The Future of Healthcare Means Letting Go Of The Past

When we think of the future of healthcare, most of us imagine automated robotic surgeries, IA-generated pharmaceutical trials, machine learning drug development software, and augmented reality technologies. But if you’re actively practicing in the field of medicine, your perspective may be quite different. 

Take a moment to think about this:

Can you think of a good reason why medical institutions and clinics are still sending faxes? 

Why are we still utilizing landline phone systems? 

How quickly can you access your patient data and information to share it with other providers in different hospital systems? 

And why are you still filling out the same history intake paperwork when the details about the ACL surgery you had in high school won’t ever change? 

It’s 2023. How is this still happening?

The future of healthcare doesn’t need to be fancy. It just needs to change. And it should first start by letting go of the past. 

The Future of Healthcare Rides On Overcoming The Sunk Cost Fallacy

Future healthcare technologies sound exciting, and they are. With the digitalization of medical records, automation of medical decision-making by AI, and streamlining of the process of prescribing drugs, healthcare will look vastly different than it did in the past. 

And yet, one of the hardest things to do is to let go of the past. We can thank the “sunk cost fallacy.” 

In behavioral economics, the sunk cost fallacy is the tendency to follow through on an initiative, idea, or project, even when the facts clearly show that it’s not in our best interest to do so. Whether it be a financial, emotional, or psychological investment, our cognitive capacity pushes us further into the decision because of the amount of time, energy, and money we’ve put into the initiative. The future of healthcare resides in us letting go of the past. 

A real-world example of this was the infamous Concorde Jet fallacy in the late 1950s. France and Great Britain were keen on building a supersonic plane to revolutionize the aviation industry. When the Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee finally met, they estimated the jet would cost around $100 million. Early in the process, it became evident that the project costs and the projections to recoup their investment wouldn’t come to fruition, yet they continued to push forward. 

Millions of additional dollars had to be invested along the way. And paired with delayed timelines and extended contracts, the Concorde became a classic example of wishful thinking and a financial burden on taxpayer dollars. The result was a quick take-off and landing, with the Concorde only flying for 30 years before retiring. Lesson learned. 

And yet, these issues are rampant throughout the healthcare space. The future of healthcare doesn’t have to be out of this world; It must be updated by letting go of the past. It’s time to eliminate the analog technologies of yesterday and transform our medical institutions into digital platforms that can exponentially improve patient care and quality of life, eliminating high medical costs. 

Letting Go of The Past Can Advance The Future of Healthcare

We can vastly improve our medical systems by letting go of the past. The future of healthcare is already here via innovative telemedicine platforms, remote patient monitoring technologies, and individualized medicine protocols. As we let go of the past and eliminate outdated technologies, we quickly advance our ability to improve medical systems and outcomes. 

Sadly, this is far easier said than done. High medical costs are a massive burden to the system and society. 

The United States leads the way in this category, spending more on healthcare than any other developed nation globally. On average, other wealthy countries spend about 50% less on healthcare than the US. And while we have the highest quality of care for acute and life-threatening conditions, our high costs are incurred with chronic conditions with no cure or preventative therapies. Even more troubling is that medical errors are the third leading cause of injury and death in the United States. 

When chronic conditions present themselves as acute emergencies, healthcare costs skyrocket, and outcomes plummet. If we’re genuinely focusing on what the future of healthcare should look like, this is ground zero for intervention. 

As Benjamin Franklin said in 1736, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” By letting go of the past ways of waiting for something to go wrong, the future of healthcare can utilize technology and medical devices to predict when a patient may be having symptoms and trigger immediate medical intervention. 

By ushering in the digital era of medical records, remote patient monitoring, and digital analysis of blood chemistry findings, the future of healthcare can and will look quite different than the past. As we focus on integrating technology into our personal lives, we must adopt these practices in our health. 

The Future of Healthcare Involves the Integration of Data

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) we’re supposed to revolutionize medicine and vastly improve patient outcomes across the board. Sadly, most practicing physicians argue it’s caused more harm than good. 

Physicians and medical specialists spend up to 35% of their day documenting data and patient information. And some studies indicate that the implementation of EHR systems has caused a nearly 8.5% decrease in time dedicated to patient care during a consultation and an 8.3% decrease in dedicated documentation time. Sadly, this time adds up over days, weeks, and months, adding stress to medical practitioners and poorer outcomes for patient populations. 

The move from written to digital chart notes isn’t wrong. We’re just missing a more significant piece of the puzzle. 

Tom Lawry, director of worldwide health for Microsoft, states, “Everyone’s digitizing their data, whether electronic medical records or X-rays. But digitizing data doesn’t do anything other than that. It changes data from one form to another instance. The transformation brought about by the cloud and bringing that data together allows for all kinds of interesting things. That to us is the number one transformational aspect going forward for the next few years.” 

The future of healthcare must involve the integration of data sources. As we let go of the past, we can provide the infrastructure and combination of multiple data sources to improve patient outcomes, medical decision-making, and access to patient records. We will also see a monumental shift in data available for research purposes, which can help us make better decisions about public health trends and interventions. 

Medical systems must be open to sharing their data and records while protecting patient privacy with appropriate data security systems and processes. 

As We’re Letting Go of The Past, The Future of Healthcare Looks Bright

Letting go of the past is no easy feat, but it’s needed to advance in medicine. And the future of healthcare depends on it. 

As more medical technologies become mainstream, we will have no choice but to adapt and evolve. Fax machines and landline telephones served their purpose years ago. Now it’s time to invest in the future by letting go of the past and deliberately deciding to move forward. 

The future of healthcare will look vastly different than the past, but it should always be focused on this: The patient. 

Patient-centered care must be at the forefront of all technologies and medical decisions. The future of healthcare depends on it. If we lose sight of this essential piece of the puzzle, we will continue to bury ourselves in high costs, poor clinical outcomes, and chronic health conditions that worsen with time. 

The junction of innovation and real-world experience in the medical field is where these dreams will be turned into a reality. Integrating knowledge and asking the right questions will yield the answers we seek. And when that time comes, we can finally start letting go of the past to create the future of healthcare.

By Dr. Erik Reis.

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