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US medical which is a near total failure when it comes to cost(the highest of any modern country) and quality(ranks 37th, among the lowest of any modern country) are not the people we should listen to. This is the time for the US tech sector which leads the world, to step up for it has mastered ever higher performance for ever lower cost and counter a failing medical industry that has given us failure to the point our entire way of life is now threatened. It makes no sense to listen to an industry that has a proven record of failure and not listen to an industry that has a proven record of success.
Medical in this country has demonstrated a near total lack of vision in not seeing an event that is almost totally predictable based on an over populated world that many live in poverty and that it is predictable that would be the source of epidemics like the one we are going through. Shut down has made the cure worse than the disease as many have come to realize in the last few days. We must look at the record of the people we choose to lead us out of this mess and US medical, with a proven record not only of failure at a high price, but a failure to foster innovation and a lack of vision at speed that many other US industries have mastered.
It is time for the tech leaders to step up and apply the philosophy and culture that adapts to challenges at a speed and effectiveness unmatched by any other business, industry or government. The record of achievements and success is unmatched and we must absolutely stop listening as far as application to those with a proven record of failure to anything outside of an extremely narrow band of knowledge that they have proven they don't know how to apply and as they are doing in providing solutions that will cause more problems than they solve.
As general Patton said "It's not about dying for your country, it's about making the other guy die for his", this may not be exact, but you get the idea.
Just the fact that they are dying is an indicator and result of failure. I feel for these people deeply, but much of this is the result of a system based on failure over an extended period of time. One of the biggest failures is not making people responsible for themselves to generate huge revenues that are driving the nation bankrupt. We can not afford to not hold people accountable for their actions. Just like we hold drunk drivers responsible and take away their licenses, we have to hold people accountable for their health and in a staggering amount of cases we don't and let the totally irresponsible run up literally staggering cost in the millions. This has made US medical one of the world's most expensive industries that perpetuates this for their own economic benefit. Junk food, obesity, lack of common sense maintenance of our bodies are an epidemic in this country that has run up costs not in the billions, but trillions. It is time for a thorough revamp of our health system and the industries built around it, including the insurance industry. The path we have been led down by so called experts who want to be called heroes has led us to mess we're in.
Just like the tech world has radically changed commerce and business, it's time to revamp the US medical system completely. It's an expensive failure that has delivered poor results at a staggering cost, both to the point it could literally end our way of life as we know it. This should be looked at as an opportunity even greater than the creation of the internet, which in itself will be a key part of the solution.
I do agree that many in medical are heroic, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions and US medical is an ideal example.
Any thoughts or comments are deeply appreciated and I hope this discussion leads to a solution in an industry that consumes twenty percent of our resources and rising fast.
There are doctors and nurses that believe practice has to change.
There's a researcher at the university of tel Aviv, a university that has a reputation for getting things done that is working on a vaccine. The work is promising but you need humility with this stuff. I heard from a broadcast last night that the best hope is June next year.
This virus isn't a single strand of rna it's a complex structure that a lot of engineers would struggle calculating in statics and dynamics. It's only 120nm which is another challenge. A vaccine may not be possible until it mutates to something more simple. It's a real challenge.
I'll say this good people are dying and when this over it maybe appropriate to have a memorial for medical professionals.
I agree with much of what you say, but the bottom line is the system is failing and the people in it bare much of the responsibility for the failings. The whole US medical industry needs reform from top to bottom. I knew a top, award winning industrial engineer who worked in the industry years ago and even then he said it was headed in the wrong direction in almost every area and it was ripe for reform, but it might not happen, for he said a lot of the people in medical while good at their field, are totally ignorant of organization, business structures and cost effectiveness at every step of the process and it's obvious from the results this is truer now than ever before. You don't really know how good a system is until it's stressed. Based on results and economics, it has failed for a long, long time and this black swan event has only shown had badly it has failed. Lots of very good people, with good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Also many of the people are egotistical and think they know all and they don't and this is what this engineer and many of the colleagues in the field found out. In many areas greed has been the rule and used to create rules and regulations to give us the mess we have. My heart goes out to the good people in the field and there are many that have paid the price. I have personally witnessed tremendous ignorance and waste to the point it would have driven any industry not insulated politically and business wise like medical into bankruptcy. 37th in quality and the highest cost alone, indicates there are severe problems that have not been dealt with. Also note, medical bills are a leading cause of bankruptcy and consume twenty cents of every dollar and rising. I have also run across doctors that are egotistical and even dangerous when I sought second opinions. If I'm missing something, please let me know.
