The superior imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien has delighted generations with his fantastical stories of Middle Earth, where in lengthy books and even longer films, an unlikely multi-stakeholder group goes on an epic journey to save the world from evil by destroying the one ring of power. It should surprise no one that Jeff Bezos is a huge fan, so much so that he (i.e., Amazon) bought the rights to Tolkien’s appendices that provide the backstory to Lord of the Rings (brought to life in the new Amazon Prime series The Rings of Power). The healthcare system is also on a journey, one that involves an unlikely multi-stakeholder group of health care industry giants, tech titans, and people, to free data so our world can be healthy and happy again. As the new FDA Commissioner Dr. Califf (who arguably looks like a beardless cross between Gandalf and Gimli) said upon his confirmation this week, “At the core of all of these [health system] issues is the fundamental need to enhance our ability to collect and analyze data.” At this moment in our series, our heroes are searching for data that illuminates who needs healthcare and how to destroy the barriers that prevent them from receiving it (this is in the prequel series known as the 2023 Medicare Advantage Advance Notice). Please stay tuned for our next episode (which Jeff Bezos’ heirs seem destined to be a part of) when our heroes journey into the Mirkwood-like forbidding forest in search of the elusive social determinants of health data.
February 18, 2022 | 2 min read
February 18, 2022
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