Every year members of ACT | The App Association make the trip from every corner of the United States to our nation’s capital for three days of education and advocacy. Enter: 2020, COVID-19, and our first totally virtual AppCon! AppCon’20 spanned across five weeks – weeks one through four were issue specific, and week five served as the “catch-all”, as well as media training.
For AppCon’21, we remained virtual, kept each week issue specific, and instead of a back-to-back-to-back-to-back-TO-BACK virtual conference, we’re breaking it up throughout the year into Mini AppCons (affectionately referred to as M.A.C.s). Our first M.A.C. was held in April and covered all things connected health and pandemic response. M.A.C. two, which addressed issues around competition and standard-essential patents (SEPs), was held earlier this month. Keep reading for a breakdown of the first half of AppCon’21 M.A.C.s one and two!
M.A.C One: Connected Health and Pandemic Response
The COVID-19 pandemic amplified the many ways in which Americans’ healthcare needs are evolving. The connected health tools that our member companies, like Aptihealth, create allow physicians and healthcare providers reach a larger population and lead to better patient outcomes. As more connected health innovations enter the marketplace, patient outcomes and consumer wellness will continue to improve, but only if federal policies allow them to do so. Scott Weiner, CTO of Aptihealth, made clear that waived restrictions for telehealth reimbursement are critical for the small business creating change in connected health, and that if Congress didn’t move to permanently remove geographic and originating site restrictions by passing the Telehealth Modernization Act, it could be detrimental to patients as well as small businesses. Sandeep Pulim, of member company, Bluestream Health, which provides a secure environment that enables telehealth visits for physician groups and hospitals, saw 95,000 new providers sign up for their service in a two-week period early in the pandemic. If the current waivers aren’t made permanent, many providers and the patients they serve would get left behind.
Another way our connected health members pitched in during the pandemic was through contact tracing technology. Emily Hart and Jennifer Fisher, of member company MotionMobs, mentioned their work related to contact tracing as well as developing a product in the vaccine credential space. Emily explained that MotionMobs follows the principle of “privacy by design” with the goal to give patients control of the data including how, what, and with whom their information is shared. Jennifer echoed Emily’s points and also mentioned the difficulty they face when dealing with the lack of a standard for data across state lines. She explained that part of the issue is that it is possible a person who is vaccinated in Alabama would have trouble sharing the digital record of their vaccine history if they were sharing with a venue in Louisiana, for example.
We continue to look to Congress, as well as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to overhaul privacy rules so that data that falls outside the scope of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has a framework for protection.
M.A.C. Two: Competition and SEPs
Platforms led to the creation of the app economy as we know it and changed software distribution forever, but ongoing antitrust investigations on the Hill have put platforms and the app ecosystem that keeps them running at risk. Platforms like the Apple App Store and the Google Play marketplace have allowed businesses, like member company Vēmos, to both grow a thriving business for nearly the last decade and keep that business open during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Platforms have also provided developers with tools to build products for every person. Throughout M.A.C. 2, Betsy Furler, of member company For All Abilities, noted she wouldn’t even have been able to create the business that is helping to empower those who are visually impaired and neurodivergent. Using her background as a tech-savvy speech pathologist, Betsy saw an opportunity to build an app that helps companies meet the needs of their employees with disabilities. Thanks to platform provided tools, like the accessibility SDKs and platform native features – including a recently released feature that utilizes the camera app to support eye gaze technology in apps – Betsy was able to bring cost-effective, accessible services to users across the globe.
Legislation that would break up services that app stores typically provide could cause tremendous harm for small companies solving important problems. The harm to our small business members, who are leading innovation in verticals like accessibility, could be vast and possibly even prevent them from entering the technology space in the first place. Marc Fischer, of member company Dogtown Media, and Kaity Miller, of member company One Thousand Cups, discussed this exact sentiment in our meetings. Dogtown Media has been focused on creating ADA-compliant medical apps and the accessibility features the app stores provide make it easy to develop apps that meet accessibility compliance requirements without his company having to customize or build those feature sets from scratch which could be cost prohibitive for a company like his. Kaity Miller agreed, discussing one of her mentees – FaceSnap – an app built to keep real estate agents safe. FaceSnap utilizes the device camera as a feature of their app. If they were unable to tap into those features, the team at FaceSnap would have needed to build a hardware and software component, and it’s unlikely they would be an app available for download today. The lower overhead and extensive tools make it significantly easier for small companies to enter the app economy and continue to drive innovation.
In addition to our meetings with lawmakers and their staff in the House and Senate on the dire unintended consequences that could come from regulation of platforms, our members also met with staff from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Department of Justice (DoJ), and Department of Commerce around standard-essential patent issues.
Stephen Forte, of member company Fresco Capital, explained that one of his portfolio companies, Compology, is a waste bin management device and software system. Their device has a battery, RFID chip, Wi-Fi chip, camera, and a variety of other sensors that feed data into their software service which notifies garbage haulers when bins are full and when they should be collected. Without SEPs and fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing, a venture capital firm like his would be concerned about potential risk and may not even invest in a company that utilizes that many standards, without the understanding that FRAND commitments are in place. Another concern for Stephen is that a patent holder would likely not go after a component manufacturer but would rather target any patent dispute at the end-user or innovator like Compology. Bottom line: without FRAND commitments, and to some degree antitrust oversight, companies like Compology would be intimidated out of innovating.
Rachel Trobman, of member company Upside Health, explained the free and easy exchange of data is essential in the remote care Upside Health provides. Upside Health helps with the management of chronic pain, including addressing the reliance on opioids as a treatment of chronic pain. Their product cannot work if they are not able to tap into electronic health records to get a full picture of patient data and related factors. If a company like Epic Systems, which currently holds 60 percent of the market, were to license the standard exclusively – which is possible given how the license is written – that could completely block smaller remote monitoring solutions like Rachel’s from the market, let alone shared data between care systems or providers.
Thank You
Our members create technology that spans all industries. From connected health tools to education platforms, to apps that help other small businesses in their communities connect with customers and everything in between – our members show up.
We’re incredibly APPreciative to all of the members of the App Association who took time out of their workdays, away from their businesses and livelihood, to educate and advocate to policymakers in the hopes of creating meaningful change in the app economy and across the globe. We can’t wait to do it again in the fall!