About Catherine Szyman
Catherine Szyman, CEO and Director of Masimo, has been involved in discussions about the company’s strategic direction and product offerings. In September 2024, she addressed the challenge of integrating the company’s consumer health business with its healthcare-focused investor base, stating that “our healthcare investors don't know how to deal with the consumer side of our business” and that the company was exploring ways to separate the consumer health segment. She also highlighted the launch of a new hospital-grade pulse oximetry monitor for infants, priced around $200 to $300, which she described as a product that could “change everything” for parents monitoring their babies at home.
Szyman has also advocated for greater interoperability of medical data. She argued that patients should decide how their medical records are accessed, stating that “privacy rules were there to protect patients not to potentially harm them” and that data sharing could save lives and reduce healthcare costs. She criticized electronic health records company Epic Systems for not sharing data, noting that “we used to be in the business of hoarding our data but what we realized is that patients were getting harmed because we were hoarding data.” She commended federal officials for pushing for data-sharing regulations, saying “it’s time to share the data.”
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Catherine Szyman's recent appearances.
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Transcript (4 segments)
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Interviewer0:00
Okay, you are a great inventor. You have tons of patents. You have done a lot more to make it so well. You're safe when you're in a hospital. Why are you opposing something that could impinge on people's privacy?
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Catherine Szyman0:13
Well, privacy rules were there to protect patients, not to potentially harm them. Patients should make the trade-off between what's more important: privacy or having their data available in a way that can hopefully save their lives. And that also unfortunately assumes that data privacy can't be kept. There are a lot of great companies that do a great job of making sure data can be transmitted in a way that keeps patient data private and confidential.
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Interviewer0:47
What health care system not save maybe hundreds of billions of dollars over time if we actually knew what the statistics were and had the algorithms, the Amazon Web Service data so to speak, of everybody in our country without knowing their names?
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Catherine Szyman1:03
Yeah, exactly. We can get data from a hospital with a random number that they've assigned to a patient, and only the hospital has knowledge about who that number is associated with. So while you could hack into anything, it's like saying no one should own a phone or a computer because someone could hack into it. But there is protection, and what's more important is that by sharing data, patients' lives can be saved.
