Take Health Care Off the Mainframe

Eric Dishman works for  Intel, doing research into how we provide healthcare for the elderly. His recent talk at TEDMED is fascinating and challenging at the same time.

Dishman makes a bold argument: the US healthcare system is like computing circa 1959, tethered to big, unwieldy central systems: hospitals, doctors, nursing homes. It is essentially broken, or will break when the baby boomers retire and start to become patients with all the problems of aging. It is imperative, he says, to create personal, networked, home-based healthcare for all.

Intel is at the forefront—because no-one else is really doing it—of research into applying disruptive technologies to the monitoring and delivery of healthcare. With simple application of existing technologies a device as ubiquitous as the telephone could become a powerful diagnostic tool.

Dishman wants to realise the dream of personalised healthcare that is active in the home, and not just an extension of the healthcare delivered by doctors, hospitals and other institutions. His is a manifesto worth listening to.