It's January 15, 2020: What Have We Learned About Healthcare in the Last Decade? - Futurist, trends & innovation expert Jim Carroll

It's January 15, 2020: What Have We Learned About Healthcare in the Last Decade?

This article reflects on a keynote by Jim Carroll to the World Healthcare Innovation & Technology Conference in December 2008.

-----

WHIT 4.0 promises to be an exciting conference that promises an unparalleled look into the future of health care. Rapid technological development and relentless innovation are the two key trends that will provide for a forthcoming massive transformation of our health care system in the future.

Even so, the challenge is: with so much knowledge and insight to be shared at WHIT, is it truly possible to understand where we are really going with the world of heath care?

It's often difficult to do so. That's why, for the last fifteen years, as I've been providing my guidance into future trends to a wide swathe of Fortune 1000 companies, associations, and other groups. I've learned that sometimes, it is easier to open up the minds of people to big trends by taking a look *back,* rather than by taking a look forward.

So let's say it's the year 2020. Now we all KNOW will have happened with health care in the last twelve years.

Futurist, trends & innovation expert Jim Carroll
Opening Keynote Remarks,
WHIT 14.0, January 15, 2020

I'm thrilled you invited me back.

After all, my comments as the closing keynote speaker at WHIT 4.0 in 2008 that the "folks in the audience need to wake the hell up, focus on opportunity, and seize the health care innovation agenda," rubbed some traditionalists as being a little too aggressive!

It's no wonder though! At the time, the economic malaise that was settling in had caused most innovators to shrink away, convinced their ideas for the future had no place and time for consideration. Fear, mediocrity and staid thinking ruled the health care agenda; everyone spoke of applying the same old band-aid solutions in a different way to the same problems, with no obvious results in sight.

But WHIT 4.0 saw a group of leading global health care thinkers come together, and imagine what "could be." And I'm thrilled that in my own small way, my call to action encouraged and inspired these leaders to seize the future and provide the unique solutions which we so desperately needed at the time.

Looking back from 2020, it's easy to spot the big changes that happened. Yet, they weren't so clear at the conference of 2008, were they?

Here's what we know now in the year 2020:

1. The system went upside down. We successfully transitioned the health care system from one which "fixed people after they were sick" to one of preventative, diagnostic medicine. This simple reality, though vastly complex from a scientific, methodology and implementation perspective, resulted in a dramatic shift in health care philosophies, a major transition in spending, and an overall improvement in the lives of ordinary citizens. This was the big transformative trend of the decade, and its impact was powerful and massive.

2. Bio-connectivity reinvented the concept of hospitals. Our medical system of the earlier part of the 21st century looks rather primitive at this point. Expensive hospital beds were stuffed full of non-critical care patients so that they could be closely monitored by medical personnel. A tremendous waste of spending and energy! Today, of course, we've transitioned to a virtual community oriented caregiving strategy, with a good proportion of both critical and non-critical care patients receiving health care at home, with a consequent cost reduction and refocus of critical health care spending. It was the rapid emergence of thousands of different bio-connected devices: home health care medical monitoring, diagnosis and treatment devices, that provided for an explosion in rethinking the essence of a good chunk of our health care system.

3. The #1 revenue source for Silicon Valley is now health care related. By 2008, most CEO's of any type of technology company realized that the future lay far beyond social networking, Web 2.0 and other hyped social networking technologies. They came to know that the real opportunity lay in aiming the technology-innovation engine straight at the massive health care problems that were then so evident. Looking back, the results that they launched, whether with new products, business models, scientific discovery tools, continued invention of bio-informatics platforms that provided the foundation for diagnostic medicine : you name it, and the results were simply astounding.

4. High velocity change became "the new normal." It's hard to believe that as recently as 2008, hospitals spoke of the need for insight into change management. The incessant debate over the benefits of the electronic health record dragged on ad-nasuem. Today, of course, change-adverse baby boomer doctors and other medical professionals have mostly retired. Today's medical professional has their 239th generation iPhone at their side, they're interacting with labs, medical libraries, their social-network-specialists peers and other knowledge-network peers : they continue to drive change at a furious pace. The EHR? It's secure, bio-embedded, and has ripped inefficiency and cost wastage out of the system. We now know that the arrival of the first of the Gen-Connect generation of 2010 from medical colleges was the catalyst that drove massive, fast and furious rates of innovative change throughout the health care system.

5. Customer service became the #2 mission. Number one, of course, remains ensuring that patients receive top-notch, first-rate health care as soon as they need it. But the revolution to health care service delivery came when retail, consumer and branding experts took over a good part of the health care delivery infrastructure. They quickly overhauled and rebuilt the entire philosophical underpinning of that infrastructure, so that it was customer focused, friendly, fast, subject to expectation metrics -- service delivered with a smile! Suddenly, patients came to realize that their health care system was no longer stuck in an adversarial 19th century mode -- the concept of "service" re-energized staff, provided for streamlined operations, and allowed for innovation to flourish in an unprecedented fashion.

