Uber and AirBnB seem like odd exemplars for disruption of healthcare. Both take advantage of existing assets (cars, houses) which are well-understood by the potential customers. I can’t imagine that existing suppliers of medical services or equipment would see any advantage in this, and since the actual demand comes from the MDs, what is their incentive to minimize charges to the patient? 23 and Me wasn’t disrupting current healthcare as much as it was attempting to provide new medical information which was not adequately supported and validated. Theranos were attempting was potentially disrupting medicine

Arjun Sharma
Medicool, Cardialen, Cyberheart
There is a lot of consolidation of hospitals and vertical integration price controling (analagous to the old taxi model). Could there be a role for starting up an Uber like model with health insurance which continuously shops for the least expensive and best drugs, hospitals, and other services and directs patients to these.

Joe Hage
🔥 Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net 🔥
David Harlow, posting your Uber article here. Thanks! http://healthblawg.com/2016/08/uber-of-healthcare.html

Eric Cook
Architect/Principal C# Software Engineer Specialist, available for contract or full time (remote capable)
I was briefly part of a biotech on-demand Uber startup effort that promised to make an improvement to a patient’s life or death outcome as well as make the cost come down. Despite the fact that almost every physician we spoke to wanted the product yesterday, we could not find funding. There was speculation that our efforts would have been disruptive to the established larger regional facilities. It would have effectively brought significant benefits to the smaller regional satellite facilities by allowing them to retain the patients that normally would have been moved to the larger facilities..a process that delays treatment. We are still a bit perplex on our lack of success given how the prototype showed us a viable path of workability. Perhaps we spoke to the wrong deep pockets? Our experience suggested that the established medical communities might have shown their strength in holding their ground against such disruptive technologies when they saw possible losses on the horizon.

Sergio Grimm
Senior Sales and Marketing Executive
When Uber came to Brazil, I’ll use this example because I live there, it was a good thing for the costumer but bad for taxi divers, that saw costumers soddenly migrate to Uber. To have something similar for MD’s and saying that it is good or bad depends on perspective. While hospitals will probably welcome the idea MD companies wont because of reduced profit margins. I think this will happen to allot of markets in the long term, so it’s better to see how all could gain in staid of fighting for or against the idea.

Thom Riddel
President at Advent Medical Systems
Speaking from the provider side, I am always surprised when someone comes into my facility asking me to fit or repair a brace that they purchased on the internet and expect me to help them when they spent their money somewhere else. This happens on a regular basis. I, of course, tell them to return to the source from which they acquired the device. What a great plan for people to purchase their own healthcare with little understanding or knowledge!? Now with the ACA, they have health insurance but no healthcare.

Sergio Grimm
Senior Sales and Marketing Executive
I think it all boils down to is: will it be more eficiente and cheaper than what we have currently at our disposal. If so, I welcome it…

Juan José Jimenez Merino
Ingeniero Quimico. Medical Devices. Endoscopia de Columna (Joimax)
Interesante artículo para reflexionar sobre los nuevos modelos de negocio…..sea cual sean las reglas de los nuevos modelos no cabe duda de que el sector de los Medical Devices es uno de los sectores donde surgirán ideas disruptivas que se traducirán en un modelo nuevo adaptado a las necesidades del sector y usando las herramientas tecnológicas disponibles…

En España el sector aún funciona con reglas arcaicas, las empresas deberán adaptarse…….

Lo que no cabe duda es que se abre un abanico de posibilidades para este sector……

Ken Powell
President
Speaking from a clinical laboratory and medical device perspective, the hurdle that immediately comes to mind is that hospitals, commercial reference and physician office labs and even OTC segments are highly complex and specialized, compared to driving from point A to B. Throw in regulatory and reimbursement components into the mix and the complexity rapidly escalates. Even within very closely monitored healthcare systems (Kaiser, Intermountain Health, Quest, and hospitals in the same cities can be quite different, despite centralized standardization/regulation initiatives. Using sharps safety devices as an example, there is no single product design that can be applied across all sharps because these products are highly user technique and procedure dependent. Hypodermic needles differ from those used for blood collection, as do catheters, dental needles, scalpels etc. There maybe Uber-like opportunities in healthcare, but from my experience they will be very hard to come by.

ziv karni
CEO
Uber is just a name for ” Sharing”- there is a room for such idea.

Greg Wilson
ITS Manager – Logistics at Werner Enterprises
EHR systems continue to be a sticks and stones operation compared to most IT fields in business. I hear just as many doctors and nurses complain about Epic as any other EMR in the market.

Aymen Seifennaser
I believe this can’t be compared, as Uber is managing the very similar service, and time and distance of the driver to the customer makes the choice, while for medical product including or without service will be the selection parameter. I don’t actually know how this should be managed, but I believe in evolving ideas.

Richard Gibbs
Epic Interface Analyst / Software Engineer
I agree with some of the other commentators that Uber and AirBnB are not the best models for disruptive tech in healthcare, especially in the US and other countries that regulate healthcare delivery. One are of rapid change is in the EHR arena. Epic Medical Systems has rapidly taken over most of the major hospitals and is working its way down the chain. Their system supports mobile devices and effort is underway to connect patient collected data. This may be the “highway” we have been looking for.

Brijesh P.
Biomedical Engineer, CQE®, ISO® Lead Auditor, MPM®
This is already happening in many parts of the world. There is no stopping it. We need to think outside of the traditional mentality and explore a new industry model. Change is a constant. Resistance is futile!