We here at Fierce have been saying it for some time: Most of the noise around healthcare reform is related to cost and access, while the innovations that could really fix the system are seemingly ignored. That's not exactly the thesis of Dr. Eric Topol, chief medical officer of the West Wireless Health Institute, San Diego, and chief academic officer of Scripps Health, but it's awfully close.
"We have the opportunity to reset, revamp and ultimately transform healthcare, which is the most challenging area of our culture to change," Topol writes on the popular venture-capitalist site VentureBeat. To Topol, the disruptive force is wireless technology--what, he notes, Qualcomm executive Don Jones calls the "Kindlelization" of healthcare, after Amazon's Kindle digital book reader.
"Powerful, global connectivity is at the core of this revolution," centered around mobile phones, Topol writes. "Connected devices will provide truly individualized medicine, keeping people in their own homes and out of the hospital, enabling people to remain healthy longer and to help avoid the enormous costs of care."
For more:
- read Topol's VentureBeat commentary