Author: Kim Belard

Not familiar with Schumpeter’s gale? You may be more familiar with “Creative destruction. “Schumpeter’s “creative destruction wind” is the inevitable “industrial mutation process, constantly changing the economic structure from the inside, constantly destroying the old structure, and constantly creating new structures.”

We need to set off Schumpeter’s wind in the field of health care.

What reminds me of this is that Tik Tok has become the most popular Internet site in the world, even surpassing Google. It reminds me that things do change sometimes; maybe there is some hope in healthcare after all.

If you missed the news about Tik Tok-maybe you were too busy or too busy to ignore it-it was in last week Cloudflare’s Radar 2021 review. Tik Tok is a rather distant 7^day A year ago, it was far behind the leader Google and the second-ranked Facebook, but it soared in 2021. Tik Tok has gone from a simple stupid short video to a force Social justice, This the talent market, Celebrity status, and Mental HealthIt plays a role that Facebook desperately wants in the lives of Gen Z/Gen Y. Facebook’s population problem has long been known, but Tik Tok surpasses Google?

This is the kind of change I hope we see in health care brought about by technology.

The dominance of “big technology”-aka Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook/Meta, and Microsoft-is often discussed and often lamented, but we must remember that this dominance is usually short-lived. Twenty years ago, Apple was a runner, Google tried to be a used one, and Facebook had not been invented yet. Amazon’s market value is less than $4b. Microsoft is still Bill Gates’ company, not the open source, cloud-based, subscription-oriented company that Satya Nadella has turned to over the past decade.

Twenty years from now, maybe ten years, the list of large technology companies will be very different.Maybe will Network 3,Maybe Metaverse, Maybe Quantum computing or arrive, Even something few of us have heard of, but a new wave will come and will bring new technology giants. This is why Apple is investing in “Face the computer,” Facebook is transforming into Yuan, And Google has a “Moon landing factory. “These and other efforts may help keep them relevant, but it can be said that the barbarians will still come.

On the other hand, going back twenty years ago, the big hospital/hospital system was almost the same. The same is true for payers, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device companies. There are mergers and integrations, but the dominant companies at the time are now mostly dominant companies—just more. This is not how it should work. This is not how it works in technology.

In last week’s “In Technical Communication” New York TimesShira Ovide said bluntly that “technology has won.” She explained:

Technology is more like applying a new layer of paint to everything, rather than a set of definable products or industries. Healthcare is technology. Entertainment is technology. School is technology. money It’s technology. Transportation is technology. We live by technology.

Technology is also at a critical stage, and the promise of what may happen in the future coexists with the complex reality that is happening now.

You can certainly make the argument that “healthcare is technology”, and most of this transformation has occurred in the past two decades. We have a wide range of electronic health records, minimally invasive surgery, new cancer treatments, various 3D printed objects, CRISPR, greatly improved prosthetics, VR treatments and training, and of course, there are more types of digital health work capitalists than today’s adventures can Throw money.

All of this is very impressive, but you will get a lot of arguments that our country’s health is better because of it, our experience in the healthcare system is better because of it, or our health care is because of it. cheaper. None of them seem to be true. In the field of healthcare, technology is a supplement; it increases costs, it eliminates more humanization, and it does not fundamentally reshape the healthcare system.

Unlike the actual technology industry, healthcare technology helps to further consolidate the status of existing companies, rather than replace them. It doesn’t make the healthcare experience fresh, it just makes it look “fresh”. TikTok will not replace Epic or Mayo Clinic. People in the healthcare field are not too afraid of the “next step” of technology.

Have done a lot Record The digital health investments in 2021 – $28, double what they were in 2020 – but when I look at them, I still don’t see Uber or Amazon, a company that is trying to break an existing industry. I see many innovators think they can solve some pain points, but within the existing system, I see investors most want to get a share of the 4 trillion dollar healthcare industry.

I want to see technology innovators see our healthcare system and think, well, too many people and places do too much for too much money — and often it’s too late when something goes wrong. Who wants to reduce the cost structure, not by 5-10%, but by 5-10% of our current level. Who wants health to be an ongoing process of management in our daily lives.Who wants health technology-and the resulting healthcare-ubiquitous, invisible and Basically automaticguilty. Who doesn’t think we need to rely on millions of well-trained healthcare professionals (in fact, their training has become one of the cost issues of the healthcare system).

Tik Tok will understand this.

IMHO, for example, I’m not sure David Feinberg would do this. People who spend their careers in the healthcare system can often see how to improve it, but they will not fundamentally reshape it, and they can hardly see how to bring about creative destruction to it.

I don’t expect Tik Tok to completely change our healthcare system-but Byte beating or WeChat, Maybe.One arrive company? Of course.One Synthetic biology or Nanorobot company? must.In contrast, what CVS, Walmart, even Amazon The things that are trying to do in the healthcare field are interesting, but, honestly, they are like helping us to better listen to the orchestra on the Titanic: well, but this is not the real problem.

If we recognize the healthcare system in 2050, if Schumpeter’s winds do not blow away the current version and replace it with something truly new, we will fail.

Kim was the former head of e-marketing of the main Blues project and the late editor Tincture, Now a regular THCB contributor