I've never really bought the story that health care expenditures are destined to just keep growing forever. All those gloomy projections assume that advancing technology will, if anything, make health care more expensive, not less. And in fact, that has been largely true for some time.
But now, there's this from Indiana University:
Using an artificial intelligence framework combining Markov Decision Processes and Dynamic Decision Networks, IU School of Informatics and Computing researchers Casey Bennett and Kris Hauser show how simulation modeling that understands and predicts the outcomes of treatment could reduce health care costs by over 50 percent while also improving patient outcomes by nearly 50 percent.
50% better outcomes, at half the cost? Sign me up!
This research is aimed at addressing three big problems in our current system:
• Costs expected to reach 30% of GDP by 2050
• The fact that patients receive correct diagnosis and treatment less than half the time on their first visit
• A lag of 13–17 years between research and clinical practice
No word yet on whether the software includes built-in Death Panels.