Lisa Suennen – Page 3 – The Health Care Blog

It’s My Life, It’s Now or Never

Aug 22, 2010• 16

By LISA SUENNEN

You can walk into a pharmacy any day and buy a test kit to find out if you are ovulating so that you can undertake family planning activities. You can buy home testing kits to screen for high cholesterol, presence of the HIV virus, even illicit drug use. You can also pony up $500 and buy yourself a genetic test kit from 23andMe, a retail DNA testing service, to find out what might be in your genetic blueprint. Hey, you can even visit a fortune teller if you feel that is how you want to make pre-emptive healthcare decisions.

While some might look askew at how you get information to make choices about your life, it is rare that someone steps in and tries to stop you from doing so. In general, the American way is to say, “Hey, you’re an adult and it’s your life. If you want to engage in self-actualization, whether or not it has a scientific basis, that’s your beeswax.”

As medicine has evolved to a point where over-the-counter testing has become more and more accessible, many consumers have responded to the perceived advantages of privacy, convenience and the heightened ability to make health decisions early. In fact, these are part of the key principles espoused by those who believe that consumers have a right to their own healthcare information. The idea is that the information is about you, the healthcare consumer, and thus should be both readily available to you and yours to do with what you wish. And yet, that is not always the case. Often it’s not even close. Continue reading…

Government as an Engine for Innovation

Jul 26, 2010• 16

By LISA SUENNEN

I’ve been thinking a great deal about the newly formed Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. (CMI). This entity was established as a result of the Affordable Care Act (the new healthcare reform legislation) and its purpose is to “research, develop, test and expand innovative payment and service delivery models that will improve the quality and reduce the costs of care for” patients covered by CMS-related programs. The legislation gives this entity over $10 billion dollars initially and broad authority to figure out new ways of doing things better and differently than before. What is great about CMI is that they have the authority to run their programs much more like a business would without many historical governmental constraints. That’s great news for innovation, which is sorely needed in the U.S. healthcare system.

Among the key objectives that the administration has discussed is how to transition the collective mindset from one of healthcare to one of health. In other words, if a person is healthy, they do not need health CARE. This is a very important distinction; it puts the emphasis on prevention and wellness as opposed to what you do when somebody is already sick. In order to affect such a transition, there must be an emphasis on innovation to change the way we have traditionally looked at the healthcare world.

This is an interesting challenge and one that requires a great deal of thoughtfulness in how to approach the universe of innovation opportunities. As venture capitalists, I and my colleagues vet, select and monitor deals and specifically focus on how we pick winners and avoid losers. It’s a little like being asked to handicap who’s going to win the World Series, but then again, that is pretty much our job as VCs: to act like Billy Beane and pick those most likely to succeed in a capital efficient way based on detailed analysis of trends and meaningful data, not solely based on experience.Continue reading…

Innovation, Not Legislation: Venture Capital is the Path to Improving Patient Safety and Reducing Waste and Error in the U.S. Healthcare System

Mar 10, 2010• 24

By Lisa Suennen

All eyes are on Toyota’s recall of 8.5 million vehicles due to faulty gas pedals and brakes. The recall has sparked congressional hearings, a probe by the U.S. Department of Transportation, possible criminal charges stemming from a federal grand jury investigation and numerous civil lawsuits, all in the name of driver safety.

This aggressive response to Toyota’s mistakes is appropriate, even though the human toll from its miscues has been, thankfully, relatively modest – 34 alleged deaths and a few hundred injuries. Not to downplay this misery, but in stunning contrast, consider this: More than 100,000 Americans die annually in U.S. hospitals because of avoidable medical errors, according to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which also says that medical errors rank as America’s eighth leading cause of death. This is higher than auto accidents (about 45,000) and breast cancer (about 43,000). And the problems don’t end here. Studies show that approximately 19% of medications administered in hospitals are done so in error, injuring about 1.3 million each year, according to the FDA.