# Hey Tech, It’s Time to Build. In Healthcare.  ## Metadata - Author: [[Daisy Wolf]] - Full Title: Hey Tech, It’s Time to Build. In Healthcare. - Category: #articles - Summary: In recent times, tech founders like those from Instacart, Spotify, and Coinbase have ventured into healthcare, recognizing the significant opportunities present in the industry. While sectors like mobile and internet are now mainstream, healthcare remains a challenging yet vital sector in need of disruption, given its inefficiencies and outdated practices. The healthcare industry's vast scale, regulatory complexity, and need for innovation make it an attractive frontier for tech expertise to drive impactful change and address critical issues like data management, operational inefficiencies, and poor consumer engagement. By leveraging tech skills, individuals can not only revolutionize healthcare but also contribute to a mission-driven field with the potential for significant societal impact and business success. - URL: https://a16z.com/hey-tech-its-time-to-build-in-healthcare/ ## Highlights - The U.S.’s largest industry–one fifth of the American economy–is unspeakably broken. The United States severely lags behind other developed nations in terms of health outcomes and cost. Hundreds of thousands of people die each year because of avoidable human errors. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxhwt32qntwdq3mxta1bcxzs)) - Modern technology has little penetration in healthcare. The industry still largely relies on paper and fax machines for communication. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxhwtd7pk0hr8gapm0b8d2m9)) - The overwhelming nature of healthcare largely can be attributed to the size of the market. It’s unfathomably large–[$4 trillion](https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nationalhealthaccountshistorical) in the US alone–and made up of countless submarkets. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxhwv2n6w67f0ys593ap42z5)) - The American healthcare market could support dozens of FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google)-scale companies, but today only one exists (UnitedHealth Group). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxhwvm0agmaw0zaabj28yz39)) - healthcare faces national and state/local regulation. There is a federal system, with each state having its own medical board and insurance regulation ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxhwxybemdxk4pqb72rj7xda)) - Anyone who works in politics will tell you Medicare is untouchable for cost-cutting–seniors (the most reliable voters!) would revolt ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxhwyk9bmvwwfj3ht4wpf7fd)) - The above concerns can be summarized as “healthcare is scary.” We believe scary is where the opportunity lies. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxhwza2cw3njtg5s7gq0e19y)) - Healthcare at its core is (1) a data, operations, and logistics problem, and (2) a consumer experience and engagement problem. Both are areas where the tech world excels. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxhwzrbtvc5fytdjwr48fe0y)) - When it comes to data, operations, and logistics, the current state of healthcare leaves endless opportunity for improvement. $765 billion is wasted annually, with the main driver being human administrative overhead. There still isn’t true data interoperability–one person’s important medical records lay across dozens of different doctor’s offices and health systems with little hope of being pieced together. Most promising drugs will never go through clinical trials and become accessible to patients because we still haven’t figured out how to recruit trial participants and run studies in a cost-effective manner. None of these problems require an MD or a PhD to solve, and each is a multibillion dollar opportunity. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxhx1eawpk4kkcmg6m8gp40r)) - When you think about the limited number of days you have on this planet and the insane number of hours you’ll pour into building a startup, wouldn’t it be great if you were working on something that really mattered? You don’t have to be a doctor or cancer researcher to save lives. A company detecting medical errors or helping people afford medical care might save countless lives. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxhx3tjf3cf7r1xv9ypf1q14)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - basically every American can relate on a personal level to how broken the American healthcare system is. Who hasn’t been asked to fill out endless pages of paper medical forms for the fifty-seventh time, received a large and unexpected medical bill, or lost a loved one to preventable or treatable disease? ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxhx5xma5kkgf2mgr1q9d3jh))