Singularity, health and the human touch
HEALTH
in 2011 and patients were on
average diagnosed 15 years after
the onset of symptoms. How do
you affect behavioural change in
patients who do not want to change
their habits?
We looked at a lot of data and
surveys relating to these patients.
The insight that my team and I had
was that men in this cohort were:
1) most likely to have their health
managed by their wives (i.e. their
wives had the biggest influence on
them in terms of driving them to
see a doctor), and; 2) heavily
influenced by their daughters
regarding quitting their unhealthy
habits, such as smoking. I therefore
designed a communication
campaign that would educate and
mobilize these patient influencers
to drive their husbands/fathers to
see a doctor to get diagnosed. The
campaign used social media to
spread information among the
influencers, and allowed them to
share emotional stories and
heartfelt requests for their loved
ones to change their habits, in a
culturally appropriate way.
While this campaign was
successful, when looking at the
predications for healthcare relating
to the Singularity, a question keeps
Comment
FINANCIAL TIMESWednesday 14 October 2015
coming back to me: what role will
human interactions play in health
in the future?
It seems to me that advances in
healthcare, as related to thinking
about the Singularity, are a series
of steps towards the automation of
diagnosis and treatment. The
logical endgame here is that not
only will we have pre-empted what
types of illness we will be prone
to, and the types of medicines that
will be most effective for us
through personalized medicine
according to our individual
genetics, but that eventually
(according to Kurzweil) “most
diseases will go away as nano-bots
become smarter than current
medical technology.” Utopian
stuff, to be sure. The assumption
embedded here is that to reach that
point, we will have to agree to
constant monitoring of our health
and behaviours.
This may not be such a huge leap
from where we are now.
According to Rick Anderson,
managing director of PTV
Healthcare Capital, “tech
companies are taking a much more
holistic view of healthcare than
medtech – viewing it as an asset
that consumers will be engaged
with 100 percent of the time.” The
uptake of the technology to—in the
words of Vinod Khosla—“make
the consumer the CEO of his own
health,” is already present and
increasing in sophistication.
It is my belief that while
technology may replace the
diagnostic function of doctors, and
enhance communication to
improve the human side of
professional care, we should keep
a close eye on the importance and
potential of our closest human
relationships: those with our
friends and family.
Maruan
El Mahgiub
This campaign aimed to help family members influence their loved-ones’ health
I used to work for a strategic
communications agency in Tokyo.
Our clients were typically large
healthcare companies that would
come out with new drugs or
devices, and it would be our job to
try to ensure that these products
were successfully communicated
and adopted in the market.
The most successful campaign that
I worked on was one I designed to
increase the diagnosis rate of
chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease (COPD). The disease is
one of the leading killers of men.
The symptoms include coughing
and shortness of breath. Symptoms
are often overlooked by sufferers
as the effects of old age. This is a
disease that typically affects male
smokers who are over the age of
40. The problem with this cohort is
that they are very resistant to going
to see a doctor, and would much
rather ignore the problem. Indeed,
the diagnosis rate was just 13.9%

It is interesting to note that the
most forward-looking
companies in the healthcare
space are those that understand
the importance of the influence
of family and friends.
When looking at healthcare, I
tend to consider the patient
journey in three general phases:
prevention, early diagnosis, and
adherence.
In terms of adherence, we
already see products like the
connected pill bottle from
Vitality GlowCap that increases
adherence “through reminders,
social feedbacks, financial
incentives and automatic
refills.”
In terms of early diagnosis, in a
true nod to the democratization
of healthcare, the company
Scanadu successfully funded a
medical tricorder called the
Scout via Indiegogo; the device
is currently in FDA-sanctioned
clinical trials. Though not
constantly connected, it would
require you, a caregiver or
loved one to take the initiative
to take a reading. Even further
along the road to the
automation of diagnosis we see
companies such as Ginger.io,
which is using data from how
you use your smartphone to
identify when you may need
help in the form of human
intervention from your doctor
and your friends and family.
Finally, in terms of prevention,
we see companies like Omada
Health that aim at improving
the behaviours of pre-diabetic
people by using a combination
of smart tech and wearables, a
full time “health coach”,
gamification and online group
support (or more accurately,
social proof and social
pressure). By making health
improvements a group
endeavour, the company claims
to have superior health
outcomes.
The point here is that while the
technology around us can be
mesmerizing and
overwhelming, until the day
that healthcare is truly
automated to the point where it
is pre-emptive and regenerative,
its most effective deployment
has been—and will continue to
be—when it works in concert
with human’s needs as social
animals.
Companies that understand the
biopsychosocial model of
medicine, and are able to
enhance and focus constructive
communication between friends
and loved ones will be much
more able to effect positive
behavioural change for health
outcomes. The love and
concern that you have for your
mother, father, sister, brother,
friend, or significant other gives
you a huge amount of leverage
in influencing their behaviour,
particularly regarding their
health, since you will likely
play a big role in their care if
they were to fall ill.
While nano-bots keeping us
well may sound utopian, it will
be at the point when robots
become our carers—and love
can be synthesised or
simulated—that Kurzweil’s
future begins to sound a little
less healthy.
The writer, a former healthcare
communications consultant, is
currently an MBA student at IE
Business School. He is
passionate about finding
innovative ways to improve
health and wellbeing.
Our ability to understand and
respond appropriately to high
level emotions is the cutting
edge of human intelligence…
We want computers to have
these capabilities also so that
they can interact with us in
helpful ways.
Ray Kurzweil
Machines are much
better at the cognitive
parts of medicine:
diagnosis, writing the
right prescriptions. On
purely ethical questions,
or comforting, humans
can do much better.
Vinod Khosla