Longtime visionaries of health and technology Michael Dell and John Noseworthy, M.D., forecast how accelerating innovation and computing capabilities will shape the future of health — led by the new University of Texas Medical Center.
Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Technologies and one of the earliest supporters of Dell Medical School, was joined in conversation last week on the University of Texas at Austin campus by John Noseworthy, M.D., chairman of the Aegis Digital Consortium and former president and CEO emeritus of Mayo Clinic.
The conversation, facilitated by UT President Jay Hartzell, Ph.D., and Claudia Lucchinetti, M.D, the University’s senior vice president for medical affairs and dean of Dell Medical School, offered a glimpse into the future of patient care and the unique opportunity taking shape in Austin.
Left to right: Claudia Lucchinetti, John Noseworthy, Michael Dell and Jay Hartzell.
Technology will make care more human — not less.
Tools like artificial intelligence and automation can solve for the vast majority of administrative debt that burdens health care systems, clinicians and researchers. The result? More human attention focused on people, not numbers.
“The accuracy of the diagnosis is perhaps the most important thing that a physician can do,” Noseworthy said. “And now we will be able to do it more accurately and more quickly. All the stuff that gets in the way, all of that marble that Michelangelo chipped away when he was creating David that doesn’t provide any benefit — we can get rid of all of that with technology.
“So it comes down to you, your family and the team that’s keeping you well, and they’ll be smarter and make fewer errors if they co-create an augmented health care system.”
Future generations will be more than capable of joining the transformation. Equip them with tools, then get out of the way.
The workforce of the future is savvy, digitally native and eager to transform care. And with new approaches to medical education like Dell Med’s Leading EDGE curriculum, which emphasizes team-based learning and transdisciplinary collaboration, future practitioners will have unprecedented opportunity to redefine the health care experience.
“We’re in a super interesting time in human progress and evolution,” Dell said. “It’s now possible for almost anyone to tap into knowledge to help them think through any problem that they’re dealing with in a way that was never possible before. In medical schools of the past, the idea was you’re supposed to know everything. Now, the practitioner has the opportunity to have tremendous amounts of help to inform their ability.”
Co-creation is not optional.
No single discipline can solve health care’s most pressing challenges — nor can we afford to ignore the patient perspective. For lasting impact in Austin, we must unite forces: world-class expertise across computing, engineering and other disciplines; a thriving life sciences and innovation sector; and patient-centered experiential design, all moving in the same direction.
“This is a big change and opportunity to revolutionize health care,” Dell said. “Acknowledge that, and talk a lot about it with patients, with caregivers, with the whole community about the opportunities to improve care, to improve outcomes. Whenever you’re going through a big change, you want to be able to paint a picture or vision to get people excited — but we should acknowledge there are going to be challenges. There are going to be things that have to be worked through, and involving everyone in that process at the speed of trust is the right approach.”
Right now is the time to invest in the culture that will carry us into the future.
People and experts may come and go, but culture is lasting, and it can’t be built or changed overnight. For a truly integrated, world-class academic health system, a culture of trust, transparency and collaboration must be built from day 1.
“What’s going to help you be successful is how well you build the culture of the players who are going to create Austin’s future,” Noseworthy said. “If you don’t take advantage of the chemical engineers and the robotic builders and the designers and the basic scientists and the people who are passionate about teaching, you will underperform. If you build trust with them and you have a common vision about what we can do together, you can do anything.”
Future-proofing depends on maintaining a clear aim.
Rapid adaptation to new technological advances is vital for longevity, but keep a steadfast focus on the end goal. Truly patient-centered care, for example, must remain the North Star even as new methods and settings — like “hospital-at-home” technology — develop.
“You have to pick a point on the horizon and run to that, but also build the infrastructure and the hooks so that you can continue to innovate on an ongoing basis, because things are going to change,” Dell said. “There’s going to be new information, and we’re going to learn things along the way, and there’s going to be all sorts of progress that can create another point on the horizon. It’s like you say in business: It’s a race with no finish line. Just keep racing.”