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Thanks.

Something that may kill NFC

Came across a series of articles and events that have convinced me that NFC based payments are a long way off. If I were the guy at Apple, Google, RIM etc., in charge of NFC I would be afraid… very afraid.

I was asked to look at authentication systems by a prospective consulting client. They wanted to know of their idea (which is very neat) could be used for authenticating online transactions (replacing the username/password authentication). I was able to give him good news, but not what he expected...

But my research did produce some very interesting tidbits.
Here’s what I found…
1. $4B in credit card transactions were declined in the EU because American tourists only had credit cards with mag stripes. That’s about $40M in profits for US banks.
2. With the exception of the US, North Korea, Mongolia, and parts of Africa, credit card issuers are moving to EMV (contact based) chip cards and PINs. They are not issuing the RFID cards that have been issued in the US. The EU has a 65% penetration of EMV chip cards.
3. No terminal manufacturer (that I could find) makes a merchant terminal that handles both contact and contactless cards. OOPS
4. I could only find one vendor that made a combined chip card (contact and contactless).

Credit card issuers won’t make a change to combat fraud, but they will make a change if card acceptance becomes and issue. And, since both Canada and Mexico are in the process of converting to chip and PIN, I think were going to see some changes soon.

What does this mean for NFC? NFC is basically an upgrade to the PayPass and similar RFID card systems. If Visa/Mastercard/AMEX/Discover go to contact based cards (like the rest of the world seems to be doing), NFC terminals will disappear. No terminals, no NFC transactions.

Data Security and mHealth

Good News/Bad News for us

The good news is that our government is investing (spending) a lot of money to support digitizing healthcare information. A good chunk of that money will be spent bringing healthcare into the field via mHealth. People will bring lots of ideas to the marketplace quickly, and the winners will make a different to the quality of healthcare, and to their bank balances.

The bad news is that we have to really think about securing that information. The HITECH Act increases the standards and the penalties for data lost. And, we're seeing more system break-ins then ever before. So we'll see more fines and lawsuits than ever before.

Companies who want to lead the transition to better healthcare, will need to balance these competing priorities. That's what leadership requires.

Diversinet, a producer of a "secure platform" for mobile heath applications just published a white paper on this topic, and it provides a real fright to anyone who wants to get into this business.

But there is a (relatively) easy alternative... Don't do apps! Don't store anything on the handset that can come back to bite you later. Okay, so most of you have now decided that I'm just a little crazy. Probably true...

There are alternatives that have several advantages to on phone apps:

1. No data stored on the phone
2. Can be used an almost any phone in circulation, you're not limited to smart phones
3. Can reach the populations that need us the most, that are the most underserved.

The alternatives I'm talking about are SMS, MMS, and HTML5.

Call me if you want to find out more.

Voxvia and Text4Baby - Epic Fail

Late last week, Text4Baby announced plans to increase their subscriber base to 1 million moms to be in 2012. So far, they have reached 135,000. One hundred thirty-five thousand!! That's just a little more than 2% of the 6 million pregnancies in the US each year.

I figure that between all the companies, foundations and government grants, plus the value of all the free publicity they have received, Text4Baby has probably spent about $10 million.

$10 million/ 135,000 subscribers = $74 per subscriber
$10 million / 28,000 babies that die before their first birthday = $357 per baby

I don't believe that we're seeing anything close to the best use of these funds. The main problem is the $/subscriber cost is about 20x too high... There's no way that if this program was properly marketed through MDs and clinics that the cost per subscriber would be close to $74 each.

How will Text4Baby get to 1,000,000 subscribers? Will they have to get $75 million in new grants and unpaid advertising? Is that even reasonable? I think not.

BTW has anyone thought about studying if they are even reaching the right people?

After Episelon, NHIN - What could go wrong?

It's only reasonable that the week after Episelon gets hacked and tens of millions of individual records are stolen that we have a new plan for a nationwide network to store and display your medical records.

In an article in the NY Times this morning, we have five leading medical groups (Kaiser, Mayo Clinic, Intermountain Healthcare, Geisinger and Group Health Coop) are planning to develop a system called the Care Connectivity Consortium. These five are probably the leaders in adopting EHRs internally, so they have experience with the benefits of an EHR...

Regardless of the potential benefits of a national system, this system will be the #1 target of hackers worldwide.

What could go wrong?

New rules for ACO's and healthcare IT

On 3/31, the Feds released their new rules for Accountable Care Organizations. A number of articles have been written about these rules, how they will impact healthcare and IT shops, as well as every American.

An article on The Health Care Blog by Margalit Gur-Arie reviews the privacy rules for ACOs. The topic takes up about 5% of the entire package of rules, which is interesting in and of itself. Big news, ACOs ill be able to share personally identifiable health information from Medicare claims UNLESS patients opt out. Not a good thing.

A second article on the same blog by Vince Kuraitis is a more general review of the entire package... Here are his initial impressions:

1. The bar has been set high...very high. Tire kickers need not apply.
2. Don’t expect to see many or any small ACOs.
3. Patients will be confused by ACOs.
4. Concerns over maintaining competition and avoiding antitrust are being taken seriously.
5. CMS scores points for coordinating the ACO Rule across Federal agencies.
6. CMS loses points for micromanagement and a controlling mindset.
7. Possible losers — hospitals, ACO vendors.
8. Possible winners — physicians, health plans.

Okay, so patients will be confused at first, but will they be winners or losers?

April Fool's Joke becomes reality

If any of you saw the April's Fool Day escapade from Google, Google Move, you probably had a good laugh, and then said, "but I want it."

So, some folks made a motion based communications system using an Xbox Kinnect.

Enjoy!