6. The triumph of device intelligence. By 2020, most of us found that our "personal area network" included much more than our MP3's, video players and other digital content: it included huge chunks of intelligence from our daily health interactions. My prescription bottle now came with an embedded RFID tag. At some point in the prior ten years, the role of packaging transitioned from being a passive protector of the product, and became an active component of the overall effectiveness of the particular medication. My pill bottle now linked to the Internet, providing me with an instant concise summary of the current status of this particular medical condition. Linkage of prescription efficacy to online databases also became a key method by which pharmaceutical companies tracked the ever more rapid development and release of new, effective drug products.

7. Computational analytics allowed us to rapidly refocus resources. By 2010, we came to realize that many of society's deepest problems had a chance of being solved by processing complex analytical algorithms with massive computing horsepower. We aimed our innovation engine at energy, eco and health care, and the results were staggering. Looking back, it allowed us a significant shift in thinking. For example, while today we accept the health care location intelligence professional as an accepted part of the hospital team, back in 2010 they were but a rare anomaly. Back then, no one believed that it would be possible to link the massive amounts of information found in the global 'data-cloud' to the rapid emergence of particular medical conditions. Today, of course, most health care facilities use the insight of such professionals to regularly track, monitor, and devise proactive plans to deal with new emerging challenges.

8. We transitioned to a medical culture of "just-in-time-knowledge." Given the constant doubling of medical knowledge in ever shorter time spans -- from originally doubling every years in 2005, the pace picked up -- we came to know that the system could no longer function based on an antiquated model of one-time knowledge delivery. Medical schools adapted, providing for the "velocity" of knowledge that was required by ever more rapid scientific advance. The relationship between medical colleges and students changed ; primarily, from a period of short term, concentrated knowledge delivery, to one of lifelong, ongoing replenishment and rejuvenation of knowledge. It is now estimated, in 2020, that the average doctor and nurse refreshes their entire knowledge base every 18 months.

9. We adapted to faster science through high-velocity structure. We can now look back at the period of 2010-2020 as an era of profound change when it came to medical innovation. Given the fast pace of discovery of new medical knowledge, we witnessed a massive acceleration in the number of new medical procedures and treatments, pharmaceuticals and bio-materials, medical technologies and devices, diagnostics and methodologies. We came to realize that it was our ability to rapidly ingest new knowledge that became a key savior in our re-engineering of the concept of our health care; it was our speed of action that defined our success. We focused on velocity, and the results, looking back, were staggering.

10. We rose to the challenge with determination! In 2008, we were morose; we had no belief in the future; wracked by economic self-doubt, we came to believe that the health care system would continue to crumble. And yet, we found inspiration! We heard the soaring phrases of challenge posed by President Obama at his inauguration. We realized that he caught the imagination of an entire generation ; who came to know that this decisive, broken and complex industry was now their new Peace Corps. Along came an awakening that they could turn their attention from sharing quick-knowledge hits on now-defunct networks like Facebook and Twitter, and instead, heed a greater call to action. They aimed their minds towards one of the deepest challenges of our time and turned on their innovation engines. And as we know now, that was a truly transformative moment.

---
Looking out to the folks here at WHIT 14, January 15, 2020, I do know what we've learned in the last decade. Innovators are heroes. They are the people who are willing and able to cut through the clutter of tiny trends and massive noise, able to see the long term transformative trends that provide for real change, real opportunity, real growth, and real solutions.

There were some of you in the room with us on that day, December 10, 2008.

You heard the need for innovation. You understood the opportunity for growth. You knew that we were on the edge of something big. And so you took a deep breath, and forgot about the challenges of today, and began to re-energize yourself on the opportunity of tomorrow.

Thank you very much.

----

Jim Carroll is one of the world's leading futurists, trends & innovation experts, with a client list that includes the Walt Disney Organization, Pearson PLC, CapitolOne, Readers Digest Food & Entertainment Group, Lincoln Financial, Toshiba, IBM, Motorola, Nestle, BBC, Deloitte, Caterpillar, and the Swiss Innovation Forum. He regularly challenges health care organizations and professionals to step beyond mediocrity, and seize the challenges of today with innovative thinking. Jim health care clients include Cardinal Health Care, Providence Health, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Pharmalink, the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations, the Health Care Industry Distributors Association, the American Society for Health Care Risk Management, Blue Cross Blue Shield and the Canadian Medical Association. Contact him at jcarroll@jimcarroll.com, or browse his site, www.jimcarroll.com

