It started in education with Khan Academy and the like, but there's still a lot of work to be done. As for health care... it is one of my fondest wishes for a large company like Google to come up with a medical expert system that can solve even half of the "take two pills and come back in two days" consultation that currently cost me $50.
> it is one of my fondest wishes for a large company like Google to come up with a medical expert system that can solve even half of the "take two pills and come back in two days" consultation that currently cost me $50.
AFAIK, this is not a technical problem; such solutions have existed for quite a while. Drug control laws, laws governing scope of practice of various classes of health care providers, and insurance rules all require that, even if your diagnosis and recommended treatment come out of such a system, its done under the authority of a provider with a particular kind of license with a particular degree of contact.
Absolutely agreed; I was reading about such medical expert systems in the 80s. I know it's a political issue... unfortunately, I don't see anything smaller than an Apple or Google able to take on it.
A possible alternative might be a startup willing to offer such services to third-world countries that have really bad medical systems (which in turn would mean not enough political power to prevent it). Unfortunately, I don't know if there are enough money in such a venture - definitely nowhere near the current "get $1B quickly" trend.
While Uber and AirBnB were able to get VC backing for business models that deliberately disregarded key regulations in their field, neither short-term occupancy laws nor taxi regulations are enforced with the same kind of, well, robust methods by authorities as laws governing the practice of medicine and, particularly, the dispensing of controlled substances.
Disrupting that is likely to take political capital, and application of that political capital at an earlier stage of the process than what AirBnB and Uber have done in their fields, or its going to involve a lot of risk for participants and investors, and not just the kind of limited-downside financial risks that investing in a corporation, startup or otherwise, usually involves.
