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Comment by dcolkitt | Hacker News Reader

Healthcare tech has been the "next big area" for the past 40 years. Maybe this time is different, but historically it never pans out. Healthcare's an extremely regulated, extremely change-averse area of the economy where entrenched insiders will always close ranks to protect their own.

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> Healthcare tech has been the "next big area" for the past 40 years. Maybe this time is different, but historically it never pans out.

How do you figure that it never pans out? Healthcare providers use a lot more technology today than they did in 1979.

From medical devices to billing software to electronic health records, I think this is an area that will continue to grow.

the sales lifecycle in healthcare is a tough nut to crack, most healthcare orgs arent reviewing software every year, they are signing multi year contracts and allergic to change(for a number of systemic reasons). Plus the conglomeration of syndicates has made fewer clients to sell to, at least on the higher end). There are companies making fortunes in the space for sure, but I think many just sell to mckesson after reaching a decent size.

It is 100% a field that needs disrupting... someone will figure it out and become very wealthy.

I wouldn't be so sure. My millionaire uncle built his fortune on medical software, and I have a friend who works in the field with a degree just for it (medical technologies).

I’d love to learn more about your uncle’s story! Can you provide any additional details? What does the software do?

Healthcare is a huge monopoly. They won't add modern tech because they don't need to compete, even in the US where healthcare is/was supposedly free market. People in healthcare are extremely conformist from my experience and basically look down on the SV way of doing things. I think the only way they will advance is if something is 10x better than what they already have, which to their credit, nothing so far is. You have to come up with something better than, “Do what you were doing but holding an iPad”. It also has to be directly obviously profitable, so no disease prevention. A good general direction would be something that somehow lets a doctor see more patients. One of the big macro trends is there's going to be a huge shortage of doctors.

"healthcare tech never pans out" -> BRB while I check my heart rate and take an electrocardiogram reading on my watch... Looks like the [10000 steps] I've been averaging per day are improving my resting heart rate and I see my daily weight scale shows I've lost [5lbs]! :)

Yeah, that's kinda-surface-level stuff, but these kind of health metrics are already extremely commonplace and helping open the door to further tech<->healthcare integration.

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