Nahmad Speaker Series. Recorded March 2, 2017.
[Transcript]
[Al & Janie Nahmad Speaker Series: Thought leaders in Medicine]
Frans van Houten:
Thank you ladies and gentlemen for having me here. Akili, Dr. Carson, Rebbie Albert, it's a great pleasure to share some salts with you here today. It's also a great pleasure to attend [Chily 00:00:15] later this afternoon, the opening of that expansion, because we are very, very proud of having achieved that together. I'd like to discuss today, why I believe that new and emerging digital and health technology will give us a tremendous opportunity to reshape the way healthcare is being delivered, but also experienced for people. We are in a position together where we can leap frog existing ways, with innovative approaches. Of course, the flip side of that is that we will have to disrupt aged old methods and that may not be comfortable. Let me first frame our discussion with a brief impression of the impact of digitization. It's changing the way the world works, literally.
[Graphics of a healthy lifestyle]
Frans van Houten:
You may say, "What is this here on the screen?" The MailOnline is the world's most read english newspaper, but there is no paper. Amazon, the world's most valuable retailer, has no shops. Uber, the world's largest taxi company, has no cars. And Airbnb, the world's largest provider of accommodation, doesn't own any bed, nor property. That's what I'm trying to place in everybody's mind is, there's something fundamental going on with a redesign on how things are being implemented and profoundly changing business models. Of course, this topic of transformation is very much on people's mind. With a growing and aging population with more chronic disease, costs rising, how do you transform healthcare? Recognizing these pressures, having to reinvent, and let's say how healthcare is being delivered, but also providing access, to the people who don't have access to care right now. There's still a huge disparity in the world, and we may have to find new ways to deliver care also in emerging markets.
[Picture of client undergoing therapy]
Frans van Houten:
Technology will be able to leapfrog, so that we don't need to recreate what the Western world has in those countries. But around the world there are common themes, and the common themes are, for example, how do we improve accurate first-time-right diagnosis? How can we get to diagnosis faster? If you talk about cancer, that it is a very applicable and very sensible question, because very often, that percentage only stands at 30%. Not our challenge that I hear all across the world is, how can we reduce the huge variance in cost and outcomes within and across health systems? If only we can all be at best practice level, that would already be phenomenally better for the whole world.
Frans van Houten:
Thirdly, how can we move acute care patients to less expensive ambulatory or even home and vitreous care settings? Avoiding that they need to travel, get too expensive, real estate buildings and so on. If we want to avoid expensive acute care, how can we get people, patients take more ownership themselves of their own health? Accountability for prevention, accountability to avoid aggravation. Aggravation of the situation. Eventually, how can this all be affordable? How can we keep people healthy? How can we prevent a disease to aggravate and become worse? How can we diagnose first time, right? How can we treat in such a way that patients can go home the same or the next day in a minimally invasive way? And how can we support people with a chronic condition in the comfort of their home setting and support it perhaps through tele-health? We like to visualize healthcare as a holistic continuum, whereby care becomes continuous rather than episodic.
Frans van Houten:
Healthcare practitioners will appreciate, that this becomes a compelling visualization when you think of it as fully integrated and not siloed. Technology and data is going to make that possible. It will have profound impact on how healthcare is organized. First. We want to make sure that we can engage people in their own house better, and that's where we talk about the personalization of care and opportunity to use technology, and to make it connected. We connect patients to heart monitors, we connect patients to connected CPAP devices so that we can actually measure their compliance. And we can give feedback, and thereby motivate people to take better care of their health. This kind of personalization is changing the way people experience health, disease and healthcare. I'm talking about the rise of the quantified self as a foundation for improving personal health and wellbeing, and that's around the corner. Data is key, and data sharing among care teams and connecting patients to doctors in new ways is critical.
[End Transcript]
