#459: What if we monitored everyone that leaves hospital care?

<p>Martin Ratz co-founded Doccla after a heart attack at forty-four that he had no reason to have. Lying in a hospital bed in Stockholm, he noticed something obvious. Inside the building you are monitored constantly, and the minute you leave, nobody is watching at all.</p><p><br />He and Dr James Somauroo trace what Doccla became from there. A research study at Northampton General that COVID shut down, then a virtual COVID ward stood up in a fortnight, then integrated care boards across England, plus Ireland, Germany and Austria. Martin is precise about who these patients are: multimorbid, mostly older, several long-term conditions each, and nothing like the customer of a consumer wearable. He is equally precise about what is actually blocking this, which is not the technology. It is commissioning. Doccla can take activity out of a hospital, but somebody still has to take the cost out, and the trust losing the income has no reason to help.</p><p><br />There is also a good exchange on the something-is-better-than-nothing argument, where James revisits a position he now thinks was wrong about AI and mental health, and Martin's answer to the safety objection, which is that the alternative to a virtual ward is usually not a hospital bed.</p><p><br />Doccla: https://www.doccla.com</p><p>Apply to be a guest: www.thehealthtechpodcast.com</p><p>Subscribe to Healthtech Pigeon: www.healthtechpigeon.com</p><p>Get in touch with James: www.jamessomauroo.com</p>