Had a nightmare : The über-ization of health(care)

So i woke up last night from a nightmare : Healthcare was been taken-over ‘overnight”.

Large and small companies, non of them up until now related or having a trackrecord in health(care), have been able to ‘seduce’ people within the course of 12 months to join them, and put their data from smartwatches, step counters, cycle-metrics and weighing-scales into their platforms.

Problem is with this is the scatteredness of all that data is increasing instead of declining, which would be my take. There is no way you will be able to handle the hospitals community, one from the healthcare or G P-office, from pharmacist and/or physiotherapist all together. Let alone adding also communities from your cycling or running app and from that lone dentist, who still is working on paper.

Awareness is great, it is one of the things i have been working on fiercely over the past 5 years, it thrives the level of taking self-control of your own health(care).

And how does this relate to all those different vendors of EMR's and operating systems. Are you “out” at certain health-systems if you only have either an Apple or Google smartphone ?

So YES, it is a good thing that there is something going on. The problem however is that healthcare professionals and institution are starting to think of these kind of solutions, whilst the (consumer)driven market is already ready to roll. There is a reason why Apple, Google and most recently also Facebook are working towards health(care) : it is a huge market and we’re all are going to be in need of it, at one point.

More and more tangible steps are being made by non-medical companies like Walmart, wanting to be the #1 health provider. So how will your next hospital look like a hospital or more like a supermarket.

Why bother ?
Well : i’m not the kind of guy that states that 'we' are the only ones to understand health(care). As a matter of fact i can’t wait until we are on the intersection of clinical excellence and consumer/patient engagement in the way the Apple’s of the world have great trackrecords in. Working our way where first we innovated fór patients, now wíth them, but i really think we should enable patients, family and informal care to innovate themselves. And just that is something these company really dó understand. So close collaboration would be great, like the one we have with Apple and Epic.

Next to impact from other companies from outside of healthcare, let's not forget smart patients who come up with innovations themselves and start a business out of their idea's. More and more building-blocks are available to embed in your programs, like payment and security routines. Things one had to go for an expert in the 'early days'. I really think the best is yet to come from them.

But what’s keeping me ‘awake at night’ is that from outside healthcare the change will be ignited, from óther corporates ánd patients themselves. We’ve seen that before in travel, music and media, right. At first sight no problem with that, but there is also a reason why doctors had to study that long, it will take some time for others and computers to understand how this really works, also there will be some 'clutter' and 'harm done'. I really think that health(care) will become a software business within 20 years from now, ran by algorithms i.e. on Dr. Watson based on big data and remote measurements. However this is about people, not goods or services. So there is no time to 'talk" about change anymore, we have to execute on it.

What i’m witnessing at present, on the axis of exponential technology and newcomers in the health(care) market, is that it's no longer about 'ambitions', 'planning' or 'intentions'. It is about real and actual steps being made at lighting speed, like Theranos is disrupting laboraties, Apple is taking a stake to become a healthdata-broker, and Google and Novartis are creating glucose-measurements with their contact-lenses for diabetics.

As Radboud University Medical Center we have been working on transforming health(care) over the past 5 years, even though we’ve made some great progress like i.e. our Hereismydata platform with Philips. Looking at what is happening right now, the question is : will we be in time to keep the great knowledge and passion within healthcare available, or are we already have been “überised”. New developments in healthcare tend to take 7 years, i'm starting to think things will happen sooner from outside in.

At that point i woke up, in the middle of the night. Sweating, heavy breathing and a pulse-rate that meets a good workout.

Luckily it was a nightmare !
Was it ?