Understanding (the Need for) Transformation

While growing up, when things got tough, most of us ran to our mom for help and understanding. Well, as transforming healthcare can be very complicated indeed, we're also calling for our MoM, our Model of Models. She is called TiSH. We will introduce her first thing in this chapter.

Throughout this book, we remind you at the start of each chapter that MoM TiSH is always right behind you to get things in perspective.

The theme of this chapter is to set the stage for the transformation of healthcare into a far more real-time data-driven model. Why is this needed? What does it mean? How can we transform healthcare into this? And who do we involve for success?

This first chapter is a broad introduction to the book, exploring the various challenges that healthcare faces, such as an aging population and the scarcity of skilled staff. More people, with more and more treatable diseases, give an ever upward exponential trend of healthcare demand. We will learn about these challenges, how we can define the transformation with different stakeholders in the healthcare community, and who to involve to shape and drive this transformation. The most important lesson that we will learn is that it’s all about the patient and the well-being of humans.

In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following main topics:

• Setting the stage for transformation
• The urgency for transformation
• Understanding the role of diagnostics and observation
• Understanding the outcome on health and lifestyle
• Exploring the disciplines for common understanding