Robbie Koffie's Profile

Advances in digital technology promise to revolutionize education is many of the ways you have outlined. HMHC appears positioned to lead this transformation. Making textbooks digitally available online makes sense, but I am concern that the company may ultimately want to replace teachers in the classroom. As more and more digital technology enters our classrooms, students ability to be attentive and learn may be unintentionally diminished. HMHC needs to take this into consideration while pursuing novel technological advances in education.

CVS’s effort to push the frontiers of traditional pharmacy through its Digital Innovation Lab initiative is admirable. Given the volume of patients who fill their prescriptions with CVS, the company has large data sets to understand population medicine beyond individual healthcare organizations. They can leverage this data set to advise hospital on how to optimize care. Another area that CVS can add value is in developing novel ways to monitor how and whether patients take their medications. This responsibility has largely fallen on physicians and nurses in the past, but pharmacist can add real value by monitoring adherence to prescription and devise ways to improve it.

Organovo’s 3D printing business model is very promising. As you outline, there are many interesting applications of this technology in reconstructive and transplant medicine. One of the key challenges with transplanting a 3D printed synthetic organ into a patient has to do with infection risk. While Organovo has a sterile approach to making these 3D printed objects, they still remain largely artificial and will therefore increase the risk of infection by many folds. Perhaps antibiotics impregnated 3D printed organs will have to be incorporated in their models if the idea of a 3D printed organ is ever going to be a reality.

AstraZeneca’s customer promise of developing innovative genetic sequencing approaches that are fast and usable hold enormous potential applications in healthcare. Issues with data storage as you outlined are indeed serious ones that the company needs to address. AstraZeneca should also pay attention to privacy and cyber-security. As genetic sequencing becomes readily available and prevalent, there is a risk of predicting health status and outcomes, which could influence how insurance companies evaluate risk and manage healthcare, making patient privacy and cyber-security very important. Companies pushing the frontiers of genetic engineering therefore need to innovate, but not without considering the social implications of innovation.

Applying Google Glass in healthcare is a reasonable idea. I agree doctors spend a lot of time on administrative and documentation requirement and any technology that saves time will add enormous value to doctors and hospitals. The Google Glass technology however may interfere with patient care by physically coming between doctors and patients. While this technology is promising, I don’t believe that it will save doctors time in the long run. Much more, it may actually decrease how effective doctors connect with their patients.

Great insight on Partners Healthcare’s approach to addressing the pressing issue of climate change. You very nicely identify the 3 pillars of operational design, energy consumption, and patient impact, which serve as the corner stones of the Partner’s Healthcare climate change initiative. I agree a more holistic program will be beneficial.

Efficient management of processes leads to efficient utilization of energy resources, which plays a significant role in abating climate change. Intel is a great position to continue leading in this sector. Good insights on their business model and potential for operational improvements.

Starbucks has succeeded greatly in the coffee beverage industry and I am glad to learn that it is taking constructive approaches to deal with the problems of climate change. Starbucks approach indicates that a company does not necessarily need to be focused on climate change per se to truly have an impact on climate change.

Good insights on using renewable clean energy to power electric cars. Tesla is indeed a leader in this field and is pushing the frontiers on how to harness clean energy sources and eliminating the use of fossil fuels. I agree that Tesla will force other energy industry leaders to change the beat on climate change and improve the global impact of novel technologies.

Good insights on dry-farming. This approach can be used broadly for managing water and other resources in developing worlds. By relying on natural rainfall for watering throughout the growing season with no irrigation during dry spells, farmers can become more equipped to flourish in times of drought