ON MEDICINE GOING DIGITAL

SHARP CURVES AHEAD

The Economist recently had a Special Report on healthcare, with a focus on medicine going digital.  It frames the current place we find ourselves particularly well:

"Menno Prins of Philips, a Dutch multinational with a big medical-technology division, explains that, “like chemistry before it, biology is moving from a world of alchemy and ignorance to becoming a predictable, repeatable science.

” Ajay Royyuru of IBM, an IT giant, argues that “it’s the transformation of biology into an information science from a discovery science.”

It goes on to introduce the piece itself:

"This special report will ask how much of this grand vision is likely to become reality. Some of the industry’s optimism appears to be well-founded. As the rich world gets older and sicker and the poor world gets wealthier and fatter, the market for medical innovations of all kinds is bound to grow. Clever technology can help solve two big problems in health care: overspending in the rich world and under-provisioning in the poor world.

But the chances are that this will take time, and turn out to be more of a reformation than a revolution."

This reader is a bit more optimistic than it will be more of a revolution than a reformation, particularly because once technology starts to get into the driver's seat of the business model of a particular industry, a slow roll quickly becomes a land-slide.  Notice how business models have already changed in media and telecommunications, for instance.
Here's to big changes in the right direction in a timely manner, for all our sakes.

Comments

[Alex Tolley]

It is remarkable how resistant to change the medical industry is. It would be mostly recognizable to a patient from the beginning of the C20th century. However, I don't expect that the industry will change that much in the delivery of medicines and health care. What I do expect is the information revolution will eventually make delivery more standard based on best practices and I do see a revolution in biology that will make Star Trek like disease discovery and cure possible. But note that McCoy never had to do extensive and expensive clinical trials before he could save his dying crew members or a planet.