Why and How is health care changing?

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Why is health care changing?

Human Nature

How do you treat yourself today affects how you will feel in 30 years. Nothing to say that most people have a short-term perspective on their health conditions. Even though the lifestyle of many individuals has changed, the overall pattern in human behavior remains the same: People do not respect their health when being young and pay the price as they age. The anomaly that is present today is the growing efficiency of medicine. As a result, people who would die because of the sins of the past are living longer, however, with a lower quality of life.

Civilization

Factors called civilizational are those related to the daily routine of people in western civilization. Means of transport, house heating, eating habits, etc. it all is made in a certain way and leaves some traces which are affecting the quality of air, amount of physical activity or bones condition. This in turn brings new susceptibilities to diseases

Economy

The 21st century is a time of changes provoked by the 4th industrial revolution along with changes in US world hegemony. We can see that the old scheme where the value-chains ended in the western world and started somewhere in Asia is just ending. Globalization was the reason for flourishing decades for western economies where companies like Apple revolutionized the whole world. Globalization is also the reason for decreasing power of the USA. As the factories have been moved outside the US and Europe with all their know-how and organizational intelligence Asia started to gain potential. Moreover, social media shown people all around the world, how it is to live in rich countries, the new limits have been surpassed. The global economy based on old solutions and hard exploitation of raw materials ran in not environmentally friendly ways, compiled with rising social aspirations of people all around the world was just too much for our planet.

Society

Changes in economy and society are interrelated, henceforth, social tension rises significantly. For decades social structures were fluctuating, however, recently we can see a peaking moment where all around the world, everybody feels somehow unfair. The reason for that is huge gaps between past, present, and future.

On the one hand, there are philosophical tendencies that are focused on the future and believe in constant progress. This helps build new technologies, pushes the world forward, and gives unlimited opportunities. However, it raises more questions than it answers. People who are living by the promise of the future are struggling to appreciate the present, which results in e.g. mindfulness movements being only ad hoc solutions to the problem. Lack of deepness causes many existential problems and the rise of societal nihilism -> mental problems.

On the other hand, we have religions. To understand the catholic’s church attitude towards science and technology, we have to read Saint Thomas Aquinas from the 13th century (more than 700 years ago!). Even if the text is actual it is written in an old-fashioned manner and reaches a narrow audience. This in turn causes a deep conflict between faith in God (the mystery of existence) and Science.

It must be pointed that it is not only about religion which is a civilizational development just like science, however younger. Instead, it is about the deepness (the meaning of existence) that comes from being aware of The Mystery, that comes with religion.

This situation causes a conflict where well-educated people yet without an intellectual ethos are being denied by their religiosity and are not being offered anything in turn. This contradiction causes struggling with fundamentals like self-appreciation, fulfillment, or setting up a family.

How is healthcare changing?

Speed

Ancient Chinese doctors were equipped with an incredible skill of telling peoples’ medical conditions just by looking at their faces. Such a fast diagnosis system was a very efficient way to increase treatment capacities.

Today, instead of Chinese doctors we have phones with cameras and AI algorithms allowing facial recognition. An app called Face2Gene is not helping with the instant diagnosis of common health problems, instead, the solution is helping healthcare professionals detect the phenotype to diagnose patients faster and more accurately. It allows for the detection and classification of genetic diseases which otherwise would not be possible.

Decentralization

One of the major concepts of the medicine of the 21st century is the decentralization of health care and the decompression of the Physician role. It means that everybody will need to take care of themselves and will be responsible for observing any alarming symptoms just like they remember to brush the teeth every day.

However, as brushing teeth is a relatively simple activity identifying alarming symptoms requires academic knowledge and can’t be done so easily. Or it can?

The concept is being partially used in real life by the company called healthy.io which provides users with remote testing. For now, there are available:

  • Prenatal tests
  • Kidney testing solutions
  • UTI tests
  • Wound management solution

Availability

The growing amount of chronically ill people is a challenge, but also an opportunity for rare diseases to be identified and medical recommendations to be more accurate. In order for that to happen there are 2 components needed:

1. Collecting patients’ data

2. Sharing and processing of this data

Today’s internet is partially solving the second problem, however, the process of collecting data remains relatively untouched.

Dexcom is a company that has created a glucose monitoring system for diabetes. The tool is equipped with advanced analytics processing the data, smartphone integration, and glucose rising trends.

Since the glucometer is connected to the smartphone and unique for each user it gives tremendous opportunities for identifying certain symptoms with a concrete characteristic of the user. This in turn gives an opportunity for bigger precision of medical recommendations for future patients.

With the increasing popularity of 5G and Medical IoT solutions that will track human performance on many verticals, the amount of data obtained in such a way will be increasing.

Since this is a topic of a very sensitive nature and needs to be implemented very carefully, a lot of research still needs to be done. The initiative that is bringing the world closer to high-quality health care is Novartis’s grant program for startups and research institutes focusing on increasing the quality of patient-doctor relationships.

Sources

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00027-x

https://healthy.io/eu

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4272470/

https://www.gehealthcare.com/products/patient-monitoring

https://www.businessinsider.com/remote-patient-monitoring-industry-explained?IR=T

https://www.dexcom.com/pl-PL

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bfm%3A978-1-4899-3466-6%2F1.pdf

„Strategie życia czyli jak zjeść ciastko i je mieć ”, Krzysztof Zanussi

https://www.novartis.com/our-focus/healthcare-professionals/novartis-external-funding

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