I don’t have delusions of grandeur, I have an actual recipe for grandeur. Bradley Cooper, who is quickly becoming one of the most important actors-directors-producers of a generation, could have said that about himself and gotten away with it. Instead, he said that line as Eddie Morra, a struggling writer-turned-investment-genius-turned-presidential-candidate film character in Limitless. If you haven’t seen the movie (or the tv series that followed), it is a 2011 sci-fi thriller about a new drug that allows the taker to tap all of his brain’s power – which is almost as awesome as a pill that could replace food (yes, I actually wish that). Plus, Robert De Niro is in Limitless, so it must be a good movie. In the One Thoughtful Paragraph below, I explain why limitless is a great adjective to describe the problems to solve with a particular healthcare policy issue.
The following news shows the limitless issues in our healthcare system, but at least some solutions are being proposed:
- A new roadmap for U.S. AI policy was released by the Bipartisan Senate AI Working Group, led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. One-pager here; roadmap here. Priorities include funds for AI innovation, standards development for testing to understand potential AI harms, and establishing a strong comprehensive federal data privacy framework.
- HHS announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity looking to award $2M to two different healthcare technology developers:
- A developer that can improve the quality of data for algorithm training and validation.
- A developer that can improve IT capabilities for behavioral health.
- Cross Country Healthcare, a Florida-based workforce solution tech platform and advisory firm, published a white paper explaining how transparency and training could help nurses become more comfortable with health AI tools.
Thirteen years after the Limitless movie was released, Bradley Cooper is producing a PBS documentary about the limitless struggles of unpaid caregiving. I just attended an all-day session about the startling truths about unpaid caregiving in this country, hearing from Medicare Deputy Administrator Dr. Meena Seshamani, ARPA-H’s Darshak Sanghavi, MD, and the great Jonathan Perlin, CEO of The Joint Commission, who all acknowledge the severity of the problem. But, it is the queen of caregivers herself, Alexandra Drane, CEO of Archangels, who is actively doing something about it. Alex brings great experience and passion to bringing awareness to the “sandwich generation,” or the generation that has a weirdly high burden of taking care of kids while also taking care of elderly parents. It is such an overwhelming issue: caregiving poses a huge financial burden for individuals, with the average unpaid family caregiver working 20 hours a week and spending roughly $7,200 a year on caregiving-related costs. But more than the cost, caregivers need flexibility at work and support, according to a new S&P Global and AARP survey of 1,200 full-time and part-time employees. And while there are more digital health care apps to support caregivers popping up (check out Uber Caregiver and Brain CareNotes), so much more needs to be done to address this overwhelming issue. Bradley Cooper in the movie Limitless would take the wonder brain drug and say: I wasn’t high, I wasn’t wired, just clear. I knew what I needed to do, and how to do it. We need to get clear about caregiving.
