🏥From Diseasecare to Healthcare
Last updated
Last updated
Our current healthcare system is designed for dealing with acute diseases, when people suffer from trauma, or when patients start experiencing symptoms. It is a reactive system that starts caring for your health when you become ill, in other words it is a system of diseasecare.
The challenge of the new century lies in dealing with non communicable diseases (NDC's) like cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimers disease, Parkinsons disease, autoimmune diseases and many more, accounting for more than 80% of causes of death in the US and most western societies. NDC's progress slowly over time but are only detected and treated when they cause symptoms or even worse trigger an event.
Science finds that many of the NDC's have a deep connection with lifestyle factors - things we do on a daily basis for a very long time - and can be prevented by living healthier. From this perspective we can see that NDC's can be prevented or detected and predicted much earlier if we measure and monitor our health and lifestyle more frequently. This is completely opposite to diseasecare as we know it now. Diseasecare and healthcare need to exist alongside of each other. To make that happen a shift in mindset is needed and we have to built an open and fair ecosystem that facilitates true healthcare. Unlocking the potential of innovation and data to make the next leap in the human (healthy) life span.
Luckily technology has presented the opportunity to start measuring our health in many different ways. Think about smartwatches, smart scales, blood pressure monitors and blood glucose monitors etc. All these devices can be used personally and frequently to generate health and lifestyle data about yourself in order to maintain your health. If for any reason you do become ill, at least your doctor will not run blind anymore.
What if we start collecting our lifestyle and health data and build our personal health profile which we can use privately and securely?
What if this data profile can be shared with your doctor, which enables her to get a better understanding of you and allows her to put your question/problem into a broader context of your health data stream instead of the incidental moment we spend at her office or in the hospital?
What if artificial intelligence and machine learning can use data in a privacy preserving fashion and helps predicting which direction your health is going? Think about health and lifestyle advise based on your health profile as a personal digital health service.
What if there is a suite of trusted and tamper proof devices that measure different health and lifestyle related markers from which you are the sole data owner instead of the manufacturer of the device?
What if you can earn money with your health data in a privacy preserving fashion instead of big corporations earning money by selling it to third parties without giving you a piece of the pie?
What if... HealthBlocks will make all this possible? We will!
With HealthBlocks we rethink how we deal with data, how we incentivize people to generate data and how we can help people to live healthier. Breaking down barriers that are holding back innovation and democratizing the value of data to improve personal and global health.
Join us on our journey!
