I like to discuss the ideological divide of the healthcare establishment of MDs, Big Pharma, and the FDA versus providers of holistic care. Now there’s another take on the conflicts within medicine, coming from investor Andy Kessler in a provocative new book, "The End of Medicine". Rather than an ideological divide, he sees a digital divide.
Not surprisingly, he views America’s healthcare industry, estimated at more than $1 trillion in annual revenues, from an investment standpoint. Healthcare as investment has been a risky arena, since there have been more than a few mirages and hiccups on the path to opportunity, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and computerization of medical records. Kessler predicts that healthcare will be revolutionized by digitally-based early-detection techniques that will alert patients and their doctors to signs of cancer and heart disease years in advance of current methodologies. Kessler in the book takes readers on a sometimes-tedious personal journey through a healthcare system still dependent on stethoscopes and rubber hammers tapped on kneecaps. Readers observe him being poked and prodded in humorous assessments of existing diagnostic technology, all part of a process designed to pave the way for appreciating the logic of the changes he concludes are inevitable. He visits medical research centers to explore leading-edge techniques for measuring chemical and structural changes within the body, and makes a strong case for a digital revolution that will lead to a revolution in medicine’s approach to diagnostics.
Like many outside observers, he has trouble making sense of Big Pharma, the FDA, and MDs. He equates the FDA to the FCC, and Big Pharma to regional telephone companies–in other words, a questionable government regulation challenge. At the end of his journey, though, he is cynical, and excited. "Doctors use ancient tools, memorize symptoms and solutions, and a halfway decent search engine can leave them in the dust. But now, the days of doctors are over. How do I know? Go back to tellers. Almost everything a teller knew was embedded into the software of an ATM. Instead of paying $25,000 for a pleasant teller who would smile while counting out your twenties, you could put four of them outside the bank and run them 24 hours a day, Sundays, too."
Recent Comments