The myth of the silver bullet in Health Care

The underlying theme is the same: Give me the step-by-step formula, the shortcut, the hack—the silver bullet.

Before we go deep into the solution for our question, we should address the problem that we are facing. Usually, numbers are working great to show what we are facing today in health care.

The social and humanitarian impact

Five billion people worldwide lack access to safe, affordable surgical and anesthetic care. But improving access to surgery when needed would not only be good for people’s health; it is also one of the best ways to boost economic productivity in low- and middle-income countries.

Almost 70% of the world’s population – lacks access to safe, affordable surgical and anesthetic care, while 33 million people are saddled with unbearably high health expenses. Not surprisingly, the global poor suffer disproportionately: while low-income countries are home to close to 35% of humanity, they account for just 3.5% of all surgical procedures.

Lancet's study estimated that the failure to improve surgical care in developing countries would translate into $12.3 trillion of lost economic output by 2030. Failure to maintain strong surgical capacity could even undercut economic gains made by middle-income countries, reducing total GDP growth by approximately 2% annually.

Now, how can we solve the problem?

Today, we need to democratize and decentralize the diagnostics ecosystem in health care. Pre-hospital diagnostics should be done anytime, anywhere, instantly, and should be accessible by everyone to prevent overcrowding hospitals and save time.

DISTRIBUTED diagnosis and home healthcare (D2H2) is an emerging paradigm to overcome limitations in the current healthcare system, which is characterized by the hospital or clinic-based face-to-face contacts between the patient and care providers.

D2H2 system has the potential to speed up the transition from the current central, provider-centric, and hospital-based healthcare delivery to distributed, patient-centered and home-based.

When it comes to creating long-lasting change, there are no silver bullets, as venture capitalist Ben Horowitz says.

You’ll need to use a lot of lead bullets instead.