Book Review: The Future of Health by Roberto Ascione

The Future of Health by Roberto Ascione is an insightful and comprehensive overview of the past, present, and future of digital health. He skillfully explores how the latest digital technologies are transforming the practice of medicine, and redefining health itself, by making it more accessible, sustainable, and human. CEO of a global leader in digital therapeutics and digital health, he knows first-hand how to navigate the digital healthcare transformation. A must-read for medical practitioners and allied professionals, this is also the book for anyone looking to better understand digital health innovations and take control of their own health.

Why are we reading this book?

Ascione provides a wide-ranging inclusion of practical, real-world examples, from both the U.S and worldwide, of technology applications, companies, and start-ups that have changed the face of healthcare. Ascione’s primary intention is to help all those interested in digital health to connect the dots, to empower patients in completely new ways and deeply transform the doctor-patient relationship. It’s a big undertaking and in less than 200 hundred pages, he succeeds.

Backstory:

A pioneer in digital health for more than 20 years, Ascione’s basic premise is that “digital technologies are disrupting healthcare; they are the driving force behind better health outcomes and are helping to reduce the healthcare access divide.” Defined as more than telemedicine and data collection, he believes digital solutions proved their worth when they enabled healthcare to continue during the pandemic. Going forward, if certain challenges are met, he is confident technology will transform the future of our health as we know it today.

Challenges:

To successfully transform healthcare’s future, Ascione believes the following is necessary:

To meet the new digital reality, the training of medical professionals will need to change.
If doctors are willing to examine and embrace new technology use, they can reduce many of the daily administrative and regulatory burdens, and increase patient relationships.
Medical personnel will need to be receptive to technologies that unlock new, holistic ways of practicing medicine, with a focus on latest developments such as Digital Therapeutics and Virtual Reality.
Understanding how digital health fosters a shift “from cure to care” will yield a more accessible, universal and sustainable healthcare.

Solution:

Ascione describes five big changes that will open the way for the above challenges to be resolved:

Shift from reactive acute care to preventative to delay onset of disease and other conditions.
Use data collection analyzed in real time instead of today’s observation-based medical practice.
Replace individual pathologies with collective homogeneous data to gain defined real-time picture.
As genomics progress, preventative safeguards can be utilized to better manage problems.
Integrated patient settings will improve prevention more than individual doctors for each concern.

Summary:

Technology is changing how humans will interact with healthcare delivery. It’s essential to understand how this impacts the future of our health. Ascione has written a complete guide to the future of medicine with a thorough explanation of what we need to embrace today and how we, as patients, can expect the way we pursue health and wellness to change. Order it now because Ascione’s timing to write and publish The Future of Health is most certainly…perfectly timed.