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brandonb
9,342karma·1,335submissions·January 17, 2011
about
Data for good.
Co-Founder at Empirical Health (https://empirical.health). Don't die of heart disease.
Before: Co-Founder @ Cardiogram (ML for heart health)
CTO at Sift Science (YC S11, machine learning to fight fraud)
Data Science @ UCSF Cardiology
HealthCare.gov rescue team
Google (Android speech recognition, search ads ML)
brandonb.cc
recent activity (1,335 total)
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Cool idea. I can see why you'd want this to be an app—you want the person to take a photo of their bill to contribute back to the database, and make it more accurate for everyone. My question is-…
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Sorry to hear about your relative, and it's great that you're helping. I work in healthcare and uptodate.com is a godsend. It's most likely what your doctor uses to stay up to date. Her…
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Ad Hoc and Nava are both awesome groups of people!
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There's plenty of funding, but salaries are capped by law:
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-admi... So Congress would have to pass a law to fix…
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The conventional wisdom is that rewrites usually fail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month#The_second-system_effect
http://www.joelonsoftware.com&…
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As Sam alludes to, many YC alums have joined the government in some capacity—healthcare.gov, US Digital Service, Nava, Presidential Innovation Fellows—and are on HN. Jason Shen from YC S11 recently wr…
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I think blood sugar => insulin => adrenaline => raised heart rate is as good a hypothesis as any! For cardiac action potential, I'd like to find that out. The avocado (potassium) would b…
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If you happen to have an Apple Watch, give Cardiogram a whirl on the next episode: cardiogr.am. We'd love your feedback!
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The app lets you add a title to each cardiogram, as well as optional annotations for particular moments.
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That's good advice. When I had a Moto 360, I also sometimes did the opposite: loosen the strap one notch, and slide it up my arm slightly till it was taught again. Your forearm is a slightly easi…
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I'd love to show Fitbit data! If they reverse their decision not to integrate with HealthKit, then I think we'll be able to integrate without too much trouble:
http://www.cnet.com…
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Did you read the rest of the article? There's a larger purpose here.
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I think the intent of HIPAA is good, but in practice, it's a big barrier to a lot of medical advancements. It's less the letter of the law itself, to be honest, and more the penumbra of fear…
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We'd love to do a validation study to get a definitive answer to this question. Anecdotally, the Apple Watch is within about 5bpm of my AliveCor (an FDA-approved medical device), even while runni…
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Hey HN! I'm not the OP, but I am the burrito-eating, Game of Thrones watching researcher mentioned in the article. This story focuses on a fun application of the Apple Watch's heart rate sen…
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"We" referred to US healthcare spending [1], and the party with the right incentive for this problem is the payers: Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance like Aetna, Blue Shield, United …
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To generalize: competitors in a market usually behave rationally, and what looks like "stupid" behavior from afar may actually be unseen incentives. Which suggests a test for your understand…
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Yes! I wish more companies would do this. I wrote a little blog post on this topic a couple years ago:
http://brandonb.cc/startups-stop-using-generic-form-letters-... It's incred…
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I could believe that, but my personal experience is that we were able to introduce pretty modern tools--AWS, Node, Backbone, Hipchat and Google apps for communications. Getting these approved required…
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There's some work being done in this area now: https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/06/15/agile-bpa-is-here/ …
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FWIW, I suspect people who join the PIFs, 18f, USDS, and Nava will have potentially very different experiences. Each of those organizations has a different strategy, and I don't think anybody yet…
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The existing contractors definitely don't like it, and on healthcare.gov, we learned to expect zero cooperation (indeed, plenty of interference) from the management of those companies. [1] But ul…
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FYI, if anybody has questions, there are several YC alums who have joined the government in some capacity (healthcare.gov, USDS, Nava, PIFs) and are on HN.
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Mostly because the government itself is changing the way it procures software. For example:
http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/acquisition/201...
https:/…
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Best way would be to join the USDS "reserves"--they sometimes ask people to come for 2-3 weeks to do an evaluation of a government project. If you can get time off from your job, or you'…
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FYI, if anybody has questions, there are several YC alums who have joined the government in some capacity (healthcare.gov, USDS, Nava, PIFs), and are on HN.