Nick Webb
FUTURIST

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I think again keep an eye on what Apple has recently done. They went from loving the idea of having a fitness watch to realizing the massive market opportunity of owning the patient’s health. There is no doubt about it that the most profitable corporation in the world the most profitable retailer and some of their close contenders Google and Amazon want to own the patient. And they’re doing that through changing the way in which we engage patients. Changing technologies to be able to get more data. They will ultimately get to the point where you have really really amazing levels of integration. And think about this. I mentioned that connection architecture and enabling technology is a big deal. I was in Nashville. Anybody from Nashville here? Love that town. I have an 18 year old son and he’s recently decided that he wants to have a man bun. In Nashville its a city ordinance that you have to have a man bun. I snuck in somehow. And I’m sitting there talking to a guy with a man bun, super cool guy and everything and he’s going “Nick, so check it out. Like, my friend Keller is gonna like, have flying robots not remote controls, but he’s got like flying robots. And these like flying robots, they fly around, you know Rwanda and then they drop blood off for women who are bleeding out from childbirth. Who typically would have died two thousand a year in Rwanda death.

They can’t even get off road motorcycles there. So he said… what he’s doing is these things are not like remote controls. They’re thinking they’re thinking machines leveraging hyper connectivity enabling technologies. And, I go… “Oh gosh man bun guy… Your man bun’s too tight. This is not happening. He goes “No Nick check it out. It’s actually happening.” And in fact zipline.com. Keller their founder was able to identify a way to leverage autonomous thinking flying machines and they’re saving thousands of lives a year. This is not incidental. This is the direction of technology. It will provide tremendous value to patients it doesn’t take the human out of the scenario. And I know from speaking at other events in the allopathic world where the discussion is different. I love the discussion. I love the amazing people I’ve already met here that really understand that… let machines do some of this but let’s let it enable us to deliver the beautiful care that we want to provide our patients. Think about things like the decentralization of care. We’re now dropping off complete bio enabled technologies Granny Pods where they’re completely customized to the unique convalescence needs of that particular patient and they’re on fire. Med cottages. medcottages.com is one example.

And in fact cities and counties and states are changing laws so that we can take people out of extended care environments significantly reduce the cost, and deliver them in a more beautiful experience. People like hospital here in Southern California are leveraging fully immersive technology that is so cool. Imagine a patient sitting there and watching medicines going into their vein, in the last days and months of their lives. But instead of doing that they’re fitting them with A.I. immersive headwear… if you’ve ever seen or experienced this but it’s so real. It’s so real and they’re able to fly over the southern tip of the great barrier reef and dive into the water and swim with beautiful tropical fish instead of looking at medicines being pumped into their veins. I believe that these kinds of things are impacting the quality of their life.

And I also know that some studies are now suggesting that these are impacting their quality of clinical care. That’s incredible.

We’re also leveraging 3-D technology now. You’ve got an ear that was damaged in an injury. You can scan the opposite ear bring it into a into an STL file and print it. We’re doing cranial implants using 3D printing. And 3D printing technology is really really getting to a point where central purchasing and supply are going to order destructive STL files rather than ordering a Jarvik 9 or whatever they’re going to get from their device company. They’re going to order their devices as digital objects. If you get a chance and I don’t know how many people have makerbot replicator 2’s at home. But a point now where you can take an iPad, and design a toy. My daughter when she was in kindergarten they used to have Halloween parties and instead of with some store bought because that’s so 2015. They go on thingerverse or they go on sketchup and they design it, and then they press a button on their iPad and it goes into the wireless router to makerbot replicator2 5th generation 3D printer… oh and just to show off it sends a live video of their cookie cutter being printed. These are kindergartners that were using that 5 years ago…6 years ago when my daughter was in kindergarten. That’s unbelievable what we will ultimately be able to do with 3-D printing. How many people have gone to a Maker’s Fair?

They’re so amazing. And that’s the genesis of disruption when you go to a maker’s fair… if you go to one in San Francisco or Paris and one of those major technology hubs. I was at one recently where I was in it with a group of 11 year olds. They had diseases where they were missing their digits and rather than being ashamed of that they get together and they have hand hacks. Yes hand hacks are a thing. But they don’t just use 3D printers, they use Raspberry Pi controllers. And I sit in there myself… I’m 60 years old. I’m programming with these guys. I spent the entire day, I’m a really smart guy, this is no problem. And at the end every 10 year old came over and looked at my screen and They go “Dude your code’s sloppy.” And one of them actually use the distal parts of the fingers…they used LEDs so that as the squeezed objects they could see the gradient change from a green, to a yellow, to an orange, to a red so they could optically see the squeezing force. Developed and designed by a 10 year old in one day in a hand hack.

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