Author: Franz Wiesbauer

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Who Owns the Content? The Future of Medical Publishing.

Franz Wiesbauer

Education is one of MedCrunch’s favorite topics. These are great times to talk about education. The internet and mobile devices have liberated knowledge and democratized its distribution. Up until now, medical knowledge was owned or distributed by several entities: the experts who produce it, the universities, the publishers and the various medical societies. Moreover, the pharmaceutical industry also has a major stake at educating physicians. In most countries, the majority of CME education is sponsored by pharma with educational sessions serving to enhance the pharma-physician relationship. However, this landscape is about to change and this is good news for the customer – we think. Let’s examine some reasons why we think that the game of learning is changing. Just look at the publishing industry. These large brick and mortar companies are facing the same risks as the music industry back in the 1990′s. Books are becoming digital, someone will eventually figure out how to share them with others. The natural impulse in our opinion would be to make digital books inexpensive and very easy to download and share on social media; the reduced product margin could be compensated by an increase in copies sold. However, publishers seem to head the opposite […]

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Signal vs. Noise in Patient Care: Why Facebook & Co Won’t Replace Your Clinical Skills

Franz Wiesbauer

There are two types of things that surround the doctor-patient encounter: there is signal and there is noise. By “signal” we refer to things like rapport, relationship, trust, communication, empathy and so forth. By “noise” we mean nuisances like: appointment scheduling, payment, insurance forms, telephone calls, prescriptions, referrals etc. During the signal part, the actual medical problem gets solved. The noise part is the bureaucracy, the necessary evil that comes with the encounter. If you are a startup that’s focusing on how to improve the doctor-patient encounter, a survey of 843 Americans conducted by the communications company Capstrad might be of special interest to you. When asked if they would take advantage of social media tools like Facebook or Twitter if their doctor offered them, only 11% answered yes. Similarly, only 20% would use chat or instant messaging and a mere 31% would use an online forum. On the other hand, 48% would use online bill payment tools, 50% would like to have online access to medical records and 56% would schedule their appointments on the web. As Karen Albritton, Capstrad’s president put it in a press release: It appears consumers are willing to move administrative experiences such as bill […]

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Inspiring MedCrunch Interview: Lisa Chu, MD

Franz Wiesbauer

Lisa Chu MD tells about her journey to joy, fulfillment and happiness. After medical school she decided not to go into clinical medicine but to become a VC instead. After three years in the industry, she decided that she was still not entirely happy with her career, founded a violin school for kids and later became a life-coach.