Great post - All the points you raise are valid. I've been in this business for 8 years, seen a dozen products (HW/SW/Apps) go through FDA/CE approval and end up on store shelves. I co-designed the only product at the Apple retail stores that use blood as a user interface. Most engineers/product people in the industry share your frustration. We're keenly aware of the problems, but it's a problem with the ecosystem and hard to solve at a startup scale.
Basically, we're seeing little movement because open data has huge perceived risks and minute upside.
+ Open Data = Risk: The reason big device companies don't make open APIs for data is that it opens them up to risk. If some 3rd party creates software that uses device data and a patient ends up in a hospital, or worse, who will the family sue? The 2 person startup experimenting with health software, or the multi-billion dollar device company that didn't police every app made with their data? It's slightly irrational, but from the perspective of device company execs, opening data creates huge potential problems and risks with almost no upside. Also, the data privacy laws in the US and Europe scare/confuse many.
+ Open data attracts almost no customers: Unfortunately, there is no real money making/saving opportunity with data. A lot of promising concepts, but until there is a business model, there won't be a huge amount of focus on this area. Once there is, it will explode.
+ People won't pay for better products: Most people with diabetes have multiple meters, most of which they receive for free. The device companies work on a razors and blades model so are incented to keep costs down and use retrograde technology. When companies try to make higher quality products, relatively few people buy them.
So the best selling market today is a product that was originally designed to be a disposable meter for use in the 3rd world. It's super cheap and does the job while some of the awesome products you mentioned flounder.
Diabetes, and healthcare generally is a hugely complex market. The web of stakeholders blows the minds of most people who enter it. It will change eventually, but it's extremely difficult to bring a startup mentality to the industry because it usually requires thinking about physical manufacturing AND opening your company up to regulation AND operating in a Byzantine payment system. Possible, but improbable. If you're working on something in this area, we'd love to talk.
Basically, we're seeing little movement because open data has huge perceived risks and minute upside.
+ Open Data = Risk: The reason big device companies don't make open APIs for data is that it opens them up to risk. If some 3rd party creates software that uses device data and a patient ends up in a hospital, or worse, who will the family sue? The 2 person startup experimenting with health software, or the multi-billion dollar device company that didn't police every app made with their data? It's slightly irrational, but from the perspective of device company execs, opening data creates huge potential problems and risks with almost no upside. Also, the data privacy laws in the US and Europe scare/confuse many.
+ Open data attracts almost no customers: Unfortunately, there is no real money making/saving opportunity with data. A lot of promising concepts, but until there is a business model, there won't be a huge amount of focus on this area. Once there is, it will explode.
+ People won't pay for better products: Most people with diabetes have multiple meters, most of which they receive for free. The device companies work on a razors and blades model so are incented to keep costs down and use retrograde technology. When companies try to make higher quality products, relatively few people buy them.
So the best selling market today is a product that was originally designed to be a disposable meter for use in the 3rd world. It's super cheap and does the job while some of the awesome products you mentioned flounder.
Diabetes, and healthcare generally is a hugely complex market. The web of stakeholders blows the minds of most people who enter it. It will change eventually, but it's extremely difficult to bring a startup mentality to the industry because it usually requires thinking about physical manufacturing AND opening your company up to regulation AND operating in a Byzantine payment system. Possible, but improbable. If you're working on something in this area, we'd love to talk.