The Creative Destruction of Medicine

How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care

Medicine is about to go through its biggest shakeup in history. Never before have we been able to digitize man, from womb to tomb. Never before did we have the capacity to tailor therapies to an individual and prevent a disease or serious condition from ever occurring in the first place. Now with powerful tools to sequence each individual’s whole genome, capture moment-to-moment vital signs and key physiologic metrics like blood sugar, and exquisitely image any part of the body through portable high resolution devices, a unique and unparalleled convergence of technology affords a new window into what makes us tick, what makes us an individual — at a molecular and granular level. But unlike any prior time in medicine, this revolution is superimposed on a world of social networking, omnipresent smartphones with pervasive connectivity and ever-increasing bandwidth. This great convergence will usher in the creative destruction of medicine. At the same time consumers have an unprecedented capacity to take charge — it is their DNA, their cell phone, their precious individual information. But the medical community is sclerotic , profoundly resistant to change, and unwilling to cede control or promote parity. Only with full consumer engagement and activism, can the revolution — one that will achieve democratization of medicine — take hold.
Basic Books; Revised edition edition (11 April 2013)

Basic Books; 1 edition (1 April 2012)

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Eric Topol
Eric Topol
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