A look back at the past, can help us with the Now. Right now, the "Future of Healthcare" is a big conversation. The Supreme Court is about to hand down a decision on healthcare, but the train has left the station. Years before the internet, at the birth of computing, there was considerable controversy about the control of computing. Large companies were designing large computers for large jobs. Steve Wozniak and his colleagues changed all of that. Now we have small, powerful and even smaller, computers for everyone, everywhere. Control of the internet was next. Like telephone, radio, and TV before it, large companies and government tried unsuccessfully to control and centralize development. The discussion about healthcare is very similar. Dave Chase, our colleague in the NY Times report, discusses this in TechCrunch, entitled "Supreme Court Decision On Obamacare Has Little Relevance To Healthcare Disrupters."

At the ATA 2012, some special Woz quotes were caught on iPhone VIDEO even though they were omitted from the ATA Highlights. You can hear again his wonderful encouragement for the entrepreneur, his talk about hard work and passion, his recommendation to do what one cares about and feels is important, not just do business.

Steve further said…”I love all the little devices that hook up to my iPhone. I’m a gadget guy. You know, I probably wouldn’t get a blood pressure thing at home and take readings and write them down. But heck, when I take a reading and it’s automatically on my iPhone, I can show it off, I love it.”

When Dr. Harris asked him specifically about telemedicine and mHealth, his shout out for iClickCare was a thrill because he mentioned iClickCare, and iClickCare alone, on the stage at the ATA 2012 in front of 5000 of our closest friends! He even volunteered a move to Alaska to reap some of these benefits of telemedicine. 

 

In total, Steve Wozniak is a generous and appreciative individual whose life has made, and is making, the world a better place.

ClickCare believes that, especially in light of the pending Supreme Court decision on healthcare, real change occurs through innovation and collaboration. What are your thoughts?

Accountable Care Organization, Care Coordination, Pay for Performance, Patient Centric Care, Coordination of Care, and so much more. It is all ready here. See the difference.

 

To quote Brandon Glenn in MedCityNews:

“And at least credit Woz with giving a special shout-out to one lucky telemedicine company: ClickCare, a New York company that’s developed an app that lets physicians collaborate on care with pictures and video on iPhones and iPads.” 

Steve Wozniak is an engineer who designs circuits to work in the most efficient and inexpensive manner. As Laura Montini quotes in Health 2.0, he said: “I got better and better at making things smaller and smaller and smaller...The number of chips it took for a design had to be the minimum. And it turns out that led me to some good life philosophies about trying to make everything the fewest steps possible.” Mr. Wozniak is beyond legendary and his contribution to mankind is so large, it even goes beyond those of others such as the Wright Brothers and Thomas Edison. 

We did not get a opportunity to ask him, but we wonder if, after hearing about iClickCare, those values are why he singled out ClickCare and iClickCare as the lone identified company in the ATA 2012 Keynote Speech. We freely admit to following the same principles as we design, improve and sell iClickCare and future products. We are committed to having a ubiquitously available, cost effective, simple, secure and spectacular service to allow providers to collaborate over the internet.

We did, however, get to see how personable, generous, and caring he is. We are honored. We are proud. We are humbled. We are also challenged to further grow into his standards and will continue to keep his principles of engineering in mind as we keep the timeless principles of medicine — access for the patient, collaboration for the provider, and education for the student — at the fore.

We recommend his book iWoz, available (as is our book iPhone Medical Photography) at these retailers:

Apple ITunes Store:

Amazon:

Barnes and Noble:

Google: