Tech Tonics

Book Overview1. Entrepreneurs and Startups2. Doctors, Nurses, and Health Professionals3. Pharma, Biotech, Device Companies4. Patients and Consumers5. Employers, Insurers, Regulators6. Gadgets, Apps, Technology7. Behavior, Design, and Translation8. Big Data, Measurement, and Metrics9. VCs and Other Investors10. Innovation---Health matters.“When you have your health, you have everything,” wrote memoirist Augusten Burroughs. “When you do not have your health, nothing else matters at all.”Health can also be very expensive, and reducing costs isn't easy, since as Stanford health policy expert Victor Fuchs famously observed, “Every dollar of waste is income to some individual or organization.”One key challenge healthcare faces today is figuring out how to maintain health and deliver better care for patients while somehow keeping in check the overall costs associated with these activities.The good news is that there is now the massive potential for healthcare transformation. Data-driven analysis has called into question many traditional healthcare assumptions, and permits us to view the challenges in a fresh light. For instance, there seems to be little correlation between healthcare cost and quality—and great care can be delivered at lower cost if we can improve the alignment of incentives among patients, payers, and providers.Key drivers of healthcare change are the intense economic pressure of healthcare costs, the impact—to be determined—associated with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and the advent of inexpensive and widely accessible technologies; together these have created a platform for industry transformation the likes of which has not been seen since the dawn of modern surgery.And it's about time. Technology has been used to optimize and redefine virtually every key industry except healthcare. Manufacturing has gone from human assembly lines to robotics; banking has gone from tellers to home banking; travel has gone from agents with brochures to Travelocity; and yet the practice of medicine, in many ways, hasn't changed in decades.Many of today's most passionate entrepreneurs are trying to bring the dazzle and real promise of technology innovation to the challenges of healthcare, resulting in an explosion of companies focused on everything from wearable sensors and weight-loss apps to big data analytics and GPS-tagged hospital equipment—the “internet of things.”These emerging tools and promising technologies—which collectively comprise “digital health”—offer a promising path forward, and entrepreneurs and innovators are forging forward seeking to make a real difference in a field which we all need but which is sorely in need of its own tender loving care if it is to flourish in tomorrow's world.As Hippocrates once said, “Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” And technology—if judiciously applied—may be just the tonic to help reinvigorate the health of our healthcare industry.The key challenge faced by would-be disruptive technologists is not only recognizing potentially useful analogs from other industries, but also understanding the ways in which health remains fundamentally different.Amid the clamor to disrupt healthcare, we should also take care to preserve and augment what may be right about medicine—the doctor/patient relationship for example, or the drive of inquisitive physicians, especially within academic centers, to continuously push and challenge the limits of what is known and what is possible.In Tech Tonics—a distillation of our writing and thinking over the last several years—we introduce the reader to the fascinating digital health space, including a ground-level view of the landscape, the structural challenges, the players, and the progress.

"This is a lovely little book that could and should have a big impact...Let’s all get rebugging right away!"—Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Meet the intelligent insects, marvelous minibeasts, and inspirational invertebrates that help shape our planet—and discover how you can help them help us by rebugging your attitude today! Remember when there were bugs on your windshield? Ever wonder where they went? We need to act now if we are to help the insects survive. Robin Wall Kimmerer, David Attenborough, and Elizabeth Kolbert are but a few voices championing the rewilding of our world. Rebugging the Planet explains how we are headed toward “insectageddon” with a rate of insect extinction eight times faster than that of mammals or birds, and gives us crucial information to help all those essential creepy-crawlies flourish once more. Author Vicki Hird passionately demonstrates how insects and invertebrates are the cornerstone of our global ecosystem. They pollinate plants, feed birds, support and defend our food crops, and clean our water systems. They are also beautiful, inventive, and economically invaluable—bees, for example, contribute an estimated $235 to $577 billion to the US economy annually, according to Forbes. Rebugging the Planet shows us small changes we can make to have a big impact on our littlest allies: Learn how to rewild parks, schools, sidewalks, roadsides, and other green spaces. Leave your garden to grow a little wild and plant weedkiller-free, wildlife-friendly plants. Take your kids on a minibeast treasure hunt and learn how to build bug palaces. Make bug-friendly choices with your food and support good farming practices Begin to understand how reducing inequality and poverty will help nature and wildlife too—it’s all connected. So do your part and start rebugging today! The bees, ants, earthworms, butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers, ladybugs, snails, and slugs will thank you—and our planet will thank you too.

In the not-too-distant future of Embryo House, the shockwaves of Roe v. Wade have wrought consequences that seven Supreme Court justices never imagined in 1973. The effects of the decision have trickled into the fabric of society without so much as a whisper of alarm. The law has decreed that life begins at birth, and now no one publicly debates it anymore. Enter Dr. Amos Kimbro, whose years of clandestine research have delivered conclusive proof that could shatter the new status quo. His lifelong goal to end abortion may finally come to fruition, but to achieve his dream he must live his nightmare. When a family secret is revealed, Dr. Kimbro and his son, David, find themselves on the run from the police, a pervasive g With powerful enemies at every turn, Ron Merritt must find a way to keep his client alive long enough to appear in court, but even he doesn't know the full truth. The final secret, once exposed, could open a door no one can close. government agency, and a radical pro-life group. Each has its own nefarious uses for Amos and David, and their only source of help is Ron Merritt, an attorney they aren't sure they can trust. Embryo House is a technological thriller set in a future that may be closer than anyone wants to believe, where secrets cannot be concealed and killing for profit takes on an entirely new meaning.

The “Incentives in Technology Transfer” Guide offers valuable insights on incentivizing academic researchers and technology transfer professionals to actively participate in technology transfer activities and research commercialization. Drawing from successful global examples, the Guide explores motivations, challenges, and diverse incentives. The Guide also provides recommendations for universities and governments in formulating incentive schemes, an action plan for the planning process, and a questionnaire template for a better understanding of stakeholders, with the aim of optimizing incentive programs and improving technology transfer effectiveness.

Answer the Toughest Questions Brilliantly...And Win Over Your Audience Every Time! In this fully updated edition, the world's #1 presentation coach enables you to field any question from any audience and to respond with complete assurance. Drawing on brand-new business case studies, Jerry Weissman shows you how to control the entire Q&A session and to avoid the defensive, evasive, or contentious answers that can ruin careers. Whether you're a senior executive, job candidate, or anyone else in business, you're judged on how you handle high-pressure exchanges. Get this book and learn how to handle them successfully. Part of the Jerry Weissman Presentation Trilogy! Also look for updated Editions of: Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story and Designing Your Slides The Power Presenter: Techniques, Style, and Strategy to Be Suasive “I've been asking tough questions for half a century and listening to variously brilliant, boring, evasive or illuminating answers. Jerry Weissman's book will help anyone--anyone--answer even the toughest questions.” --Mike Wallace, Sixty Minutes, CBS News

One of the most respected poets of the Beat and San Francisco Renaissance periods, David Meltzer has kept alive interest in the interface between jazz and poetry that exploded in the 1950s. This new edition of selected poems includes previously unpublished material and serves as a map to this very prolific and interesting poet.