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		Jim Carroll's blog

	It's January 15, 2020: What Have We Learned About Healthcare in the Last Decade? This article reflects on a keynote by Jim Carroll to the World Healthcare Innovation & Technology Conference in December 2008. ----- WHIT 4.0 promises to be an exciting conference that promises an unparalleled look into the future of health care. Rapid technological development and relentless innovation are the two key trends that will provide for a forthcoming massive transformation of our health care system in the future. Even so, the challenge is: with so much knowledge and insight to be shared at WHIT, is it truly possible to understand where we are really going with the world of heath care? It's often difficult to do so. That's why, for the last fifteen years, as I've been providing my guidance into future trends to a wide swathe of Fortune 1000 companies, associations, and other groups. I've learned that sometimes, it is easier to open up the minds of people to big trends by taking a look back, rather than by taking a look forward. So let's say it's the year 2020. Now we all KNOW will have happened with health care in the last twelve years. Futurist, trends & innovation expert Jim Carroll Opening Keynote Remarks, WHIT 14.0, January 15, 2020 I'm thrilled you invited me back. After all, my comments as the closing keynote speaker at WHIT 4.0 in 2008 that the "folks in the audience need to wake the hell up, focus on opportunity, and seize the health care innovation agenda," rubbed some traditionalists as being a little too aggressive! It's no wonder though! At the time, the economic malaise that was settling in had caused most innovators to shrink away, convinced their ideas for the future had no place and time for consideration. Fear, mediocrity and staid thinking ruled the health care agenda; everyone spoke of applying the same old band-aid solutions in a different way to the same problems, with no obvious results in sight. But WHIT 4.0 saw a group of leading global health care thinkers come together, and imagine what "could be." And I'm thrilled that in my own small way, my call to action encouraged and inspired these leaders to seize the future and provide the unique solutions which we so desperately needed at the time. Looking back from 2020, it's easy to spot the big changes that happened. Yet, they weren't so clear at the conference of 2008, were they? Here's what we know now in the year 2020: 1. The system went upside down. We successfully transitioned the health care system from one which "fixed people after they were sick" to one of preventative, diagnostic medicine. This simple reality, though vastly complex from a scientific, methodology and implementation perspective, resulted in a dramatic shift in health care philosophies, a major transition in spending, and an overall improvement in the lives of ordinary citizens. This was the big transformative trend of the decade, and its impact was powerful and massive. 2. Bio-connectivity reinvented the concept of hospitals. Our medical system of the earlier part of the 21st century looks rather primitive at this point. Expensive hospital beds were stuffed full of non-critical care patients so that they could be closely monitored by medical personnel. A tremendous waste of spending and energy! Today, of course, we've transitioned to a virtual community oriented caregiving strategy, with a good proportion of both critical and non-critical care patients receiving health care at home, with a consequent cost reduction and refocus of critical health care spending. It was the rapid emergence of thousands of different bio-connected devices: home health care medical monitoring, diagnosis and treatment devices, that provided for an explosion in rethinking the essence of a good chunk of our health care system. 3. The #1 revenue source for Silicon Valley is now health care related. By 2008, most CEO's of any type of technology company realized that the future lay far beyond social networking, Web 2.0 and other hyped social networking technologies. They came to know that the real opportunity lay in aiming the technology-innovation engine straight at the massive health care problems that were then so evident. Looking back, the results that they launched, whether with new products, business models, scientific discovery tools, continued invention of bio-informatics platforms that provided the foundation for diagnostic medicine : you name it, and the results were simply astounding. 4. High velocity change became "the new normal." It's hard to believe that as recently as 2008, hospitals spoke of the need for insight into change management. The incessant debate over the benefits of the electronic health record dragged on ad-nasuem. Today, of course, change-adverse baby boomer doctors and other medical professionals have mostly retired. Today's medical professional has their 239th generation iPhone at their side, they're interacting with labs, medical libraries, their social-network-specialists peers and other knowledge-network peers : they continue to drive change at a furious pace. The EHR? It's secure, bio-embedded, and has ripped inefficiency and cost wastage out of the system. We now know that the arrival of the first of the Gen-Connect generation of 2010 from medical colleges was the catalyst that drove massive, fast and furious rates of innovative change throughout the health care system. 5. Customer service became the #2 mission. Number one, of course, remains ensuring that patients receive top-notch, first-rate health care as soon as they need it. But the revolution to health care service delivery came when retail, consumer and branding experts took over a good part of the health care delivery infrastructure. They quickly overhauled and rebuilt the entire philosophical underpinning of that infrastructure, so that it was customer focused, friendly, fast, subject to expectation metrics -- service delivered with a smile! Suddenly, patients came to realize that their health care system was no longer stuck in an adversarial 19th century mode -- the concept of "service" re-energized staff, provided for streamlined operations, and allowed for innovation to flourish in an unprecedented fashion. 