HACKING HEALTHCARE - Understanding and Rethinking Health in the 21st Century

The future of the healthcare system is characterised by opposing perspectives: on the one hand, our life expectancy is rising, leading to a shift in the spectrum of diseases towards higher numbers of chronically ill people and increasing healthcare costs. On the other hand, progress in biomedical research and the digitisation of medicine promise ever higher quality in the provision of healthcare. Visible on the horizon is the dawn of a new age of personalised and tailor-made medicine. While costs continue to rise and rigid structures resist reforms, a growing segment of the population is demanding to play an active role in shaping the provision of healthcare – as citizens, patients or even software developers.

These polarised developments represent the complexity of the system, which renders a holistic view and long-term planning increasingly difficult. In order to develop sustainable structures, more than forecasts are needed. We need concrete ideas and concepts for improving the healthcare system in small steps. 

This book provides ideas and approaches for doing so. It presents hypotheses and areas for action that may be helpful not only in rethinking the system of tomorrow, but also in redesigning it – or in 21st century jargon: hacking it.

To the book