The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine is in Your Hands

April 25, 2015 - Comment

A trip to the doctor is almost a guarantee of misery. You’ll make an appointment months in advance. You’ll probably wait for several hours until you hear “the doctor will see you now”—but only for fifteen minutes! Then you’ll wait even longer for lab tests, the results of which you’ll likely never see, unless they

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A trip to the doctor is almost a guarantee of misery. You’ll make an appointment months in advance. You’ll probably wait for several hours until you hear “the doctor will see you now”—but only for fifteen minutes! Then you’ll wait even longer for lab tests, the results of which you’ll likely never see, unless they indicate further (and more invasive) tests, most of which will probably prove unnecessary (much like physicals themselves). And your bill will be astronomical.

In The Patient Will See You Now, Eric Topol, one of the nation’s top physicians, shows why medicine does not have to be that way. Instead, you could use your smartphone to get rapid test results from one drop of blood, monitor your vital signs both day and night, and use an artificially intelligent algorithm to receive a diagnosis without having to see a doctor, all at a small fraction of the cost imposed by our modern healthcare system.

The change is powered by what Topol calls medicine’s “Gutenberg moment.” Much as the printing press took learning out of the hands of a priestly class, the mobile internet is doing the same for medicine, giving us unprecedented control over our healthcare. With smartphones in hand, we are no longer beholden to an impersonal and paternalistic system in which “doctor knows best.” Medicine has been digitized, Topol argues; now it will be democratized. Computers will replace physicians for many diagnostic tasks, citizen science will give rise to citizen medicine, and enormous data sets will give us new means to attack conditions that have long been incurable. Massive, open, online medicine, where diagnostics are done by Facebook-like comparisons of medical profiles, will enable real-time, real-world research on massive populations. There’s no doubt the path forward will be complicated: the medical establishment will resist these changes, and digitized medicine inevitably raises serious issues surrounding privacy. Nevertheless, the result—better, cheaper, and more human health care—will be worth it.

Provocative and engrossing, The Patient Will See You Now is essential reading for anyone who thinks they deserve better health care. That is, for all of us.

Comments

Jijnasu Forever says:

Nothing about me without me – rethinking healthcare consumption 4.5* Topol’s earlier book – discussed quantified-self, and aspects of the app-centric health data logging and analyses and concluded that mHealth will form the basis of healthcare disruption. In this book, Topol provides a very interesting thought framework to deduce “what’s next?”The first section expands his assertion…

John J. Nosta says:

The Patient Should READ This Now–An Essential Guide to How Technology Will Save Your Life! Eric Topol’s important new book reads like something out of the future! But the reality is that it’s today’s technology and today’s context that allows readers to be enlightened and educated on the amazing convergence of technology, health and medicine. From physicians to patients, Topol’s presentation and analysis make for a compelling read.As a student of digital medicine, I found almost every page rich with important details and insights that helped my understand of the state of…

Kathy Mackey (@mkmackey) says:

Dr. Eric Topol has his finger on the Pulse of the Future of Medicine Touching on every major trend in the industry, The Patient Will See You Now is not only a Who’s Who in digital health and medicine, it is a treasure chest for med tech enthusiasts and trend watchers. If it feels close to science fiction with stories of a future that listens to biomedical sensors reporting from inside our body to monitor chronic illness – the reality is the future is now.Dr. Topol, a renowned cardiologist, beloved by his patients and peers, has…

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