The Truth About Our Healthcare
Today, we are living in the so-called “Information Age”, where we have access to some of the craziest technologies. Things like AI, gene editing, and drug discovery are revolutionizing the way we live everyday.
Despite this radical change, there is one area that hasn’t seen much growth — the h̶e̶a̶l̶t̶h̶ sick care system. Years after World War II, this system was created to diagnose and cure acute illnesses. Because of the nature of the system, it’s often referred to as the acute care model.
Today, we still follow this exact model — a model created years ago where we first wait to experience some symptoms, and then head over to the doctors. Oftentimes, this doesn’t really seem like an issue because most of our illnesses can be cured. But other times, if we are diagnosed with something much greater, it can be too late.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the acute system was genius for its time. A majority of the population was young and often experienced illnesses that could be easily cured.
But today, that simply isn’t the case. We live in an aging population where it is estimated that 50% of global disease is chronic illness. Applying what we made 60 years ago to today’s population doesn’t make sense.
Why is this important?
Money is being wasted
Today, if you were diagnosed with heart disease, you would spend $18 000 a year just to cure yourself.
Yet if a doctor had sat down with you earlier in your life to recommend a lifestyle change, you never would have faced such a cost.
We are spending money on things we shouldn’t be. 25% of US health care spending is categorized as waste. That’s about $800 billion annually down the drain. That’s crazy.
Every year, we invest more money into healthcare, so we’d expect chronic illness to decrease, right? Well, the exact opposite is happening, and it’s expected that more and more people are going to be diagnosed with chronic disease. It’s pretty clear that we are spending our money on the wrong things, and this is something that needs to change.
Because it’s not working
Clearly, something isn’t working and that’s because society fell in love with the “magic bullet” system. We love to take the special pill that solves all the bad lifestyle decisions we made earlier in our life. Sometimes that works, but not for chronic illnesses — such as cancer.
We are applying the acute care model to the wrong things.
- One of the most popular cancer treatments, chemotherapy, is based on the principles used in antibiotic therapy. In antibiotic therapy, antibiotics selectively kill bacteria, similar to how chemotherapy kills cancer cells.
- Coronary revascularization is modelled after abscess incision. Abscess drainage is an interventional procedure to drain out an area of pus. Similarly, revascularization is an interventional procedure to treat contrary arteries that become severely blocked.
In both cases, one treatment is targeting an acute illness and the other is targeting a chronic illness. We are treating some of the world’s biggest chronic diseases the same way we treat the smallest illnesses.
As humans, we love to solve the issues at the tip of the iceberg, rather than trying to address what is going on underneath. We like to figure out how to get rid of the symptoms that we are experiencing, but instead, we should be asking ourselves the question: How did they start in the first place?
Current Solutions
So, are we working on solving this huge gap in healthcare? Luckily the answer is yes, as many startup companies are currently working on transforming the landscape for healthcare solutions. In this article, I briefly want to mention two companies:
Oura — Oura is a wearable ring company working on shifting the current sick care system to a preventative system through measuring detailed health metrics. Last year, the NBA bought 2,000 rings to help players and staff detect COVID-19 symptoms 3 days in advance.
Biofourmis — Biofourmis is a biotech company that uses machine learning and hardware to gather patient physiology data to better manage and treat chronic patients in a proactive way.
What else needs to be done
It’s evident that the shift from a reactive to a proactive approach will be led by the young innovative startups looking to disrupt healthcare.
But, to truly achieve change, we need to do more. So, what else can we do?
1. Shift medicine to focus on health, rather than disease
The way medicine is currently being taught needs a radical change. Medicine needs to start teaching future physicians about the different factors of disease, and the importance of focusing on the patient as a whole.
2. Decentralize healthcare
With the technology we have today, we have to continue to extend healthcare beyond hospitals, and into the homes of patients. Making use of modern tools and technology will undoubtedly play a big role in the shift to proactive healthcare.
3. Teach the young generation about the importance of health
Ever since you were a kid, you have likely heard the saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. So technically, to some extent, we have been aware of the importance of living a proactive lifestyle since we were kids.
But, we are not told much beyond that. We need to start teaching younger kids about the importance of their lifestyle decisions, such as sleep, exercise, and healthy eating.
The truth is, having gone through high school and being a university student, I have seen a lot of kids who are simply unaware of what they need to do to live a healthy lifestyle. They want to be healthy, but don’t know how. It’s critical to implement such knowledge into schools to educate our future generations.
Takeaways
- Today, we follow the healthcare system that we created years ago — a model where we first wait to experience some symptoms, and then head over to the doctors.
- We are treating some of the world’s largest diseases the same way we treat the smallest illnesses.
- To shift our current system to a proactive system, we will need to make changes to our education system and continue to decentralize healthcare.
