Humana's Your Practice

Transforming the Future
of Health Care Technology

Dear Physician and Office Staff:

New technologies are poised to transform health care — but not by changing its institutions or medical practices. The transformation will take place outside the health system — putting health sensors in everyday appliances and delivering behavioral support to consumers that will guide them to better health. It may change the way we think about health and the role of health care in creating it.

The 20th century was a triumphant era for medical technology. We have virtually eliminated diseases that once routinely claimed our children and loved ones. The average age at death was 47 in 1900. Today the average lifespan is 77. We have become accustomed to intervene where we could once hope only to diagnose.

Our success led to the “medicalization” of health — asking the medical system to treat many health-related issues that are not well suited to medical intervention. Many of today’s most costly killers — heart disease, diabetes — have their roots in unhealthy behaviors. We’re good at treating the disease, but we’re not good at helping people to make changes in their lives that will improve their health. In today’s health system — when physicians in private practice can only spend 10 minutes with a patient and less than 60 seconds of that visit educating them — the ability of physicians to have a meaningful impact on their patients’ sense of “personal mastery” over their health is very limited.

Think about how much we’ve come to know about diabetes, for example. We know much about its causes, its progress, and its consequences to the body. We know a lot about how to regulate the endocrine system, and we know a lot about how to monitor and manage it.

But we don’t know very much about how to get people to reduce their risk — to control their diet, manage their weight, exercise and to do all the other things that will really control the disease and reduce its prevalence. In fact, despite everything we know about how to treat diabetes, we’re seeing an epidemic increase in its incidence in America today.

Maybe we shouldn’t be looking to the health system to solve every health problem. Some health problems are better addressed outside of it, and the pressing health concerns of the coming generation — problems associated with aging and obesity — clearly have as much need for social and behavioral expertise as medical.

In the 21st century, we will see a movement to democratize medical knowledge and to “demedicalize” health. We’ll see health monitoring devices deployed in people’s homes and health advice driven to them through their phones. The knowledge we’ll most want to have is going to be about why people do the things they do, and there will be creative ways to use that knowledge to motivate people to adopt healthier behaviors. It’s going to change the way people think about their health, and it will change the way they think about the health system, too.

Sincerely,