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Digital Health is Snake Oil declares CEO (AMA )

Digital Health is Snake Oil declare James Madara CEO of AMA (American Medical Association) !

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Is this true ?

he stated that digitial health tools where making physicians less, not more effective and was scathing in his view of todays health technology.

James Madara states some interesting points to back up his statement that Health technology is overblown.

Doctors have become the most expensive data entry workforce in history.

A new AMA study analysis on physician time

  1. 50% of the physician time is devoted to the keyboard

  2. 30% of the physician time is devoted to the patient

Watch James Madara Speech at the AMA Annual Meeting



Snake Oil Cure-All Fraud History

Where does the terms Snake Oil come from. This term was used before the 19th century was commonly used in the Americas and in Europe, and was recommended for many uses such as rheumatism and skin diseases.

In 1712, a patent was actually granted to Richard Stoughton Elixir.

The famous or perhaps infamous Stanleys snake oil was analzed in 1917 to be made of the following components

  1. mineral oil

  2. fatty oil

  3. red pepper

  4. turpentine

  5. camphor

Absolutely no snake, in there. See Wiki article for more information.

How successful has Digital Health technology been ?

  1. 30% of app only intervention led to a statistically significant improvement for people with chronic disease (2015 Journal of Medical Internet Research)

  2. According to Commonwealth Fund Study

  3. 43% of IOS apps in healthcare where useful

  4. 27% of Android apps in healthcare where useful

Along with other voices, in this industry, I understand James frustration, but his position is too sweeping.

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