Patients often criticize the healthcare industry for feeling cold, indifferent and endlessly bureaucratic. Nearly every traditional touch point reinforces this sense of neglect. Evolutions in healthcare technology are rapidly changing that, extending healthcare into the most remote areas of the world and to the most underserved populations across the globe. The equation for success is providing services that empower patients with convenience, easier access and a positive experience.

How can health care be democratized?

For democratization of healthcare, people must have a powerful voice and role in the decisions and systems that affect their health, they need the help to become far more active. Health professionals and institutions must value social equity and the individual in the context of community. With those principles, we can move from patient-centered health care, focused on sickness, medical interventions, and data on the average patient to person-centered health care motivated by wellness, supportive social conditions, and knowledge about the individual and his or her environments. Health literacy is fundamental to democratization of healthcare. Fostering health literacy means aligning the demands and complexities of what is needed  health care with the skills and abilities of the public

Modern health technologies have democratized health in ways that are, perhaps, less overt but are equally as important. With the advent of healthcare IT, patient data has increasingly gone digital. And this not only facilitates patient care and care provider information-sharing through the use of electronic health records (EHR), but it also enables the best of evidence-based, value-driven care.

Healthcare is not any other traditional retail or supply consumer business model. The third-party payment system creates an interesting dynamic called “moral hazard.” So, improving healthcare in terms of the experience and the cost will require bringing about various changes in the entire system. The challenge facing Google and Amazon is changing the system. When it comes to reducing cost, someone’s cost is someone else’s revenue. So, change will be hard. There can be a new model for health care with better alignment of incentives and value, as well as the all-important patient experience