Why Kyield is not supporting the mHealth Summit

After struggling with a very difficult decision, we have decided not to attend the mHealth Summit hosted by the Foundation for the National Institute of Health.

From the mHealth Summit web site: “The mHealth Summit: A public-private partnership of the Foundation for NIH, is an unprecedented event that will bring together researchers, policy-makers, collaborators and visionaries from around the world to exchange ideas, novel approaches, research and findings surrounding mHealth issues both in the United States and in developing countries.”

Mission statement of the Summit:

“The mission of the mHealth Summit is to explore the use of mobile technologies to improve public health, particularly regarding underserved populations; health research, training, and education applications; and delivery systems, in the U.S. and around the world.”

To the best of my knowledge, the Kyield healthcare platform is the most novel in the world relative to meeting the mission and objectives of the Summit, but the mHealth policies contain a fatal flaw that may prevent those who engage from achieving an economically sustainable model, without which it will be impossible to achieve their stated goals. The applicants for the mHealth technology presentations were required to be free to consumers (see quote at bottom of article).

While the proposed model for our semantic healthcare platform is currently “free” to consumers, professionals are well aware that this is a misleading statement. The consumer of course pays for the service, but may do so through insurance premiums or taxes. In fact we simply cannot know yet which economic model will prevail as it depends in part on choices made in the future by regulators, consumers, and industry partners, aka the market.

An additional troubling issue is that Bill Gates has agreed to be the keynote speaker. I clearly recall as an early booster to Microsoft in the early 1980s when Bill was battling the destructive economic force of “amateurs” providing free open source software. He correctly argued then that an industry built on free services could not support the essential ecosystem required of the challenge and also achieve the vast potential of the technology. I and many others supported Microsoft then in part due to their economic model, which was dependent upon a very diverse ecosystem of primarily small business developers to serve customer needs. The Microsoft model was then a powerful force in helping the economy emerge from a deep recession, particularly in Washington State following the Boeing crisis.

I argue strongly that healthcare technologies cannot be supported financially by advertising, government, and/or philanthropic models alone. Indeed, it is a tragic mistake to use the mHealth platform in an attempt to force this unrealistic economic idealism on emerging novel applications. Regardless of location, patients need not more dependence on gatekeepers with conflicting interests, but rather empowerment to make better decisions based on actual data, certainly to include economic choices that lead to sustainable systems. The novel innovations the Summit sponsors are seeking similarly do not need charity, but rather viable and sustainable economic models with the flexibility to test various models free from ideology or strategic conflicts.

The leading cause of unsustainable healthcare costs in the U.S. is the lack of functional markets due to just this type cultural influence. Whether sourced from idealism or strategic conflicts, the results are the same. Are medical devices and pharmaceutical ventures required to provide free services to consumers to be included in this mHealth global network? Are doctors and hospitals required to provide free services? Are foundation staff members required to work for free? I assume not.

Free is not a sustainable economic model. In the near term the model serves the interests of predatory pricing strategies by those very few entities that can afford historic price wars. In the long-term free economic modeling leads to dependency on entrenched interests, which is precisely how our healthcare system became unsustainable. As the decision maker for Kyield, I therefore cannot in good conscience support or participate in the mHealth Summit.

PS: The actual mHealth Summit language for Research Technology Demonstrations (after a paragraph of technologies sought):

“Technologies must have a demonstrated health research application, and be alpha/beta prototypes or available to consumers free of charge. Commercially available technology are not eligible for this technology demonstration session, but can be shown on the exhibit floor…”