Despite all the attention paid to the obesity epidemic and the growing prevalence of preventable diseases, in the U.S. - as a society and as an industry - we've made health hard, even as our daily lives become easier.
— Bruce Broussard
Health should be easy. The good news is that, through the increasing use of mobile devices with their real-time networking capabilities and by addressing health collaboratively in our communities, we're accelerating the 'democratization of health care.'
Health isn't only what was genetically given to you; it's also about your environment and what you do on a day-to-day basis. The more we understand that, the more we can personalize it, and really, it requires us to have more and more data about the individual.
Our 'convenience culture' translates into too-available entertainment options, fast food, sedentary transportation, and the like. The fact is, if you want to eat right and live a healthy lifestyle, you have to work at it.
I look at technology as a way for us to engage with and help our customers. If we don't do it, someone else is going to.
Consider radiology. Technology is going to reduce the use of those machines because doctors aren't going to need to send patients two or three times for radiology. They're going to have access to what the previous specialist took. There's also going to be devices that are coming out that are much less costly.
We're giving consumers the tools they need to see medical professionals virtually, to Skype with the doctor instead of wait in her office, to self-monitor vital signs, to connect with health-related communities, and to choose physicians based on reliable data about outcomes and cost.
We have telemedicine where, if you come into our office, you can go downstairs, and there's a machine there and a nurse there, and you talk to a doctor who works from a clinic down the street. It's just going to make a great health care system in the long run. We just have a lot of pains go through.
