7 Predictions For The Future Of Health Care Technology

Sean Mehra | Center for Health Value Innovation | June 23, 2013

I’ve got an awesome job. Every day, I envision the future of healthcare and strategize how innovative technologies can transform how we give and receive care and, ultimately, make the world a happier and healthier place.

Here are my seven predictions about where healthcare is headed:

We will see a democratization of medical knowledge

For thousands of years, the science and art of medicine has been passed down from generation to generation under an apprenticeship model (it’s called “a practice” after all). Today, we have an opportunity to leverage technology to make doctors’ wisdom accessible to all. To date, we’ve published entire encyclopedias of medical knowledge, but they remain largely impenetrable by the mass audience. What’s missing is useful, user-friendly information that guides healthy behavior.

The technology already exists for health information to be published, catalogued, and searched by anybody online. As this trend spreads, this democratization of medical knowledge will offer clinicians worldwide a chance to learn from each other and  improve the quality of care. What’s more, platforms that unlock the crowd-sourced wisdom of the medical community will offer patients immediate access to doctors’ guidance.