Remember
when the Internet was going to change
the world,
make everyone rich, and be the driving
force behind a new renaissance of
individual and communal expression?
That was ages ago, of course, back
in early '99. Now the hype-o-meter
has swung from dot-great to dot-sucks,
sweeping all the good away with the
truly useless in sine-wave sync with
the previous wave that lifted all
those boats so high.
But
despite the rapid deflation of those
wild-eyed visions of the Internet
empowering a new socio-economic order,
the 'Net is in fact helping to truly
revolutionize certain areas of human
endeavor. And certain economic sectors
such as healthcare are ripe for revolution.
The
bottom line is pretty clear in this
case: Healthcare, especially in the
U.S., is expensive. And one of the
most expensive areas in healthcare
is the treatment of chronic illnesses
such as asthma, diabetes, and most
heart conditions. Some 90 million
people in the U.S. alone suffer from
such chronic medical conditions, and
these illnesses account for nearly
75% of total healthcare costs in the
United States. And asthma and diabetes,
for example, are particularly 'modern'
diseases, responsible for rapidly
increasing patient populations worldwide,
especially in industrialized countries.
A
chronic illness is one that, left
untreated, can easily become life-threatening.
Managed properly, a chronic illness
can be controlled enough so that the
patient stays out of danger and out
of the ER. The illness is never cured-at
least not yet-just controlled, through
adherence to a drug and/or diet regimen,
exercise, and similar measures. But
if the condition is not carefully
treated on an ongoing basis-if the
condition is not properly 'managed'-the
patient can soon wind up in a hospital
bed. And that's dangerous for the
patient and expensive for everyone
involved.
Enter
chronic disease management (CDM),
a more comprehensive attempt to help
patients manage their chronic illnesses
to keep themselves healthy and out
of the hospital. Already, outcomes
assessment data from various CDM programs
that have been running for the last
few years indicates the programs are
effective in meeting both those goals.
In addition to appearing to be the
best course of treatment for the patient,
the programs get the blessing of today's
healthcare industry as 'managed care'
becomes the norm.
Managed
care is more than just the HMO you
or your spouse belong to and its network
of care providers and referral requirements:
Fundamentally, it's a philosophical-economic
shift from catastrophic care and health
crisis intervention to longitudinal
health care management across a person's
lifespan. Emerging gene treatments
that focus on pre-natal intervention
further accelerate this fundamental
shift in the delivery and driving
philosophy of care.
If
it's hard to envision this somewhat
'holistic' attitude towards care delivery
being important to a large company
such as one of today's major health
insurers, then just consider how important
it is to the rest of the healthcare
world, where care is socialized. Such
care is truly cradle to grave- longitudinal
management of patient populations
is the only option. CDM provides the
best of both worlds: Effective CDM
programs benefit patients as well
as the bottom line, particularly since
most CDM programs are based on more
self-care in disease management, home
healthcare, and an overall decrease
in the average length of hospital
stays.
