This is an article that Esther Dyson wrote a couple of years ago (September 2007) after attending a Health 2.0 conference. A lot has changed since then, but many things will take time (lots), innovation (good 'ole American ingenuity), and a significant amount of hard work by smart and dedicated people, before we can claim anything like progress. Here's the money quote from the article:
In the same way, the companies here are empowering consumers (or patients) giving them the tools to talk to one another, to question their doctors, to monitor their own conditions... But they can't simply dissolve a hairball, as someone described the health care system earlier in the day. They need to take on the calcified mess at the bottom of the drain - or to be more anatomical about it, they are clearing the capillaries and buffing the nerve endings, but at the center of everything there's a calcified heart pumping blood/information/money in the wrong direction through a tangled mass of arteries that misdirects resources to tumors and useless vestigial organs.
The hairball is being dissolved as we speak. We will get health reform in the U.S. because some of our best and brightest are working on the problem, and they're not in it just for the money. These are people that want to see an improved healthcare system in the U.S,.because if we don't get one we are all going to die a death of a thousand cuts. At 16% of GDP, healthcare costs are out of control and U.S. healthcare quality lags, in general, the rest of the developed world.
It is a matter of economic survival in a world economy wherein a sick America won't otherwise be able to compete. It is the right thing to do as well. It is a legacy that we owe our children and grandchildren. It is as basic as the First Amendment, the right to vote, and equal protection under the law. Our healthcare system, as it exists today, is un-American, a relic of days long past. It is time for people of good conscious, across the political spectrum, to stand up and be counted.
Electronic health records are a step in the right direction. Health 2.0 depends, to a large degree, in moving our healthcare system to the twenty first century. But that won't be enough, the industry is going to need lots of help if the vision is to be realized. Given those on the front lines some relief from absurdly priced malpractice insurance is also a must have requirement. We are collectively asking a lot of our providers, we should be prepared to give them something of significance in return.
