Five key drivers of mHealth expanding access to affordable high quality health care and, in the process, empower individuals to better maintain their own health
Healthcare “systems” are broken in the developing world and non-existent for billions of the planet’s residents. The United States spends far more on health care than other countries yet we still rank at or near the bottom of industrialized nations’ health outcomes. One study indicates that outcomes are actually worse in communities with higher Medicare spending. Moreover, rising healthcare costs are eating away at the household incomes of average Americans.
For developing economies with aging populations, chronic diseases are on the rise. Current approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of these diseases are not effective, affordable or sustainable. They will not replicate the U.S. model.
The solution to these problems lies not in continuing to deploy the current anti-competitive, labor-intensive, inconvenient, obscenely expensive and non-transparent model for health care services and delivery. For the benefit of rich and poor citizens alike, we must migrate to a connected, affordable, personalized and accountable 21st century model of healthcare. That new model is wirelessly enabled health.
Fortunately, the technological tools are at hand to do this. All we really need is the will and commitment. Through the actions of the individuals and institutions (both public and private) that shape the modern world, we can vastly expand access to affordable high quality health care, and, in the process, empower individuals to better maintain their own health, thereby reducing demand for healthcare service.
This revolutionary transition need not be driven completely by altruism. There is fantastic wealth to be created by leveraging the power of wireless connectivity to satisfy the most fundamental human need after nutrition, water and shelter. We have incredible knowledge of human health locked up in millions of databases and doctors’ minds. Providing that knowledge to billions of people who have access to wireless services is a business opportunity not to be missed.
Just as the Internet has made everything from books and music to the physical properties of subatomic particles instantly accessible to anyone with computer access, the same can be done for the world’s medical knowledge. Access to knowledge will pave the way for the deployment of the incredible wearable, swallowable, injectable and otherwise passive sensors that will enable personal biofeedback to be an affordable service for everyone. Key drivers in the initial transformation of healthcare include:
1. Consumer Demand
Even in the U.S., consumers are taking on increased financial and caregiver responsibility for their family’s health. In the developing world, self-pay is the dominant business model.
2. Affordable Distribution
Cell phone subscribers (six billion(!) and counting today) constitute the largest distribution channel for digital information ever created. Through this channel, consumers have access to knowledge and assistance and healthcare organizations have direct access to their end users.
See also: The Rapid Rise of Mobile Health Management Tools Infographic]
3. Free Information
Properly organized and presented, wireless health information will enable free diagnosis of a majority of human diseases. Similarly, the search for the correct diagnosis for more complex conditions, hard to define diseases, and those requiring special tests will become more efficient. These changes will free up resources for therapeutic purposes.
4. Knowledge is Power
Knowledge in the hands of innovators and purchasers moves power from sellers to buyers and destroys or disrupts entrenched economic interests. Witness the effects of innovation (and the success of the innovators) on global supply chains (Walmart), Internet commerce (Amazon) and digital music (Apple).
5. Social Networks
In the hands of citizens, communication and community building platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are equally disruptive to entrenched political interests (Arab Spring) and have positively affected healthcare (PatientsLikeMe). These and similar tools can spread knowledge and move public opinion (and votes) faster than any preceding mode of communication. Applied to healthcare, they will accelerate the adoption of improved products, applications and services.
All of these tools empower individuals to better care for themselves and to assume more responsibility for their own health. This is critically important since a large portion of our health care costs are driven by excess demand, which could be reduced if individuals, families, communities, business and societies had easy access to information, products, services and applications that coax them to make better lifestyle choices and decline wasteful services.
How does this translate into the goal of affordable access to health and health care?
Some of the world’s most successful non-healthcare companies and business sectors are focused on this emerging market. Qualcomm, P&G, mobile operators and the entertainment sector are engaged. These companies and other “outsiders” will help committed insiders to disrupt the healthcare sector’s fragmented, paternalistic and anti-competitive approach to service. Increased transparency and the power of communities will help ensure that political power is used to enhance rather than hinder necessary policy changes in healthcare funding and regulation.
Existing and emerging organizations will deliver the information that citizens need to maintain personal health to their handheld devices. They will deliver useful preventative, diagnostic and therapeutic information and services to every human being within reach of a wireless network. Existing businesses will be disrupted. More of the value that is inherent in the massive stores of life sciences knowledge will be accessible to billions of human beings and their caregivers.
Wireless health is the enabler of these changes. It makes the world’s medical knowledge accessible and brings accountability to healthcare institutions. Without it, the world’s populations will be poorer and sicker.
[See also: 5 Leading Trailblazers in Wireless Health]
Robert B. McCray is President & CEO of the Wireless-Life Sciences Alliance where this was first posted.
Featured image credit: http://www.publicishealthware.com
