“We forget to develop people”

The human factor will become even more important in the future, explained the health economist from the FOM University of Applied Sciences for Economics and Management. Because when artificial intelligence becomes artificial empathy, personal contact will be considered quality time in the future.

To this day, the topic of artificial intelligence in medicine is often viewed critically – especially in the industry itself – said Matusiewicz. However, the healthcare system urgently needs to change. And if AI is fun, everyone will be keen to try it. He himself had recently stuck a patented thermometer patch with an integrated chip on himself during a cold. The patch measured and reported temperature fluctuations around the clock – a real game changer, because: “There are more and more data points in the body, maybe one day we'll look like Christmas trees.”

“We are looking deeper and deeper into the human body,” says Matusiewicz. In doing so, more and more data is being collected – which can also be difficult, because: ‘Who will help me interpret this data?’ Whether it's temperature fluctuations during an illness or the results of a genetic test, interpreting such individual data is difficult, so people should not be left alone at a loss.

Mindset against the justification bureaucracy

His ideal is P4 medicine: personalized, preventive, predictive and participatory, explained Matusiewicz. However, the human factor is too often forgotten when it comes to the digitalization of medicine. In the healthcare system, service providers, financers and patients do not always act rationally, but rather based on their emotions. And so “potential theoretical risks lead to a justification bureaucracy”. There are “thousands of layers” of bureaucracy around patients, “all of which earn money”. The people in the system are the “silent lever”.

In a classic change pyramid with its nine fields such as vision, strategy or technology, there is one all-important field at the bottom: “culture and mindset” – the human factor. There is currently a lot of talk about what machines can do and what they bring, the health economist explained. “In doing so, we forget to develop people. If I don't take my employees with me, the best IT project has failed.”