My daughter went to see a doctor a month or so ago. She thought she had strep throat. The doctor checked her out and said that she did not think she had strep. My daughter wanted a strep test but the doctor talked her out of it. A week later, my daughter was back at the doctor with a massive case of strep throat. I told her the lesson of that experience was the the doctor works for her, not the other way around.
I was reminded of that story when I read my partner Andy’s long and wonderful post on USV’s approach to investing in healthcare.
In that post, Andy quotes Jay Parkinson:
People are the CEO of their health, and doctors are just consultants.
And that is what I was explaining to my daughter last month.
The good news is that technology is changing all of this.
My daughter’s iPhone can’t deliver a strep test to her, yet. But it can deliver an eye exam and a hearing test. So I am confident strep will come to a phone someday. And in the process our phones are becoming our electronic medical records. But we own them. That’s a big deal.
Andy gets into it more in his post which I re-tweeted with this observation:
User centricity may be the megatrend of our time https://t.co/x2GqPeJ090
— Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) June 14, 2016
