People Over Percentages
When we embarked?on our journey at Forward Science over a decade ago to change the trends of oral cancer, our goal was simple - save lives.? We launched a device (OralID) that provided the ability for clinicians?to identify?lesions?at an earlier stage of cancer development, resulting in a better survival rate for patients. But instead of focusing on the percentages of likelihood?people would?die, we focused on the people.? How can we discover cancer earlier?? How can we educate our patients on the importance?of a regular?screening? ?How can we educate clinicians?to use advanced technology like OralID to help their patients not just have a better percentage of success, but to live a better life?
Instead of focusing on the people, some organizations focus on the percentages. They do not look at every face as a patient, a loved one; rather, they look at them as a number, a data set, something to plug into a formula and spit out a result or percentage. The National Cancer Center recently came out with an oral cancer survival percentage calculator. You enter in your data - age, date of diagnosis, stage, lifestyle risk factors, etc., and it tells you the percent likelihood of how long you will live, or, stated differently, how many more years until you will die.
So, as we live in a world full of data, algorithms, AI, metrics and percentages, I believe we should instead focus on the people. ?Forward Science focused on the patient being an n of 1, a person, someone on whom we are trying to utilize advanced technology to find cancer earlier. Then, regardless of the stage we find it, we are still going to treat the patient, not the data/percentages.
My ask for everyone in healthcare, or just everyone breathing, is to think of everyone as a person, not a number.? The world may just be a better place if we see everyone for who they are: a loved one, a person that has hope for survival, regardless of how good or bad their health may be.
Early discovery saves lives. Let's focus on screening every patient with technology like OralID, and I believe we can be the change in oral cancer we have needed for decades.