Sickcare Operating System (SOS)

The problem: Sickcare OS

Imagine a world where your smartphone can't connect to the internet, your car runs on steam, and your computer still uses floppy disks. Absurd, right? Yet in healthcare, we're living this reality every day. While digital transformation has revolutionised industries from finance to transportation, our healthcare system remains trapped in an outdated 'Sickcare Operating System’, a complex web of reactive treatments, bureaucratic red tape, deeply ingrained incumbent networks, and misaligned incentives.

This inefficiency is costly—both in lives and billions of dollars. Despite overwhelming evidence that prevention trumps cure, our system prioritises treating illness over maintaining health. It’s time for a complete rewrite.

• Current reforms are merely sustaining innovations, with incumbents adopting technologies to boost profits without changing the landscape. "Digital transformation" often means projects that focus on efficiency, productivity, and turnover—incremental improvements for the bottom line.
• Legislators produce mountains of bureaucracy and paperwork, driven by risk-averse governments and lobbyists. Complex laws require armies of lawyers and consultants, stifling innovation, benefiting incumbents, raising prices, and burning out workers.
• Preventive measures are rarely reimbursed or rewarded. Healthy cooking, gym memberships, coaching, lab tests, supplements, and smartwatches get little support.
• Unhealthy industries, like fast food, tobacco, and alcohol, thrive. They continue to support the Sickcare OS, worsening the problem.

Failed attempts to change Sickcare OS

Addressing sick care with more sick care, rather than replacing it with preventive health care, perpetuates a system neglecting or denying evidence that shows prevention is far more valuable than reactive treatment. Addressing transformation with more expert groups and endless discussions that don't lead to action only kicks the can down the road. Despite decades of talk about interoperability and data sharing to enable a shift to preventive care, hardly anything has changes because the ‘Sickcare OS’ remains firmly in place. Addressing labor shortages, which are in large part due to bureaucracy and paperwork, by merely trying to increase the workforce misses the root cause. Addressing regulatory complexity by creating more laws doesn't lead to more clarity; it often further complicates matters and adds to the bureaucratic burden.

We need a new 'Healthcare OS' to truly transform the system, one that prioritises prevention, early detection, and holistic wellness to keep people healthy.

What would help install a real Healthcare OS?

• New entrants tackling core issues with transformative solutions, building vertically integrated systems from scratch using the latest hardware, software, business models, and biotechnology to redesign healthcare from reactive treatments to proactive health maintenance.
• Legislation fostering innovation and new business models, including mandatory interoperability, open source software, sandboxes, data access, fast tracks, and clear, simple laws. This levels the playing field for innovation.
• Governments creating a vibrant healthcare innovation ecosystem focused on keeping citizens healthy and productive. This ecosystem will also act as an economic growth engine, fostering fertile ground for new initiatives.
• Radically rethinking bureaucracy and paperwork burdening the Sickcare OS, empowering people with the right technology, and making the healthcare profession more attractive.
• Citizens taking control and creating their own Healthcare OS to manage their health, using today's technology to build hyper-personalised health assistants. This ground-up approach will thrive and inspire more initiatives in various user (patient) groups.

This change won't happen overnight, nor will it come easily. It requires concerted effort from all stakeholders—patients, providers, policymakers, and innovators alike. But the reward—a healthier, more efficient, and more equitable system—is worth the challenge.

What role will you play in this healthcare OS reboot? Whether you're a patient, a provider, an innovator, or a policymaker, your voice and actions matter. Share your thoughts, experiences, and ideas.

PS: Interested in a new preventive healthcare initiative? Visit the In4care Health Arena at the Love Tomorrow Conference on July 25.