For most of history, medical diagnosis came through a series of chaotic steps. Patients experienced a string of studies, samples, and images coupled with a doctor’s judgment offering a best-guess answer. Or, in many cases, just a guess. Increasingly, diagnosis is being be reduced to simple transactions. Clean point-of-care testing based on molecular and marker ... Continue Reading about The Opportunity of Scarcity in Healthcare
The Problem with Predicting Physician Supply and Demand
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has released a report, The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections from 2018 to 2033, predicting a substantial future shortfall of physicians. The AAMC represents medical schools and teaching hospitals and offers services to its member institutions including medical education data. Trying to ... Continue Reading about The Problem with Predicting Physician Supply and Demand
Technology is Useless Until Fueled by Human Ideas
This quote from Jeff Howe and Joi Ito in Whiplash is worth a look. It references the birth of film as a technology and reminds us that technology is useless until fueled by human ideas: Ponder this for a moment. It took eight years, hundreds of filmmakers, and thousands of films before someone conceived of the new technology as anything other than a play in ... Continue Reading about Technology is Useless Until Fueled by Human Ideas
Omega Speedmaster and the Human Experience
This is a pull quote from an Atlantic article discussing Buzz Aldrin’s Omega Speedmaster watch that he wore on the moon. This very watch worn by Aldrin is available today in its original form. This quote stuck with me. ... In other words, the Speedmaster and watches like it provide a sense of permanence in an age with little of it. The Speedmaster available ... Continue Reading about Omega Speedmaster and the Human Experience
The Health Technology Outcomes Gap
This analysis in Health Affairs shows that EHR adoption initially results in higher patient mortality but in the long run lowers mortality. Having gone through the transition from paper to digital, it’s easy to imagine. Initially you think, ‘how do I do this?’ Then you say, ‘how did we do it with paper?’ There’s a period of adaptation that happens with new ... Continue Reading about The Health Technology Outcomes Gap
To Be a Machine – Transhumanism as a Lens on the Modern Condition
Spend enough time in the tech infosphere and you’ll find that there’s no shortage of confidence in the ability of technology to make us better as humans. In fact, technology advances coupled with this confidence has spawned the transhumanism movement. This is... ...a movement predicated on the conviction that we can and should use technology to control the future ... Continue Reading about To Be a Machine – Transhumanism as a Lens on the Modern Condition