Venture capital firm Venrock, which has money tied up in more than 80 health care companies, has put out its annual survey of health care professionals, and most people are pretty upbeat about where health tech is going this year.
Driving the news: 78% of Venrock’s survey respondents said they thought the number of new health IT companies will "somewhat" or "significantly" increase this year — and a lot of that growth will be in telemedicine and harvesting patient data.
Yes, but: It’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
- Half of respondents think the Apple Watch is just another consumer commodity instead of a useful health care device.
- 36% believe Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase "have no idea what they’re getting into" with their health company Haven, while another 55% think "it’s gonna be a long haul" for them.
- Half of people think AI hasn’t made any difference in health care.
- And a vast majority said blockchain will still be useless in 2019.
Go deeper: Americans have big hopes that Big Tech can improve health care