6. The triumph of device intelligence. By 2020, most of us found that our "personal area network" included much more than our MP3's, video players and other digital content: it included huge chunks of intelligence from our daily health interactions. My prescription bottle now came with an embedded RFID tag. At some point in the prior ten years, the role of packaging transitioned from being a passive protector of the product, and became an active component of the overall effectiveness of the particular medication. My pill bottle now linked to the Internet, providing me with an instant concise summary of the current status of this particular medical condition. Linkage of prescription efficacy to online databases also became a key method by which pharmaceutical companies tracked the ever more rapid development and release of new, effective drug products. 7. Computational analytics allowed us to rapidly refocus resources. By 2010, we came to realize that many of society's deepest problems had a chance of being solved by processing complex analytical algorithms with massive computing horsepower. We aimed our innovation engine at energy, eco and health care, and the results were staggering. Looking back, it allowed us a significant shift in thinking. For example, while today we accept the health care location intelligence professional as an accepted part of the hospital team, back in 2010 they were but a rare anomaly. Back then, no one believed that it would be possible to link the massive amounts of information found in the global 'data-cloud' to the rapid emergence of particular medical conditions. Today, of course, most health care facilities use the insight of such professionals to regularly track, monitor, and devise proactive plans to deal with new emerging challenges. 8. We transitioned to a medical culture of "just-in-time-knowledge." Given the constant doubling of medical knowledge in ever shorter time spans -- from originally doubling every years in 2005, the pace picked up -- we came to know that the system could no longer function based on an antiquated model of one-time knowledge delivery. Medical schools adapted, providing for the "velocity" of knowledge that was required by ever more rapid scientific advance. The relationship between medical colleges and students changed ; primarily, from a period of short term, concentrated knowledge delivery, to one of lifelong, ongoing replenishment and rejuvenation of knowledge. It is now estimated, in 2020, that the average doctor and nurse refreshes their entire knowledge base every 18 months. 9. We adapted to faster science through high-velocity structure. We can now look back at the period of 2010-2020 as an era of profound change when it came to medical innovation. Given the fast pace of discovery of new medical knowledge, we witnessed a massive acceleration in the number of new medical procedures and treatments, pharmaceuticals and bio-materials, medical technologies and devices, diagnostics and methodologies. We came to realize that it was our ability to rapidly ingest new knowledge that became a key savior in our re-engineering of the concept of our health care; it was our speed of action that defined our success. We focused on velocity, and the results, looking back, were staggering. 10. We rose to the challenge with determination! In 2008, we were morose; we had no belief in the future; wracked by economic self-doubt, we came to believe that the health care system would continue to crumble. And yet, we found inspiration! We heard the soaring phrases of challenge posed by President Obama at his inauguration. We realized that he caught the imagination of an entire generation ; who came to know that this decisive, broken and complex industry was now their new Peace Corps. Along came an awakening that they could turn their attention from sharing quick-knowledge hits on now-defunct networks like Facebook and Twitter, and instead, heed a greater call to action. They aimed their minds towards one of the deepest challenges of our time and turned on their innovation engines. And as we know now, that was a truly transformative moment. --- Looking out to the folks here at WHIT 14, January 15, 2020, I do know what we've learned in the last decade. Innovators are heroes. They are the people who are willing and able to cut through the clutter of tiny trends and massive noise, able to see the long term transformative trends that provide for real change, real opportunity, real growth, and real solutions. There were some of you in the room with us on that day, December 10, 2008. You heard the need for innovation. You understood the opportunity for growth. You knew that we were on the edge of something big. And so you took a deep breath, and forgot about the challenges of today, and began to re-energize yourself on the opportunity of tomorrow. Thank you very much. ---- Jim Carroll is one of the world's leading futurists, trends & innovation experts, with a client list that includes the Walt Disney Organization, Pearson PLC, CapitolOne, Readers Digest Food & Entertainment Group, Lincoln Financial, Toshiba, IBM, Motorola, Nestle, BBC, Deloitte, Caterpillar, and the Swiss Innovation Forum. He regularly challenges health care organizations and professionals to step beyond mediocrity, and seize the challenges of today with innovative thinking. Jim health care clients include Cardinal Health Care, Providence Health, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Pharmalink, the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations, the Health Care Industry Distributors Association, the American Society for Health Care Risk Management, Blue Cross Blue Shield and the Canadian Medical Association. Contact him at jcarroll@jimcarroll.com, or browse his site, www.jimcarroll.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .