As a physician, I often ask people if they believe we’re living in a healthy society. The nearly universal reaction is a sardonic laugh. We live in a time of unparalleled abundance, safety, comfort and prosperity, and yet many of us sense that our way of life is unsustainable. Grim statistics of species extinction, natural resource depletion, income inequality, etc., fuel the feeling that our trajectory is off while vague notions of the impending impact of exponential technologies like automation, AI and bioengineering loom in our minds. It’s no surprise that we now have simultaneous epidemics not just in the common chronic diseases, but also various addictions, mood disorders and general lack of meaningfulness in life, and for the first time since WWI, our life expectancy has declined three years in a row.
The good news is that there are also remarkable things arising and gaining momentum. At the economic forum in Davos last month, for example, an organization called Civiana hosted a “Remembering the Future” event in which prominent speakers gave presentations about how we “solved” a number of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. These “SDGs” provide an excellent groundwork for helping us define what a healthy society would look and feel like to live within—in our lifetime.
Despite all the politicking about “healthcare reform” over the past few decades, we don’t have much to celebrate yet, and faith in the idea that we’ll fix the system by merely relegating the bookkeeping responsibility to our government is naÏve. Fortunately, we live in a community where moonshots and BHAGs are colloquialisms. It’s time for a grand vision of what a healthy society might look like. Then we can reverse-engineer a healthcare system to be worthy and supportive of that vision. Attempts at transforming how we pay for, practice and deliver healthcare will continue to have disappointing results if such efforts are not based upon a comprehensive vision of a healthy society, despite how fantastical or far-fetched the idea may appear to be. We need a new north star, a coherent system of updated guiding principles which begin with supplementing our understanding of economics (how we exchange value) with eudaimonics (how we define a life well-lived). Boulder County is exactly the kind of idea lab suited for such bold experiments.
Dr. Tusek is the founder of CloudMedical.io, DiagnoCity.com, and CloudCollective.io