“There are millions upon millions of folks – some in American, but most in the undeveloped world – who have never had, and will never have the opportunity for a patient-physician therapeutic relationship such as that I’ve described above. They have no one to call when Google tells them to “talk to your doctor”.
But the overwhelming majority of the do have cell phones. Amazing, really. We can’t get indoor plumbing modern contraception or malaria tents to those in need, but 80% of folks in the developing word have cellphones. If that’s not an opportunity and a potential market for healthcare innovation, then nothing is. If we can get any healthcare into the hands of these folks, even if it’s healthcare delivered by a mobile app, we have the potential to improve their lives.
Now, imagine that we docs were able to free ourselves from the 80% of our work that can be replaced by technology, and then redistributed ourselves (virtually and personally) across the globe where we were truly needed, so that we could provide needed healthcare to the entire planet? Now that’s disruption”
Dr Margaret Polaneczky, at The Health Care Blog commenting on Vinod Khosla’s claim that “80% of what doctors do could be replaced by machine”.
The comments are great too especially “Boy do I identify with you on this. I think I spend three times as much time documenting the visit as I actually spend with the patient. Anymore, it seems like my job is to complete the chart, not see the patient” which makes me wonder if it’s the additional legal burden on US Doctors that’s preventing them running to technology that can enable the patient to help with the documentation process (explanatory video)?
Related: My thoughts on Vinod Khosla’s ‘Do we need Doctors or Algorithms’
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