Monthly Archives: May 2017

One mission for an adviser is to size up a new client. Are they eager to use the latest technology or do they want to make sure that a new innovation works before they risk their clients on an untested platform?

In 1962, sociologist and communications theorist Everett Rogers introduced his The Diffusion of Innovations Theory that explains how, over time, an idea, behavior or product gains momentum and spreads through a specific population. This theory applies to benefits advisers in terms of how you approach your clients and how your agency delivers innovation in service, processes and technology.

According to Rogers, adoption of any new innovation does not happen all at once. Rather, it is a process whereby certain profiles of people your clients are more likely to adopt an innovation earlier than others. These profiles fall into five categories.

Identity confirmed now what? As an industry, we see brokers looking to address exceptions to the rule in their book of business, rather than looking for a solution that will work for most of their client base. Often, objections like What about the brokerage with people over 60 who don't want to move away from paper? while well-intentioned, tend to paralyze or delay decisions. This delay can even result in bad investments that solve limited challenges rather than provide forward-thinking solutions that automate or eliminate old-school practices across the majority of a brokers book of business.

The reality is not every group is ready for technology and automation. This is the case in in rural areas and outdated industries. However, as a benefits adviser, building your technology strategy around the late majority or laggards in your book of business does your entire agency a disservice. Most of your clients want a forward-thinking adviser to guide them into the future, not a pushover catering mainly to the squeaky wheels in your client base.

A technology investment is an investment in the future. As youre looking to partner with a technology company, you need to look for technologies that innovate for the early adopters and fast followers, not the laggards and late majority in any given group. For your innovative clients, theyll appreciate your proactive approach, long-term investment in the future of their business, and the efficiencies a technology provides their team and their employees. For the groups in the latter categories, more hand-holding might be required at first, and the key is to find solutions and workarounds that work for all parties.

As you look for a technology partner going forward, start by looking within your current book of business, and identify your early adopter and early majority groups. Identify a common set of needs among that population, and focus on making decisions around innovation for those clients. These are the folks in your book that are most open to change, so implement technology with them first, learn from the process, and tease out success stories that will convince your late majority and laggard clients to adapt.

As an adviser, it is your job to think ahead. Advisers must also reach out to clients proactively to lead them into the future. They must approach their clients and partnerships through that lens. And most importantly, dont let the laggards in their book of business drag them down.

Gidwaney is CEO and co-founder of Maxwell Health, a company that simplifies benefits and HR for small- to mid-sized employers.

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Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital will be involved in the joint initative announced by Partners HealthCare and General Electric Co.

Two big Boston institutions, General Electric Co. and Partners HealthCare, on Wednesday launched an ambitious initiative to employ artificial intelligence to improve medical care.

The decade-long effort will include clinical and technology experts at the Partners-owned Massachusetts General and Brigham and Womens hospitals working alongside engineers and developers at GE. The companies will begin by building software to help doctors more quickly and accurately interpret medical images, but over time, they also want to create applications for genomics, population health, and other areas of medicine.

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Artificial intelligence also called machine learning technology refers to computers that can sift through vast amounts of data to recognize patterns, becoming more accurate over time. Executives from GE, one of the nations largest corporations, and Partners, Massachusetts biggest nonprofit hospital network, said such technology has the potential to help care providers do their jobs more efficiently so that patients receive more accurate diagnoses and better treatments.

Without disclosing specifics, both companies said they will spend a significant amount on the initiative. And both stand to gain revenue if theyre successful in creating useful software programs that can be sold to hospitals around the globe.

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GE, which moved its headquarters to Boston last year, is working to transform itself from an industrial company to into one that revolves around making software that powers equipment from MRI machines to jet engines.

What we see as the future of health care [is] applying data and analytics and machine learning to create a rapidly different outcome for patients, said John Flannery, chief executive of GE Healthcare, a business of 54,000 employees and more than $18 billion in annual revenue.

The possibilities are vast and significant, he added.

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As medical data has gone digital, it has become easier to store and track, but it can also be overwhelming for doctors who must sift through electronic health records, lab results, and more every day.

We are literally inundating our clinicians with data, said Dr. David Torchiana, chief executive of Partners. We have more and more information, and the information comes at our clinicians in a way that is almost unmanageable and at times can be overwhelming.

Artificial intelligence can help make sense of that data, Torchiana said.

Other big companies, including IBM, whose Watson Health division is in Cambridge, are investing heavily in AI. IBMs programs, for example, crunch data to help doctors prescribe treatments for cancer. Even Google and Amazon have developed technology that hospitals can use to comb through various data.

AI technology is part of the growing digital health field, which was about $61 billion globally in 2013 and is expected to grow to $233 billion in 2020, according to Deloitte. Massachusetts is home to hundreds of digital health companies, including startups.

At GE, digital health accounts for more than $1.5 billion in annual revenue, and executives said that is expected to increase at double-digit rates by 2020.

GE and Partners said they will develop an open platform that eventually can house hundreds of applications to help interpret medical data. Theyre starting with radiology because that field, dealing with digital pictures from MRI and CT machines, more easily lends itself to computer analysis.

