Hacking Healthcare: Leveraging Technology to Personalize Fertility Care
An interview with Conceivable developer Nate Berman
Despite all of the noise in the healthtech world, we’re at a crossroads. Software is eating the world, as Marc Andreessen noted years ago, but healthcare is still lagging behind: expensive legacy systems are costly to maintain, the regulatory environment is difficult to navigate, and, as we all know, people don’t always do what’s best for them.
At BaseHealth, we believe that the developers and engineers behind today’s most promising technology will forge the road ahead, invent new solutions to legacy problems, improve the overall healthcare experience, and, ultimately, create a healthier future.
That’s why we’ve started this series — to recognize and celebrate the people whose behind-the-scenes innovations are driving healthcare toward a brighter future.
Our sixth interview is with Nate Berman, a developer for Conceivable, a 12-week customized fertility program using education, supplements, tools and technology to improve fertility.
Nate is a full stack mobile developer and Professional Scrum Master with years of successful experience in driving software application development, product ideation, process design, and team success.
Nate is currently focused on professional and research iOS application development, wearable technologies, and healthcare re-envisioning. With a strong expertise in working with Apple’s Core OS and Service layer frameworks (CoreLocation, CoreData, MultipeerConnectivity.framework, Social.framework, StoreKit.framework etc.), Nate is bringing beautiful and helpful mobile applications like Conceivable to consumers. His professional development experience includes work spanning many web technologies and cloud platforms.
Recently married, Nate and his wife Beverly are digital nomads, immersing themselves in the lives and cultures of people around the world. Their goal is to inject as much of the essence of humanity into their applications as possible, to bring a truly rich and tailored experience to the new technological world.
What are you working on right now and how will it impact healthcare?
Bringing women closer to successful pregnancy is a constant priority. Since every woman is unique, a team of us at Thinktiv work with Conceivable on a daily basis to evaluate user feedback and enhance the Conceivable product to provide a more custom and personalized experience. We are proving that the healthcare industry can leverage technology to provide a more integrated experience, which empowers patients to take an active role in their continued healthy growth and development. I’m most proud of our success stories; every woman who achieves her goal of becoming pregnant makes all the long hours and hard work worthwhile.
When did you know you wanted to be a developer? In healthcare?
I got my start in the tech industry during Y2K, providing infrastructure and network support for big-brand communications clients. By late 2012 my focus started to shift from management to development and product ideation. I always felt most fulfilled when I was building things, and after partnering up with some truly gifted mentors, all I could think about was how to tackle the next big product feature.
My first engagement with healthcare technology development was in 2013, when I got to work on a platform for training eye surgeons on new tools and techniques for providing corrective vision. Being able to leverage hard-earned skills and emerging technologies to legitimately enhance people’s lives is thrilling.
I’m sure I speak for everyone at Thinktiv when I say we’re always eager for the next big healthcare challenge.
What do you think it will take to overcome the regulatory challenges healthcare IT faces?
I don’t want to provide too much of an opinion here one way or the other. What I do want to say is that the only way for people to protect themselves from unprecedented restriction and overreaching regulation is to run for political office and fight to protect themselves and their communities from special interest groups. Have courage!
How will data and privacy issues evolve or change as healthcare continues to innovate?
Data security and privacy is a very legitimate issue, one that doesn’t really get the attention it deserves despite the media coverage. With widespread accumulation and categorization of patient records and personal information by centralized authorities, I expect we’ll eventually reach a point where interested parties will leverage information for unconstitutional purposes.
The President is currently reviewing both sides of the data encryption argument, and hopefully he’ll come to the conclusion that patient data (and indeed all personal data) must be allowed to be strongly encrypted on servers with no backdoor access if our confidential records are to have any chance at all of being secure. For our part, we’ll continue to do everything that we can to ensure we follow data encryption and network security best practices. If you want to know more about how you can support the data encryption cause, please investigate privacy advocacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
There is a lot of talk in the industry about precision and personalized medicine. Where do you think this trend is headed and what do you think its biggest impact will be?
It has taken a long time for the industry to begin to admit that every patient is unique. Our physiologies are different, and each of our bodies and minds have requirements and sensitivities in combinations that we don’t necessarily share with anyone else. With the increase of personalized technologies that house powerful processors and sensors, we’re able to get a better picture of that diversity.
Using individualized health-maps care, providers are empowered more than ever; they have a wealth of valuable information to leverage when responding to specific patient needs.
I think that the biggest impacts we can look forward to will be a combination of [1] more accurate diagnoses, [2] a faster provision of care, and [3] average people feeling more empowered to analyze their own data to take control of their health.
Who is an unsung hero, and why? Who inspires you?
Thinktiv CEO, Justin Petro, receives basically no credit, ever, and deserves tons. Thinktiv is a small, dedicated team of exceptionally talented specialists, and Justin’s at its heart. He’s in before anyone else, out after everyone else, and he’s an endless font of impressive ideas and constructive criticism, forward thinking, empathy, and leadership. We couldn’t do what we do without him.
Want to be featured next? Leave a comment about the work you’re doing in the comments below or gives us a shoutout @BaseHealth. We can’t wait to hear from you!
