Business Insider recently profiled 30 health-tech leaders under 40 who are trying to upend the healthcare system, from eliminating the hassle of going to a pharmacy to making healthcare easier to use and more affordable.
But amid discussion about all that’s going to change, we asked them to take a step back and think about what’s actually going to stay the same over the next decade. It’s a question Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has said he likes to ask himself when thinking about the future of the e-commerce giant.
The health-tech leaders we spoke with all agreed that the healthcare system as we know it isn’t likely to go away entirely.
“All of us in some aspect of our lives are going to be patients and in some way may need to interact with the healthcare system,” Dr. Veena Jones, a pediatric hospitalist at Sutter Health’s Palo Alto Medical Foundation and medical director, told Business Insider.
That is, people will always need care and medication. And a fair amount of healthcare, the leaders said, will still involve humans. At the same time, healthcare frustrations such as high costs aren’t likely to go anywhere.
Humans in healthcare
While technology is making healthcare cheaper and easier to use — from Alexa-like assistants for doctors to software that can warn doctors which patients are more likely to fall— health-tech leaders were adamant that the human element will continue to be integral to healthcare.
“Humans in healthcare should stay the same,” Capsule co-founder and CEO Eric Kinariwala, said. “Humans are human, and having another human to interact with and explain what’s going on and to help you navigate the complexities of the healthcare system when you’re at your most vulnerable should stay the same. It’s making that part even stronger.”
When patients go to the hospital, that means they’ll still see doctors and nurses. The difference might just be that those hospital-workers might be more empowered through technology.
“Doctors and nurses are going to continue to be an important part, and technology is only going to enhance,” Tanvi Abbhi, co-founder of Veta Health, said.
But the fear of artificial intelligence putting doctors out of work, they said, is overblown.
“I think a lot of people are scared that physicians are going to be replaced by AI and by robots. I don’t believe in that,” Spring Health cofounder and CEO April Koh said. “I fundamentally believe that in the next 10 years, there will be specialists and clinicians doing their jobs very well. What is going to change dramatically is the amount of data that the clinicians use to make decisions.”
Healthcare, the leaders said, is all about relationships between patients and the doctors and nurses who care for them.
“At the core of everything in healthcare is humanity,” Dr. Alexi Nazem, the cofounder and CEO of Nomad Health, said. “There is a patient, a real person who is suffering and they need help, and there are other people who want to help them — doctors, nurses, [physician assistants].”
But that relationship’ influenced by technology, might change.
“I think it’s going to change in the way it’s expressed,” said Grant Verstandig, the chief digital officer of UnitedHealth. “But the value, the power, and the transformative effect of relationship is a core tenet.”
Healthcare’s biggest frustrations aren’t going anywhere
At the same time, many healthcare leaders had their doubts that the cloud that hangs over the US healthcare system — the issue of high spending— will dissipate over the next 10 years.
“The cost of care is going to continue to rise,” Marta Bralic, vice president of business development at Flatiron Health, said.
Other entrenched aspects of the healthcare system — such as the role of health insurers — won’t be changing any time soon either, Michael Rea, founder and CEO of Rx Savings Solutions, said. “I don’t think consumers can underwrite the risk associated with a catastrophic event,” he said.
So too with frustrations around the way healthcare information is shared.
“I think it’s going to be really hard to change some of the back-end bureaucratic systems. I don’t see for instance a lot of the processes in the IT infrastructure changing,” said Cornell engineering professor Andrea Ippolito, who spent time in her career working with Department of Veteran Affairs electronic medical record system. “What I do see changing is how we use the data changing to redesign to be more patient centric more doctor.”
To be sure, the US healthcare system is a $3 trillion behemoth that’s historically been slow to change. Concepts that have been much-discussed for a while, such as value-based care in which care is paid for based on patient outcomes, have taken a lot longer to materialize than expected. Even so, Manik Bhat, the CEO and founder of Healthify, said he expects it to stick around.
“I think something that will stay the same is this trend towards value-based care. I think it’s much slower than people expected, but I think it’s here to stay,” he said.
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