A computer can read hundreds or thousands of images and use algorithms to identify patterns that radiologists should pay attention to. The goal is for the computer to help them provide a better diagnosis, and then a better treatment plan for patients with stroke, cancer, and many other conditions.

Theres hundreds if not thousands of applications throughout medicine, said Dr. Keith Dreyer, chief data science officer in the radiology departments of Mass. General and Brigham.

The partnership between Partners hospitals and GE to work on artificial intelligence is the biggest of its kind, though GE is working with other hospitals, including Boston Childrens Hospital, to develop medical software.

Dr. John Halamka, chief information officer at Bostons Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said GE and and Partners are right to focus on radiology and other high value areas where machine learning can make a difference.

Its pattern recognition based on previous experience, Halamka said. Think of it as a safety net, a focus, a mechanism for ensuring you dont miss bad things.

Beth Israel Deaconess is using technology from Amazon to run pilot programs in machine learning, including one in which a computer quickly reads information from paper forms, minimizing some of the busy work for staff.

GEs health care business is based in Chicago and has operations throughout the world, but the companys decision to move its corporate headquarters to Boston helped seal the new partnership with Partners, executives from both companies said.

This is a concrete manifestation of exactly the reason we moved to Boston, said Flannery, the GE Healthcare CEO. This is exactly the idea we had in mind, which is to be in the middle of the action, in the flow of ideas, with the worlds best clinical partners [and] universities.

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GE, Partners have a plan to bring more A.I. technology to health care ... - The Boston Globe

#NotAllEdTech Derails Critical Educational Technology Conversations Inside Higher Ed (blog) The critique, offered by Downes and Kim, counters our underlying premise. They say: Not all educational technology is characterized by technocentric, market-centric, and product-driven ideologies. Downes argues that the way we describe educational ...

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#NotAllEdTech Derails Critical Educational Technology Conversations - Inside Higher Ed (blog)

Nearly every modern parent has given a tablet or smartphone to a child for entertainment at some point. These devices are simply easy and always on hand and may not harm the child if given to him once in a while. If parents hand out a device regularly, though, could the technology slow early child development?

Speech Development

One newfindingpresented at the 2017 Pediatrics Societies Meeting did find a correlation. The study analyzed over 900 children using parent-reported data on amount of screen time received. The parents reported the screen time of their children at age 18 months.

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Then, the researchers conducted an evaluation of the childrens development. Using the information reported by parents, researchers found that one-fifth of the children had almost 30 minutes of screen time each day. As screen time increased in some families, children were almost 50 percent more likely to have a speech delay as they developed.

On the other hand, senior investigator Dr. Catherine Birken does insist on caution when approaching these results. This pioneering study will need more testing to verify its accuracy. Interestingly, the study did not find a correlation between a childs screen time and other developmental areas.

Family Interaction

One major concern that doctors have with young children and technology is their interaction with other people. Babies and children under the age of 3 learn primarily by imitating other people. Technology can interfere with the time a child spends observing and imitating, a likely reason for the speech delays.

In addition, the screen time will interfere with bonding between the child and his family members. As he spends more time absorbed in media, even educational media, he will tune out family members and often fight with siblings over the device being used.

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Even when only the parent is using a smartphone or tablet, the device will still cause an interruption between parent and child bonding. In one smallstudypublished by the American Academy of Pediatrics, researchers studied 55 caregivers in fast food restaurants.

Over 70 percent of the caregivers pulled out a device during the meal, and researchers noted the various reactions of both the children and adults. They found that the children would either entertain themselves or increase antics to regain attention. In addition, many of the connected caregivers would react harshly to their children.

Adults simply need to disconnect, especially around their children, and children should entertain themselves in active play instead of technology. Researchers do need more tests and evidence that technology affects young children negatively. In the meantime, though, people should err on the side of caution.

Educational Technology

At this point, parents may be wondering about the use of technology in the classroom or educational technology at home. Within the past few years,researchhas shown that educational technology does improve childrens learning. The technology provides colorful, eye-catching images and interaction that children love.

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In 2012, a smallstudyin Maine showed that kindergarteners actually improve in literacy more quickly when using iPads. During the study, 16 kindergarten classes participated with 129 students getting to use an iPad for learning.

The other half kept learning through traditional methods. After nine weeks, the students with the iPads actually scored higher on all literacy testing than the students who learned without the iPads.

The key here is that these children were using educational technology specifically targeted at improving their skills. In addition, the children had already developed the basic speech and motor functions needed to attend school. At this age, technology can assist in helping children learn more efficiently, especially visual learners.

At the same time, parents and teachers should take care not to use the technology to distract and entertain the children. This mindless screen time can still affect their interaction and bonding with other people.

For the most part, children should stay clear of technology in favor of interaction and active play. While school-age children can benefit from the support of technology, new research shows that younger children will experience developmental delays. Families should disconnect and spend quality time together instead. If they do so, they will strengthen their relationships and learn to spend quality time together.

This article first appeared on AskDrManny.com.

Dr. Manny Alvarez serves as Fox News Channel's senior managing health editor. He also serves as chairman of the department of obstetrics/gynecology and reproductive science at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. Click here for more information on Dr. Manny's work with Hackensack University Medical Center. Visit AskDrManny.com for more.

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