Google co-founder Adam Bosworth has parted the curtain on KEAS Inc., the new healthcare enterprise he is poised to launch early next year.
If he's successful, it could mean fat Americans would become fit and healthy.
Bosworth, who told his own story about losing 60 pounds, plans to stick to what he knows best - building mass market technology. KEAS technology will engage people in their own healthcare, he said.
Speaking at the Center for Connected Health symposium Tuesday at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Bosworth called obesity "a human disaster," It's responsible for numerous illnesses, pain and suffering and, by Bosworth's calculations, a $500 billion chunk of the nation's $2.3 trillion annual healthcare costs.
In his view, it's $500 billion in avoidable costs.
"Bad lifestyles have consequences," Bosworth said. "A lot more people are getting sick a lot more expensively."
The people who are costing us the money are the people with two or three risk factors, like high blood pressure or diabetes, he said, and as the population gets older, those risks and costs will increase.
"We're not in an inevitable juggernaut with healthcare costs," Bosworth said. "We're in a self-inflicted juggernaut."
KEAS Inc. will offer what Bosworth called "highly personalized" Web-based plans to enable people to change their lifestyles - to make them part of the solution. It's been done in other industries, Bosworth noted. To fly from San Francisco to Boston, he went online, selected a flight, paid for it and printed his boarding pass. No waiting.
"The industry made me part of the solution," he said. "Not only that, I was happier. We have not started with that in healthcare."
KEAS will not be the experts, he said. "We will simply be in the business of making it really engaging and easy to use."
Bosworth also called for rewarding both the patient and the healthcare provider who helps keep the patient healthy. Today's healthcare system pays physicians only when they treat people who are sick.
Healthcare could take a cue from the car insurance business, which rewards good drivers with lower premiums.
"We need good health drivers," Bosworth said.
In losing his 60 pounds - his doctor told him "your problem is you're too fat" - Bosworth discovered it doesn't take as long to recover from the effects of an unhealthy lifestyle as it took to get there.
"That was an amazing discovery," he said. "You can actually be very far gone."
One reason people have not been successful at staying healthy, Bosworth said, could be illustrated by his own experience with banana bread. He was in the habit of walking to and from work everyday and picking up a piece of banana bread at the coffee shop along the way. The banana bread, it turned out, erased most of the walk's benefits by adding 500 calories.
People do this type of thing without thinking, he said. Awareness is critical.
Bosworth did not reveal his business model, but he is banking on the premise that KEAS tools will help provide the awareness that leads to health.
How can information technology help reduce healthcare costs? Send your comments to Bernie Monegain at bernie.monegain@medtechpublishing.com