Healthcare is one of the professions dubbed noble. Noble professionals commend a high degree of service, responsibility, virtue that goes beyond just transactional service. The truth hearts, but recently technology, especially software systems have mostly been all about automation and optimization. In that light, technology always has its benefits that are very well advertised, but beside it also comes with a lot of problems.
In a world where everything is at the moment run as a business, leaders are always looking for how they can optimize their operation, to firstly cut cost, in some instances drive sustainability and in most cases maximize profits. At the dawn of the 21st Century, the manufacturing sector experienced a transformation: lean manufacturing, a process that aims at reducing waste and optimizing production processes. What surprises many engineers is how the process that was intended for factories pretty much was ported to the healthcare industry.
The introduction of lean in healthcare has been disastrous to the patient outcome in a lot of instances. Traditional healthcare service delivery has always been about patient-caregiver relationships, and that requires ample time, research and analysis. Every single patient is unique. In order to optimize the entire process, everything has been turned into some sort of production facility where a patient is some kind of object that needs to go through a set of trial and error, undergo a set of procedures and exit the line as a transformed final product, with the least amount of time spent and the maximum return on investment.
In my opinion this mentality is not only wrong, but also dangerous. Think about the transformation the repair shop underwent with the electronization of engine equipements, controllers and sensors. The entire car is made with modularity to fuel the aftermarket sales, meaning nearly every component is as easily replaceable as possible. When one shows up at the repair shop, the technicians simply have to hook up the machine on the engine and technology tells them what to replace. This works well for a car but having a similar process ported to healthcare can be something else.
While traditionally healthcare staff were expected to take tests, analyze results and determine the root cause of the illness of the patient before proceeding with any further procedure, the optimization of healthcare, coupled with technology has made it possible to simply ran tests to find the issue and administer a quick drug, with no detailed analysis. The issue being that in most cases healthcare providers are simply relying on technology without isolating and determining the unique situation that may be taking place for the patient.
Asserting that healthcare is being operationalized to orchestrate recurring revenue may be going too far, however it is worth questioning why more and more lifetime injections, or drug prescriptions these days. In any case, one has to recognize that healthcare is also a complex industry with multiple players, among others, educational institutions, insurance companies, healthcare systems, drug research, development, manufacturing and distribution; medical equipment manufacturers, etc. and any deficiency from any of those sectors has the potential to affect the entire healthcare delivery.
At the end of the day, technology should be introduced carefully in any sector. Technology always comes with benefits and drawbacks, and it is up to the regulators to insure that citizens are not being taken advantage of. For the case of healthcare a health balance is always warranted, and the prioritization of the best care and patient-caregiver relationship.
