A New Meaning for Connected Health (Part 1)

Those of us engaged in health care think constantly about health. But at the Connected Health symposium, one is reminded that the vast majority of people don’t think much about health at all. They’re thinking about child care, about jobs, about bills, about leisure time. Health comes into the picture only through its impacts on those things.

Andy Oram

Certainly, some people who have suffered catastrophic traumas–severe accidents, cancer, or the plethora of unfortunate genetic conditions–become obsessed about health to the same extent as health professionals. These people become e-patients and do all the things they need to do regain the precious state of being they enjoyed before their illness, often clashing with the traditional medical establishment in pursuit of health. But for most people with chronic conditions, the opposite holds true. A whimsical posting points out that we willingly pay more to go to a masseur or hairdresser than to a doctor. I appreciate this observation more than the remedies offered by the author, which fall into the usual “patient engagment” activities that I have denigrated in an earlier article.

Understanding health as a facet and determinant of everyday life becomes even more important as we try to reverse the rise of costs, which in many nations are threatening economic progress and even the social contract. (Witness the popular anger in the current US election over rising insurance premiums and restrictions on choice.) We have to provide health solutions to people who are currently asymptomatic. The conventional focus on diagnosed conditions won’t serve us...