Healthcare leaders frequently face a fundamental friction: managing population health at scale, while still providing deeply personal, individualized care. This tension is both practical and philosophical. It's about balancing the efficiency demanded by data with the effectiveness required by individuals.
Halee Fischer-Wright, in her compelling book Back to Balance, describes medicine as a subtle blend of art, science, and business. Healthcare loses something essential when any one of these elements overpowers the others. Too much focus on the business might boost profitability, but sacrifices patient relationships. An overemphasis on art risks subjectivity and inconsistency. Reliance solely on science, without personal judgment, can render care cold and mechanical.
Balance is key-but balance is easier said than operationalized
Today, venture capital flows enthusiastically into population-health technologies, aimed primarily at managing healthcare spending. While perhaps admirable on one level, such initiatives can unintentionally dilute patient care into data points. They may appear precise, yet profoundly impersonal and miss the essence of healthcare; an information and relationship business. They may offer a level of efficiency, but yield something less than effective. Like large language models (LLMs) in AI, healthcare solutions informed solely by incomplete aggregated data risk perpetuating biases and errors, and "hallucinating" answers, good on average, yet dangerous at the individual margin.
๐๐๐๐ก๐ฉ๐๐๐๐ง๐ ๐ฉ๐๐ง๐๐ซ๐๐จ ๐ฌ๐๐๐ฃ ๐๐ฉ ๐ข๐ค๐ซ๐๐จ ๐๐๐ฎ๐ค๐ฃ๐ ๐ข๐๐ง๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ฃ๐๐ฎ ๐ฉ๐ค๐ฌ๐๐ง๐๐จ ๐๐๐ฃ๐ช๐๐ฃ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐๐ฃ๐๐จ๐จ ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ฌ๐๐๐ฃ ๐ฌ๐ ๐ง๐๐ข๐๐ข๐๐๐ง ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ฉ๐ ๐ฅ๐ค๐๐ฃ๐ฉ ๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ง๐๐จ๐๐ฃ๐ฉ๐จ ๐ ๐ฅ๐๐ง๐จ๐ค๐ฃ, ๐๐๐๐ ๐จ๐ฉ๐๐ฉ๐๐จ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐จ๐ค๐ข๐๐ค๐ฃ๐'๐จ ๐ฅ๐๐ง๐๐ฃ๐ฉ ๐ค๐ง ๐๐๐๐ก๐. Twenty years ago, patient safety numbers of "98% accuracy" seemed exemplary to the accountant in me until I considered the parable in scripture of the shepherd who, though holding ninety-nine safe sheep, ventured out into darkness searching for the one who was lost. Ninety-nine percent sounds sufficient, until the one is your daughter, son, spouse, or friend.
What might healthcare look like if we see both, simultaneously considering populations and the personal. Imagine personalized solutions efficiently delivered at scale. Systems intelligent enough to anticipate the needs of the community and humane enough to respect individual dignity.
Real innovation begins by challenging conventional thinking and confronting trade-offs, daring to believe we can both honor the population and cherish the individual. This is not just healthcare, this is health creation, measured in populations managed and in personal lives meaningfully transformed.
