The PHB is Back

The Population Health Blog received a gratifying number of "Where'd ya go?" reader posts, emails.  Thank you......



It didn't need a handgun to know it wasn't going anywhere.

Rather, the PHB recharged over the holidays, continued to build its Twitter followership and, best of all, was busy with medSolis.

It's paid off. We've closed 2014 with a solid product, two customers, one investor and more than a dozen employees. Looking ahead to 2015, it's gonna need shades.

Speaking of a bright future, it recently got to surf the JP Morgan Health Care Conference ecosystem, described by CNBC as the "biggest health care investing event of the year." In addition to some promising additional investor leads, the PHB came away with two memories:

1) San Francisco's Union Square is usually populated by a pleasant mix of tourists, shoppers and natives. During the conference, however, it was thick with (mostly white male) suits, most of whom were staring off into space while pressing the latest handheld technology against the side of their heads. They moved very little.  The PHB knows this because it watched them very closely.

2) Overcome by the bursts of electromagnetism, the PHB retreated and sought out quiet time in those oases formally known as "hotel lobbies." They too were packed with suits, but they were excitedly clustered around open lap tops or lustfully stroking some piece of monitoring gadgetry. Open seats and cheap coffee were nowhere to be found.

And what has it learned in the last two months? In addition to discovering that the PHB spouse doesn't believe $400 San Francisco hotel rooms are a "biggest health care investing week" bargain, the PHB also confirmed that the most promising population health technology solutions are simple and scalable.

More on that in a future post.