2. Towards high-definition medicine?

Another recent concept that will be key in the future is high-definition medicine, reminded Josep Roca, of Hospital Clínic Barcelona. This is defined as adopting technology that can measure multilevel health parameters longitudinally at high resolution. They are paired with dynamic repositories of knowledge and sophisticated analyses to feed support systems for decision making among citizens and professionals. 

This approach comes with challenges in terms of implementation. Among others, these include developing an infrastructure that can sustain a digital health framework (DHF), generating evidence and implementing it in science, generating value, financial incentives for innovative business models, novel regulatory and approval frameworks, and empowering people and putting together multidisciplinary teams.

“We’ll go from focusing on disease to focusing on health; from basing our work on organs to basing it on a system; from dealing with disease to focusing on patients and prevention; from reactive to proactive care; and from a universal approach to a personalized one. And we’ll have to review the taxonomies of disease. Another relevant change is that we need healthcare that is predictive, instead of reactive: we will prevent, or limit the impact of the illness by evaluating health risks. This will allow for early detection, with cost-effective interventions. We’re in for a long, exciting ride,” he predicted.