Our system of financing healthcare in America has encouraged this model. Managed care and Medicare have not paid for prevention, quality and a delivery system that recognizes the long-term nature of chronic disease. As a result the care being delivered is becoming less and less appropriate, more and more wasteful, and the problems are compounding, as the baby boomers pass 50 and enter their chronic illness years. The healthcare system itself is buckling. Physician incomes are down and early retirements are common.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the country.
Asthma is also the leading cause of childhood hospitalizations. Add to these numbers the costs related to lost productivity by both patients and family caregivers against the backdrop of a very tight labor market, and the need for a better model for chronic disease care becomes even more of a mandate. The only bright spot in all of this is the emergence of technology and Internet solutions that are beginning to demonstrate their value. Within the last year there has been an explosion of new Internet solutions and emerging technologies. Much of it is so new that physicians, hospitals, health plans, Medicare, and even traditional disease management companies have yet to fully recognize its significance.