Clippings

Medicine in the Future

The Futurist issues this report on the future of medicine.

By 2030, adult visits to a doctor for an annual physical, blood cholesterol screening, exams for prostate or breast cancer, and many other important but nonemergency consultations will be a thing of the past.

The report also contains these findings:

2. Patients will, after initial privacy concerns abate, begin to understand that regular, consistent monitoring of many health indicators will act in their favor, preserving good health and indicating potential catastrophic conditions.

3. Insurers will price policies and make coverage conditional on the use of this system of monitoring and detection.

It all sounds pretty positive to me except a note that bots, basically, will scan daily results, send a text message to obtain more information if necessary, and schedule an examination for issues that warrant it. My mindset tells me that if I've been sailing along without a known problem and all of a sudden I get a text message about my blood pressure, I'll be pretty alarmed. Seems that some adjustment of expectations among both patients and doctors is in order.