A growing number of ‘quantified self’ enthusiasts are exploring methods, tools and analytical procedures for a better understanding of their health, activity and well-being. One in three Americans have gone online to investigate a medical condition. Networked and activated consumers are increasingly demanding personal information they can use to improve their health and their lives. One of our society’s greatest assets is the increasing determination of healthcare consumers to better manage their own health using the internet to gather information and their ability to self-organize using social networking tools. This paper argues that new forms of participation by patients and consumers are key to integrating the disparate elements treated in the IOM reports into a practical vision for the emerging transformation of healthcare in the digitally networked era. Nor do these IOM reports sufficiently explicate the crucial role that must be played by patient and consumer participation in healthcare. However, these elements are not yet connected in a way that can be readily understood as a coherent medical model capable of delivering care that is predictive, preventive and personalized. While they use different terminology, these establishment reports do an excellent job of laying out the core elements of what we call ‘systems medicine’: the application of systems biology to the challenge of human disease. Working together in digitally powered familial and affinity networks, consumers will be able to reduce the incidence of the complex chronic diseases that currently account for 75% of disease-care costs in the USA.īest Care at Lower Cost: the Path to Continuously Learning Healthcare in America. It will also provide the basis for concrete action by consumers to improve their health as they observe the impact of lifestyle decisions. This information will make disease care radically more cost effective by personalizing care to each person’s unique biology and by treating the causes rather than the symptoms of disease. Systems approaches to biology and medicine are now beginning to provide patients, consumers and physicians with personalized information about each individual’s unique health experience of both health and disease at the molecular, cellular and organ levels. ![]() ![]() Today, the core elements of that vision are widely accepted and have been articulated in a series of recent reports by the US Institute of Medicine. Ten years ago, the proposition that healthcare is evolving from reactive disease care to care that is predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory was regarded as highly speculative.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |