This might sound like a loaded question and it really is. The question actually came from Nick Dawson where he wanted to know people’s responses to this question. Plus, he asked what comes to mind and what ideas we have.
If I ask: ‘how might we democratize healthcare?’ what comes to mind for you? How do you interpret that question? What ideas do you have?
— Nick Dawson (@nickdawson) July 28, 2021
I’m glad he asked the question and not because there is a specific “right” answer. Instead, it’s something that causes you to think about our healthcare system and to better understand how it works and how it could be better.
In the responses to his question a number of people talked about access to healthcare being a key to democratizing healthcare. I really liked Robin Farmanfarmaian’s response about AI being an important piece to this because the incremental costs to deliver software is key to being able to scale healthcare to the world. She’s right that from a global perspective we can’t scale people to the problem.
Casey Quinlan offered the simple answer of Patients Included which is a really great effort to have patients included in the conversations. It’s a problem that’s harder to solve than most people realize. Although, my friends at Savvy Coop are making it easier for companies to Ask Patients and to do so in an effective way.
Kim Bellard suggested that we needed to distribute power to the masses. This most aligns with what I think about when I talk about Democratizing Healthcare. When I think of democracy, I think about the power of the people to have a voice and influence over something. In this case, I’d apply it to patients having a voice in healthcare. I see a wide variety of technologies making this happen today.
Of course, patients having a voice in healthcare could mean a lot of things. There are many areas of healthcare where patients didn’t have a voice or didn’t feel like they had a voice. In fact, it’s still true today. However, I think that is changing. A couple of the big changes are access to information and the ability to change care. Sadly, not everyone has access to one or both of these, but this is more available today than it was even 10 years ago.
The dynamics of a visit changes when patients have info and have the ability to switch care. When present, these force an institution to be accountable for the care they provide a patients and execute at the highest level possible. When not present, mediocrity thrives.
What’s also interesting is that patients have often been complicit with this. How many patients have absconded any sort of responsibility for their health? How many assume their employer insurance is going to cover them when in fact it’s not? Democracy is a wonderful thing when used properly. However, it requires active participation and correct information for it to be effective.
Hayman Buwaneswaran Buwan, MD captured one challenging element of democratizing healthcare when he tweeted “Don’t ask the c-suite of #healthcare :-)”
While I’m not sure I’d group the entire c-suite in this, there are certainly some structural pieces of healthcare that don’t want healthcare democratized. They are fine with the status quo. They often profit off the status quo. When I hear this, I know that it needs to change.
What’s your answer to the question? What do you think democratizing healthcare means? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or on social media.
