This is part of a series of blogposts I have commissioned to get the conversation going, and surface financing opportunities outside the EC.
Have a read, and maybe share it in your networks (#hackcare).
https://edgeryders.eu/en/using-the-future/welcome-to-retirement
Ping @markomanka :)
Dear Nadia, thank you. I promptly shared this on my networks a few days ago.
The overwhelming emphasis on the technological future of technology in healthcare is, most interestingly, not originated by the community of care-givers or patients at large.
It is also worth noting that the discourse has very different tones when it comes from “futurist”/technologists (commodification, patient-as-a-customer, patient-centric-innovation, disruption-of-healthcare,…) than when it is sung by caregivers, including but not restricted to doctors, and patients (empowerment, functional hacks, cooperation/sharing, personalisation, …).
Unfortunately, most patients and caregivers are too busy to really let themselves be involved in this, and most policies and political discourses are steered by the wrong bandwagon. I believe this is an issue well known to anyone familial with the ways of lobbying…
If you want to keep up to date with the EU rhetorics on the topic, this is the newest release I could find: http://ec.europa.eu/commission/2014-2019/moedas/announcements/life-begins-70_en
The question is: can we do anything to give voice to the most import an stakeholders, knowing this cannot (and should not) become their priority?
A magazine?
That is how shareable and ouishare started to build momentum around the collaborative/sharing economy conversation. They would basically meet people doing interesting or relevant work and write a case study. One example to refer to is the one written by Ben Vickers about the urban Shepherd of Stockholm.
I asked Neal Gorenflo about how long it took Shareable to get momentum (80k unique visitors per month)). Apparently we would need to find resources to pay a good editor, people contributing articles and a social media editor, for 3 years to really get it going.
What do you think?
Why not. I always thought a communication channel would not be enough, as it would still attract the outliers who have time or the will to make time to press on the issue…
However, if we are thinking of a more proactive journalism style, that might give a hand.
An interesting challenge here, is that of generating an identity for a group that is delocalised, very diverse, and sometimes at odds (what works well somewhere for a group of patients, may be even detrimental elsewhere or to a different group)…
It is like protecting the environment, trying not to offer excess opportunities to a niche of the ecosystems over the others… But we might look for solutions along the way.
pragmatically…
…what is the kind (=size) of economic input that your contact suggested is needed?