Yesterday June 29th, 2007 the first iPhone was released. Some say a historical event. In any case a pivotal moment in history, since then the way we communicate has changed for the better and worse.
Innovators have changed our life, and often it is one key figure getting (or taking) all the credits, but mostly there is a whole team behind them.
Same goes for healthcare. I deeply respect doctors who spend years and years studying to become an expert in the human body mind and its mechanisms. The way nurses take care of patients and their family with all their knowledge, empathy, and experience is often breathtaking.
Going forward in healthcare as we do right now will bring us (in the Netherlands) into a shortage of skilled personnel of over 100.000 nursing staff.
Although these two professionals often are front and center of healthcare (and they should) there is a whole plethora of supporting staff without healthcare would not be able to be delivered. The analysts in the laboratories, the men and women taking care of all the logistical stuff, security-staff, policymakers, data-analysts, IT-engineers, accountants and controllers, the communications department and the list can go on and on.
Healthcare is an industry everyone at one point during his/her life will face. Healthcare needs rockstars in many many different roles and functions. Steve Jobs couldn’t have done it by himself. Doctors and nurses can not as well. Let’s cherish the people standing behind the frontline workers.
About this column:
In a weekly column, alternately written by Maarten Steinbuch, Mary Fiers, Carlo van de Weijer, Eveline van Zeeland, Lucien Engelen, Tessie Hartjes, Jan Wouters, Katleen Gabriels, Peter de Kock and Auke Hoekstra, Innovation Origins tries to figure out what the future will look like. These columnists, occasionally supplemented with guest bloggers, are all working on solutions to the problems of our time in their own way. So that Tomorrow will be better. Here are all the previous episodes.
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