Emerging technologies are rapidly reinventing even the most humdrum aspects of our daily lives. With an Internet-connected device and a few keystrokes, we can purchase groceries, remotely adjust our thermostats, even drop in on a college lecture. But when it comes to our health care, innovation lags sorely behind. We drive across town to the doctor’s office for a checkup; many of us still fill prescriptions with a piece of paper; we recite our family history anew for each new provider we see.
The time has arrived to usher in a new era for medicine: a more democratic, data-based and transparent health care system that will make us healthier as individuals and as a society.
Innovators across the globe are reinventing health care in just these ways. Earlier this year, Discover teamed up with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and SciStarter to spotlight some of the most promising initiatives in grass-roots health reform in the series “Exploring a Culture of Health” on our blog Citizen Science Salon. These 13 projects span a wide range of approaches — some for medical professionals, some for patients, some for governments and nonprofits — but they share a common goal of uniting disparate people, through technology, to improve the way medical care is delivered in the U.S.
These projects encompass three major themes: informing patients, sharing data and transforming real-world systems. Let’s take a closer look at the various projects that are reshaping our nation’s culture of health.
