This is nice. One of the better, more practical, passive uses of collecting data from people. Passively collect data and give people informational, personalized tools to interpret it and help them make better decisions.
Nice work Safeway.
This is the first of many Hello Health ads directed by the one and only Ben Dickinson, a lovely and damn intelligent guy. He’s quite an accomplished director. He did the latest LCD Soundsystem video North American Scum (amongst many others).
Are we starting a revolution? Sure, why not? Or maybe we’re just paying attention to the obvious — that traditional doctors are inaccessible and feel that they don’t have to play by consumer rules and expectations in this modern, connected, technologically advanced culture. Maybe we’re just creating a national brand of healthcare delivery by creating the most powerful platform in healthcare, partnering with the right doctors who find us and would make amazing Hello Health doctors, and advertising to consumers that they can have an accessible doctor. Consumers have better things to do than wait around on this antiquated healthcare system.
I know I do.
Are we just doctors for hipsters? Yes and no. Of course, we could simply market ourselves to individuals within a neighborhood. But we can also sell our services to small, medium, and large corporations who need help managing their employees’ health. We’re their mobile urgent and primary care wellness centers. We’ll partner with their employees to help them be happy, healthy, and out of the dreaded, expensive ERs. Many companies spend way too much money on health insurance, especially when they have a fairly young, creative, healthy workforce. Combine our services with a low cost, high deductible insurance plan and it’s the ideal solution for employer health insurance.
Sounds interesting eh?
We’ll be launching in a few weeks.
fat:
This is one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in a long time. (via sean)This is one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in a long time.
Bon Iver - Skinny Love.
One of my favorites lately.
I’m very happy to announce that the “Doctor’s Unite” campaign has officially launched. One of the main organizers of the campaign is Dr. Sean Khozin, an internist and my colleague who joined the Myca team about three weeks ago. Sean and I will be the two doctors in the first Hello Health node here in Williamsburg. He’s been an invaluable asset in helping our team develop our platform and launch an entirely new generation of healthcare delivery — Hello Health.
Nice work Sean. It’s nice to see doctors using the internet to connect rather than committee meeting after committee meeting in the incapable AMA.
My friend Jason Kottke is live-blogging at the New Yorker Conference. Here are his two standout points:
1. Newsom talked about building filling stations for electric cars that relied on exchanging batteries instead of plugging in and waiting for your car to charge. You don’t need to own your particular battery.
2. In SF, he’s hoping to exchange the payroll tax for a carbon tax. In his words, tax a bad thing (carbon use) instead of taxing a good thing (jobs). That way, the incentives are in the right place…people aren’t penalized for working but are penalized for using excessive amounts of carbon.
Newsom for President.
The digital photography industry is facing a similar problem as healthcare — each camera sold by Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, Hasselblad, etc. uses a proprietary format to produce RAW images. Most professional photographers shoot in the RAW format. However, since each camera has a proprietary file, what is the likelihood that in, say, 20 years there is going to be a software program that will open each proprietary format?
It’s seriously a problem. Everyone knows how fun it is to look at old family photos. Kids today won’t have that pleasure since most digital photos never make it out of the computer into a physical print. In fact, only 2% of Nikon sales in 2007 were film cameras. It’s tragic…since the advent of digital photography, our culture visually only exists as 1’s and 0’s.
Adobe is trying to change this by advocating a standard, the Digital Negative or DNG format. It’s a step in the right direction for ensuring that 80 years from now we’ll be able to look at 80 year old digital photos. Given the fact that hard drives and CDs fade after about 10 years, it’s even a bigger problem.
All of the proprietary formats in healthcare face the same problem. All of our information is in some proprietary format and will be unrecognizable in future generations.
Of course this is a step in the right direction. The vast majority of generic medications are bought in bulk for pennies a pill. Marking them up to $4 a prescription is still a hefty profit for Wal-Mart. However, try ordering these drugs from Wal-Mart mail order pharmacy.
Oh nevermind, they don’t offer discounts in their mail order pharmacy.
The sole purpose of these “discount programs” is to get you in the store so you buy massive amounts of other poorly made, cheap crap from Wal-Mart. They “discount” these drugs and still mark them up 1000%. Meanwhile, the Walgreens down the street is marking up generics 4000%.
Hello Health is a friendly, branded consumer experience with your accessible neighborhood doctor. We see you in person. We talk with you via the internet. We’re close to home and we’re an email, SMS, or IM away. We take the pain out of going to the doctor. We’re partners with you.
You create an account with us and become a member of Hello Health for a range of Netflix-priced monthly fees, make your appointment online for either that day or the next, and we meet you in your home, office, or at our office. If you are sick and don’t want to leave bed, we’ll come to you with medication in hand. All of your records are online and available to you, whenever you need them. If you forgot 85% of what I said, simply log in and press play — everything is recorded — even in-person visits. You own your information — we simply house it for you. Most importantly, it’s an enjoyable branded experience so you’ll know you get the same quality at any Hello Health. It’s a partnership with you to optimize your good times in this lovely world for less money than a 4 minute visit with your old doctor who practices in the 20th Century. It’s the Whole Foods of healthcare delivery branded/advertised/marketed/designed by the most sought after agency in the world — The Barbarian Group.
On the doctor side, we at Myca have developed a facebook-like platform that allows me to see and receive client updates and communicate via email, IM, video, and SMS with my clients and colleagues. We don’t do eVisits — we simply communicate normally via a whole range of communication options to help streamline healthcare delivery. It’s also a system for documenting each interaction, whether in-person or online. It’s fully integrated with everything you need to deliver healthcare in today’s world.
Myca and Hello Health turn doctors into entrepreneurs. We give doctors options — they don’t have to slave away for someone else’s profits. We intensively screen them to find the right fit, build their office for them, advertise, and give them the keys. They make money by delivering care and sharing in the subscription pool. It’s a win/win/win for doctors/patients/us.
It’s simply healthcare done right using today’s communication tools.
Because we can. Because consumers want accessible doctors. Because doctors want to be doctors in the 21st Century.