There's a lot of talk about shifting our focus from healthcare to wellness. Great idea. After all, it's far cheaper to prevent disease rather than treat it. If only it were that simple.
Wellness conjures up visions of youth, spas, and sunshine. Wellness is for the healthy and the privileged. Wellness is for the super-fit, all those kale eating triathletes Silicon Valley millionaires looking to optimize their health.
Healthcare is something else entirely. It brings up visions of doctors and hospitals, cancer and pain. Nobody wants healthcare. It's not fun, sunny or desirable. It requires an admission of frailty and mortality, all things most of us look to deny.
It's almost as if the 2 words are ying and yang, an us and them, the well and the diseased. This misperception has lead to stupendous market failures. I've seen countless healthcare entrepreneurs suggest their product is the next big thing, something everyone will want only only to hear a resounding thud, a small niche market with little or no adoption.
The fact is most people who need care... have failed wellness. Challenged by either socio-economic, genetic factors, or attitude, wellness might as well be a foreign language for many people suffering with chronic healthcare issues. And the people who care about wellness, aren't typically sick.
If we are really going to impact on those who need it most, we need to have an honest discussion around the issues related illness, & the often associated feelings of helplessness and depression. This means not simply masking disease with quick fix pills and surgery, nor seeing people as weak if they don't cheerfully adopt the wellness lifestyle. Rather, we need to address deep rooted (and expensive) psychosocial co-morbidities that co-travel with the reasons for healthcare.
I'm all for wellness. But to truly have an impact we need to have an honest conversation around what it means to be "them," the majority of Americans living with chronic disease.
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