Andy Grove: Your medical history on a chip
The health care industry had no direct relation to Andy Grove's long career at Intel; it caught his interest when he himself was a patient.
Grove, co-founder, former CEO and president of Intel, as well as best-selling author and winner of numerous awards, talked about the relationship between technology and health care at the University of California at Berkeley's School of Public Health this week.
Although he's not very optimistic, and fears a major war, depression or pandemic would have to strike the nation for U.S. health care to change its ways, he considers information technology a vital solution for lowering costs of medical care (he cited estimates of $130 billion in annual health care spending increases).
"If anything is going to happen, we need something more simple than cracking a framework," Grove said. The system has to be taken apart--what he calls a "strategic triage"--and IT solutions applied strategically to the system's various ailing parts.
Video: Intel co-founder tackles health
Andy Grove talks to CNET News.com about what he perceives as a flawed health care system.
Grove pointed to three critical weaknesses in the health care system: the large number of U.S. uninsured--46 million, or around one third of the population; the deteriorating state of emergency care; and the proportion of the population that is elderly.
Grove addressed an epidemic of inefficiency, starting with emergency rooms being the first line of entry to treatment for many patients. He thinks privately owned "retail" clinics and hospitals leasing out spaces could be a starting point. He cited the growing trend among big businesses of dropping retirement packages, including health insurance. As one of the past century's most prominent business pioneers, Grove said he understands businesses' situation and offers Wal-Mart as an example. The people at Wal-Mart "are not evil; they're trying to stay alive."
His first proposal for reducing costs and improving efficiency is implementing a nationwide system of health files on portable chips that allow patients to share their personal medical records with caregiving facilities.
Second, he proposes a "shift left". With hundreds of billions of dollars spent on medical care every year, he said, more people should receive treatment at home and interact with hospitals through digital files and the Internet, so details of their medical condition can be updated and shared expediently.
"Credit companies use it, security companies use it, but the health care system doesn't," Grove said. "We have tried the current system in health care and it's not working. Let's try something else."