The future of medicine

Tugs - A. Barake - All rights reserved 2014

An item on this morning's public radio twigged my imagination. It was an interview with someone preparing to go on a medical mission to a developing country, with a fully equipped hospital ship.

Usually these kinds of stories annoy me, because there is the whiff of self-righteous do-gooding, and I know I am probably misguided about feeling this way, but pride is a big factor in human behaviour and the recipient's pride is rarely discussed.

Anyways... because I was annoyed, my mind strayed to alternatives to charity, in the same way that accessible ramps on buildings or at curb crossings benefit everyone, not just people with mobility impairment, why not try to overhaul the way medicine is delivered to everyone, using these mission approaches. For example, there are fully equipped ophthalmology planes that can land in remote sites to do eye surgery, there are the above mentioned hospital boats that provide all kinds of services including surgery, and there are travelling emergency teams that go to disaster sites for first response.

Well how about eliminating our (bloated) static hospital infrastructure, that is continuously growing its administrative load following Parkingson's laws, and make all medicine mobile?

The current ubiquitous Web and mobile telephony infrastructure combined with good scheduling software could provide the required efficiencies. The MD's and support staff would travel to the patients and treat them in-situ, with the best mobile equipment money can buy. I think it would be cheaper than maintaining the infrastructure we have now. It would be the return of the house call.