The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age

Chapter 25Silicon Valley Meets Healthcare

For thousands of years, guys like us have gotten the shit kicked out of us. But now, for the first time, we’re living in an era when we can be in charge. And build empires! We can be the Vikings of our day.

—Richard Hendricks, lead character on HBO’s Silicon Valley, 2014

As you’ve seen, the people who complain that the HITECH incentive payments and the Meaningful Use regulations have locked in the incumbents also worry that they have locked out the young innovators. You know the entrepreneurial types I’m referring to—the ones who have transformed the way we buy our houses, hail our cabs, and book our travel; the ones who don’t ask for permission before they enter a market, and make no apologies when they ...