Commentary Archives - Joe Flower Healthcare Futurist https://imaginewhatif.com/commentary/ Healthcare Speaker, Consultant Thu, 05 Jan 2017 19:09:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Healthcare: Where’s the Bin Marked “Productivity”? Where’s the Lever Marked “More”? https://imaginewhatif.com/healthcare-wheres-the-bin-marked-productivity-wheres-the-lever-marked-more/ Tue, 01 Nov 2016 14:48:41 +0000 https://imaginewhatif.com/?p=3104 Healthcare costs too much, and we don’t get enough of the healthcare that we need. This is our core problem in one word: “productivity.” The obvious difficulties of healthcare in the U.S., where we can’t seem to take care of everyone, millions are saddled with coverage that is too expensive for them to really use, Medicaid […]

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]]> Blockchains: Turbo-charging Healthcare Transactions https://imaginewhatif.com/blockchains-turbo-charging-healthcare-transactions/ Thu, 06 Oct 2016 14:18:58 +0000 https://imaginewhatif.com/?p=3135 What It is: You’ve heard of bitcoin, that magical digital money not attached to any national economy or banking system? Blockchain is the technology behind it. It’s a clever extension of existing encryption techniques that enables trusted, secure transactions of any type, even with total strangers, even without knowing the identity of the counterparties — […]

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]]> Neural Dust: the blind see, the lame walk? https://imaginewhatif.com/neural-dust-the-blind-see-the-lame-walk/ https://imaginewhatif.com/neural-dust-the-blind-see-the-lame-walk/#comments Thu, 18 Aug 2016 22:21:11 +0000 https://imaginewhatif.com/?p=3097 What it is: A tiny encapsulated bit of circuitry, with sensors and a chip, that can be inserted into your brain (or actually, anywhere in your body), to check out the local conditions and report back. Here’s the actual paper in Cell from the UC Berkeley scientists and here’s a bit about it on the […]

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]]> https://imaginewhatif.com/neural-dust-the-blind-see-the-lame-walk/feed/ 1 Follow the money. Then follow the trust. https://imaginewhatif.com/follow-the-money-then-follow-the-trust/ https://imaginewhatif.com/follow-the-money-then-follow-the-trust/#comments Wed, 20 Jul 2016 23:12:57 +0000 https://imaginewhatif.com/?p=3057 How will healthcare be distributed in the future? In ways that bear only some resemblance to the way it is distributed today. The changes will be driven by the new economics of healthcare embedded in the “volume to value” movement, based as it is on “provider-sponsored risk,” the basic, obvious and yet startlingly opaque logic […]

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]]> https://imaginewhatif.com/follow-the-money-then-follow-the-trust/feed/ 3 Trust. Partners. The Secret Sauce of the Next Healthcare https://imaginewhatif.com/trust-partners-the-secret-sauce-of-the-next-healthcare/ https://imaginewhatif.com/trust-partners-the-secret-sauce-of-the-next-healthcare/#comments Wed, 20 Jul 2016 19:17:32 +0000 https://imaginewhatif.com/?p=3053 The double doors to the ambulance bay slide open, and one more patient on a gurney is hauled across the threshold of your Emergency Department. This one’s in diabetic shock. Stop the picture right there and ask yourself: Is this a medical success, because you can do something for this person? Or a medical failure, […]

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]]> https://imaginewhatif.com/trust-partners-the-secret-sauce-of-the-next-healthcare/feed/ 3 When Does “Personal Responsibility” Come into Healthcare? https://imaginewhatif.com/when-does-personal-responsibility-come-into-healthcare/ https://imaginewhatif.com/when-does-personal-responsibility-come-into-healthcare/#comments Thu, 09 Jun 2016 14:42:11 +0000 https://imaginewhatif.com/?p=2949 The answer: Never. Here’s why. The question came over steak and a seafood tower. The steak was $51, if memory serves. A really good steak. The wine was an excellent Napa Valley red blend. We ate in a private room in a restaurant overlooking the Chicago River. Tourist boats passed by outside the picture windows, […]

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]]> https://imaginewhatif.com/when-does-personal-responsibility-come-into-healthcare/feed/ 4 What Would President Trump Do About, To, Or For Healthcare: The Definitive Answer https://imaginewhatif.com/what-would-president-trump-do-about-to-or-for-healthcare-the-definitive-answer/ Thu, 19 May 2016 19:31:07 +0000 https://imaginewhatif.com/?p=2924 Are you ready? Here it is: We don’t know. You don’t know. Nobody knows. In fact, Trump doesn’t know. And this is not a criticism, at least not exactly. It’s more an observation of his style, of what makes Trump tick. A mad-for-Bernie friend, just yesterday, said to me, about Trump: “Well at least he’s […]

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]]> Looking Back From 2019: Why the Republicans Nationalized Healthcare https://imaginewhatif.com/looking-back-from-2019-why-the-republicans-nationalized-healthcare/ Thu, 05 May 2016 18:52:02 +0000 https://imaginewhatif.com/?p=2915 It was the Mother of unintended consequences. By the time of the 2016 elections, health plans, hospitals and health systems had squeezed and consolidated and trimmed and cut costs under the gun of lower Medicare reimbursements and the new rules of Obamacare — but mostly they had adapted. Most of them had survived. On November […]

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