Why do we keep seeing groundbreaking healthcare tech solutions, yet patients are still left waiting? After attending countless healthcare technology conferences, the initial excitement has started to wear off. Year after year, I see incredible innovations showcased, but the reality remains the same: patients wait hours in emergency departments, hip and knee surgeries have wait times exceeding six months, and cancer patients face agonizing delays for critical scans. As Dr. Graham Walker, MD rightly pointed out, celebrating healthcare triumphs feels hollow without visible progress where it counts most—in patient outcomes. So, here’s my question to fellow conference-goers and those invested in healthcare tech: Why is there such a gap between innovation and real-world impact?
Ellen Brown summed up my discomfort with this year’s HLTH Inc. conference better than I could: “𝗪𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗻’𝘁 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀.” The laser light shows, booming music, and fancy, expensive production value here — it's all a bit jarring to me as a physician. It’s tough to reconcile all the glitz and glam with the realities we left behind at our hospitals: some patients stuck in ER waiting rooms, others microdosing their insulin because they can’t afford the whole vial, or some getting shuffled from one doctor to another with no one steering the ship. Maybe the AV show is just the natural evolution of a growing healthcare conference. And look: it’s encouraging that so many people are here, working to address the sloppy, chaotic mess we call American Healthcare. (There’s certainly worse in the world.) But still, it’s hard for me to get over the dissonance. We haven't earned the celebratory Bruno Mars music. I'm sorry, but we don't deserve the pat on the back yet. While we sip free lattes and collect branded water bottles, we don’t even have IV fluids for the people we’re actually supposed to be helping: our patients. Next time: What I actually really liked about HLTH.
Because we don't have enough doctors in Canada, or at least ones that are allowed to practice. Am I missing something?
Thank you for making this point.
Well said Jean-Pierre🤔
Chief Concierge at Concierge aux Mourants - Concierge to the Dying; "the Don Rickles of hospice!"
1mobecause "innovation" really means "this is what I want to work on" imo