The future is coming

I'm off to China tomorrow night to discuss investments in healthcare by Chinese companies. As the universe is ever-expanding, so is the healthcare market.

When I was born in 1965, there were about 3,5 billion people on the planet. In my short life of 50 years, we have more than doubled this number to 7,5 billion people today, adding at the same time 3 months of longevity for every year lived. We have never had such a high life expectancy, and at the same time we have never been in more dire need of a radical evolution of our healthcare systems. Hence the reason for my visit to China.

The creation of a new model of health and healthcare is the greatest single business opportunity of our lifetimes, and it will be accompanied by profound and lasting cultural change.

Paul Valery once said the “The future is not what is used to be…” Our perception of the future is indeed altered everyday, continuously eroded by the fast pace of technological developments. The rapid expansion of new technologies is making it more and more difficult for us to predict the future.

But one thing that I know is that healthcare management is not the future of medicine, but its actual present. Tomorrow’s healthcare systems will consist of solutions, not for everyone, but indeed for each and every single one of us.