As Technology Expands Medical Access, Government Restricts It

Innovation is a remarkable thing. It makes everything faster, cheaper, and more accessible to average people. Innovation lifts all boats, but especially those of the underprivileged. The rich will always have access to the very best, but innovation levels the playing field by bringing formerly out-of-reach luxuries to the masses.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and so we tend to see the most creativity in the areas where the need is greatest. Nowhere is there greater need than in 21st century America’s tangled mess of a health care system.

The emerging mobile app market has provided tremendous opportunity for medical innovation. You can now use your smartphone for anything from monitoring your heart rate and counting calories to checking how different medicines will interact with one another and viewing retina or MRI scans.