Today was part one of our discussion on biobusiness. As soon as class started, I began to realise how much of the world’s activities related to biobusiness. We started off by watching another video: Microsoft Future Vision – Healthcare. Microsoft envisioned healthcare in the future as one which makes use of touch pads and e-transactions. After watching the video, I came to realise that the future of healthcare was very bright. In fact, it was a not so very distant future. Most of the technology is already being used by the world’s population, one of them being Apple’s iPad. The rest of the technologies shown in the video were simply improvements to existing technology.
We went on to discuss how biobusiness activities were currently low value-added activities. According to the Shahi Landscape Model for Technology Assessment, most biobusiness activities can be considered valleys rather than summits. They had low barriers to entry. The key to changing this was to use biotechnology to modify and innovate, to turn these “valley” activities into opportunities and make them high value-added. A “cloud” opportunity could be wellness management. It is a proactive activity rather than a reactive one. It advocates prevention rather than cure; encouraging people to take responsibility of their health by staying healthy instead of treating their illnesses.
Unfortunately, the world is currently experiencing some problems with the healthcare industry. The most widespread problem is inefficiency in the industry and has been unsolved for many years. Many a time, people have to be experiencing life-threatening injuries or illnesses to be treated immediately; the rest just keep waiting for an appointment with the doctor. In the reading Will Disruptive Innovations Cure Healthcare? by C.M. Christensen, R. Bohmer and J. Kenagy, they suggested that nurses should actually be allowed to treat or diagnose minor illnesses. Nurses are trained to diagnose minor illnesses such as common flu, cold, fever. Some with more expertise are even able to treat more serious sickness, but patients make the assumption that nurses do not have the adequate knowledge, training and expertise (no matter how long they have been in the profession) to make the correct diagnoses. This results in inefficiency as the doctor is then required to attend to every single patient no matter how minor or serious the situation. To share a personal experience, I went for a medical check-up when I was 12. The doctor mentioned that I had a condition called heart murmur and recommended that I have it checked in case it affected my sports. Naturally, I went to a hospital to make an appointment. To my dismay, I was scheduled an appointment nine months from that day. What was worse was the consultation fee for that appointment was to be $100++. Therefore, I cancelled my appointment. (It can’t be so serious since they gave me an appointment so long after right?) A few years later, at a different medical check-up, another doctor told me about my heart murmur and strongly advised that I have it check out. Once again, I was given an appointment half a year later (which I cancelled again). After those two incidents, I lost faith in the healthcare industry as it just proved to be inefficient. However, maybe it is so only for public hospitals and not private ones.
The session was ended with three presentations on prosthetics, electronic skin and cloning. Electronic skin was something new to me and it was interesting how it was being used in very diverse areas of life. What was exciting was the discussion on how it can be used in the future. One suggestion was how the skin can be stuck on fingertips and used to control machines and other weaponry as if we were playing a game. If this was suggested ten years ago, I probably wouldn’t have believed it. But looking at how quickly technology is advancing now, it’s probably possible within a couple of decades.
Personal rating: 8/10
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