To close out the year Fred Goldstein and I review the things that took place in 2020 in healthcare generally that includes:
- A renewed focus on “Surprise billing”
- Getting everyone including patients seamless health data access
- Drug pricing transparency and why the US pays so much more
- The FDA warns Vaping is bad for your health
- Increase in Telehealth offerings, and
- Amazon march into healthcare
On the COVID19 front we cast back to our first episode was on 18 March 2020, and 2 weeks later we started doing this weekly update. We cover the rapidly moving data and knowledge that included all sorts of conflicting advice (Masks off, masks on, surface cleaning or not, aerosol vs droplet, HCT and AZT works/does not)
Importantly we have learned and know more about this virus in less than 12 months than we know about some viruses that we have studied for years. Expect to see a long tail from this pandemic, some linked to brain health, but some linked to the long term effects of the virus. Along with this knowledge came a lot of Myths and snake oil with political overtones
The good news is with the concerted international effort we have 3 vaccines being distributed now – work that came from building on the shoulders of so many others and their work that came before
Looking ahead
“Not to feel exasperated, or defeated, or despondent because your days aren’t packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human—however imperfectly—and fully embrace the pursuit that you’ve embarked on.”
Marcus Aurelius
Join Dr Luis Saldana, Fred and myself for our COVID Insights to Action Discussion webinar taking place every Wednesday at 4pm ET. Our training modules are available to help businesses, education facilities and employers get their employees, staff, customers and students back to work and school safely in the context of COVID19
Raw Transcript
Nick van Terheyden
Hi, this is Dr. Nick on the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business, better health.
Fred Goldstein
And I’m Fred Goldstein with accountable health. And we’ve been working with Nick and others and helping companies reopen and operate during the COVID pandemic. So during this end of year of the event we’re doing you coming right up on a couple days before New Year’s, you obviously have gone back and look at all of the shows we did for this period of time, and have created what I understand is to be quite the extensive list of thoughts around non COVID related issues, as well as COVID. So let’s start with the non COVID related issues.
Nick van Terheyden
Yeah, no. And just to be clear, I haven’t looked at all of our episodes, that’s a significant book of work when you consider it. This is Episode 41. So we started back in 18th of March was our first episode, we waited two weeks, and then we went to a weekly production. And boy, what a year and you know, I did I wanted to look back and think about non COVID related things because all this healthcare stuff continues to happen. And, you know, some of the things that we saw was, you know, this focus on surprise billing, I think there’s, you know, just a total rejection of this concept, you know, push to get seamless access to your own health data. What a shocking idea. From a clinical standpoint, we saw measles again, I thought I would never see that again, in my lifetime. We’ve got more focus on drug try price transparency, which is good news, especially when we know that the US pays way more than many other countries. The FDA finally said, Oh, my goodness, vaping is not healthy. Ah, let me think about all the COVID related gosh, that was a bit timely. And, and we’ve seen some, you know, focus on telehealth as a result of COVID-19. And even Amazon, which I know you’ve been thinking about as well. Yeah, it’s
Fred Goldstein
really fascinating. And it’s a great list you put together so fast. And to kind of discuss some of these points, the whole Amazon thing is finally maybe coming to fruition. Obviously, the big deal with Amazon and JP Morgan, and Berkshire Hathaway, has not come to fruition. But Amazon has been relentlessly working on the back side developing consumer oriented type services. And we’re seeing that now with the ability to get your prescriptions which were just recently launched. And also they’ve developed these home visits systems and telehealth and have an app for that now. And I assume it’s only in a small area, that at some point, that baby is going to be national, and maybe you get it through Amazon Prime. So really some neat stuff we’re seeing from Amazon as innovative approaches in the market.
Nick van Terheyden
You know, and and i think good news, more people that get in hopefully, we can sort of start to change the trajectory for our healthcare, but obviously, the overriding thing, and focus for 2020 and certainly the piece that 2020 will be remembered for is SARS. COVID, as it was named the virus and COVID-19. And, you know, for me, it was the rapidly moving data, this, you know, constantly moving body of knowledge that we added to and changes was was it last saw masks off, what type of maths, you know, suddenly everybody knows what an N 95 mask is, you know, all of these things that sort of changed surface cleaning, do you clean? Do you not clean aerosols and droplets who knew that anybody would know about this? And, you know, conflicting information about it hydroxychloroquine own and AZT shouldn’t be used. And, you know, the compelling point for me is we know more about this virus and build this knowledge in less than 12 months. And we know that some of the viruses that have been around for years, that’s fantastic. We know all of these things we’ve added to the body of knowledge, and that’s created this fantastic push, an incredible progress. But what came with it? Well sadly, all the myths and snake oil The just appeared out of, you know, social media was empowered. I know that’s one of the things that’s really troubled you, right? Yeah,
Fred Goldstein
absolutely. That whole social media issue. But even to me a little bit more was this issue of what happened with our politics, and how politics became, you know, just actually infected the system, politics became this sort of disease that said, I don’t wear a mask, because I’m x, or I do wear a mask, because I’m why. And it really saw it go and it hasn’t ended, which sort of stuns me as the science continues to progress. We still have people in the, you know, who are out there out front in the media, saying these things that are just blatantly false. We know how to be safe. Do we know everything knows, you talked about, there’s a huge amount of information, we don’t know, we’ve learned a ton. And that’s critically important. And we need to apply those learnings. And so I hope at some point, we get back to this idea of accepting science recognizing where it’s not as well developed, but making smarter decisions on that, and getting our leadership, which I think will happen now, to begin to re ingest science as the basis for making decisions. That’s been the most frustrating thing for me this year.
Nick van Terheyden
And, you know, it is it’s the foundation. And, you know, to be clear, we should call out fake news, you know, snake oil, all of these things, but one of the things that I found troubling is this sort of Lynch mentality online, you know, Judge tenderly, if must judge at all, there is probably, you know, aside that you don’t know a story that you know, nothing about, and potentially a battle wage for these people. And, you know, jumping into this sort of dive mentality has just created this, you know, polarization of people. And that’s not who we are. And if it does anything, it impacts even worse, the brain health, we know that we’re going to see this long tail of COVID-19. We’ve got long COVID, a new term, and great news, we’ve got three vaccines, there are some others in development development, they were built on the shoulders of all of this information that came before. And that’s a fantastic thing. But from a overall standpoint, we have learned so much about this. And, you know, I want to sort of close with looking ahead in a positive fashion. And I focus on Marcus Aurelius and the stoics, who essentially survived much worse than we have when you look back in history. And Marcus Aurelius said, you know, not to feel exasperated or defeated or despondent because your days are packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up, when you fail to celebrate behaving like a human, however, in perfectly and fully embrace the pursuit that you’ve embarked upon, that’s upon us, we have an opportunity. There is some tremendous scope. It’s a new world order and things have changed. But it’s potentially positive. We have to find the positive and all that.
Fred Goldstein
Well, what a fantastic way Dr. Nick to end this year’s COVID insights. And we’ve been doing for a while now on our weekly updates for COVID. It really is something we can come out of this in a more positive way. And I appreciate you closing with that. It’s been a fantastic year. So this is Fred Goldstein with accountable health. Thanks so much for joining us this year. And we look forward to talking to you next year, hopefully with more and more good news.
Nick van Terheyden
And this is Dr. Nick on the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business, better health.