Academia and the scientific community in the US need to show something more than protocol that's decades all. It's been months and their knowledge of the virus is still vague as well as knowledge of how it's spread.
I suspect solutions to this problem will be forthcoming due to the vast amount of resources put into it world wide. I earlier posted a ling to a Forbes piece about 267 project handicapped as to their success probabilities. I just got done listening to a Jane Goodall video on why this outbreak was totally predictable due to over population and man encroaching to far into environments we don't understand how to work properly with. While man has literally become a cancer on the planet(the definition of cancer, uncontrolled growth, we should expect numerous problems in the future that will also be called black swan events, but are totally predictable. If we want to continue this growth rate, we will have to advance our technologies, social, business and political structures to match, which we haven't even come close to doing. The destruction of the planets ecosystem and its unintended consequences are becoming something out of a science fiction novel and many have already been written in this vein for decades, many by very well studied writers, some even top scientists. I hope the semi/nanotech sector can give us some of the tools to counteract what man and the planet are going through. Since this is the only planet we live on, these are the most important decisions we will ever make. So far, we are failing. The semi/nanotech industry is our best hope for it is the only way to handle the world wide collection of the information needed and how to distribute and work with it in a fashion to save us all from ourselves. This is but one very early strike back from abusing the environment and they will increase in number and intensity. We must embrace success over failure, no matter how good the intentions, for the fate of mankind rests on it. The coronavirus is just one small test of things yet to come.
A lot of people know what the main problem is since the sixties. A population far in excess of what our planet can deal with based on current technology and its application. Just look at the climate disasters around the world of almost every type combined with environmental disasters of all types. The clean air we are seeing from reduced economic activity can be seen by anyone. We simply can't support the population in the way we want to live without destroying the planets ecosystem of the only planet we can live on. We need to make radical changes in population or our technology to deal with the current population and if we don't nature will. Just look at the current ecological disasters of all type and the coronavirus is just one of many, with more to come. The tech sector will be a very key part of the solution, with semis/nanotech providing the foundation to not only quantify and monitor the problem, but play a significant part of the solution. Only people trained in science formally or informally we be able to work on this, for those that aren't won't even see or understand what's happening in the world around them. Dealing with our problems on earth is nothing compared to trying to establish a colony on Mars as some suggest.
Given the tech industry's inability to stop bugs and viruses of the digital type, I'm not sure they'd be any better. At least the medical industry doesn't administer things that are still in beta to an unsuspecting public. I wouldn't want to take a medicine that had been developed by Boeing, either.
I look to success and nothing is perfect and everything entails risk, but the record of US medical is worse than poor, even with the highest cost and many uninsured and only the ability to raise costs at a staggering, unsustainable rate. US tech on the other hand has been able to lower costs and increase quality at a staggering rate. US medical has also established a monopoly by not allowing foriegn competition, when it would be far cheaper and higher quality to fly people overseas for better care at a fraction of the cost, while our tech sector uses foriegn partners that can help improve their products. How do you account for the world's highest cost and among the lowest quality of any modern country? Also US medical deliberately fights transparency, it would be nice to see results online. Some organizations like to advertise their results, but it has been found they deliberately avoid tough cases. Transparency is avoided at every step of care and pricing in the US is definitely needed. I can look up numerous reviews and cost out of almost any tech item, software or service, US medical needs this discipline if we ever to see the quality and pricing we deserve. At almost every step of the way, US medical is geared to high prices and low quality. This has been verified by the results and costs.
There are many good and great people in US medical, but the system is broken and the results speak for themselves and everyone in US medical bares some responsibility for the poor results and costs.
My dream would be for the best people in medical and tech in the US get together to not only solve the coronavirus problem, but make it a framework going forward to bring great advancements to US medical to the point we are admired as much for our medical as we are for our tech.
