Efforts Needed to Improve Health Outcomes, Califf Says
Bringing the keynote address at the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography’s annual meeting, former FDA commissioner Rob Califf warned that efforts need to be made if the nation’s overall population health outcomes are to improve. He said the U.S. faces a troubling paradox in which revolutionary advances in cardiovascular imaging and artificial intelligence (AI) are occurring at the same time that Americans are experiencing poorer health outcomes than people in other developed nations.
As reported by Cardiovascular Business, Califf said, “The U.S., relative to other high-income countries, is not looking too good in terms of longevity or healthy longevity. We have a surplus of chronic disease, and cardiovascular disease is still the leading cause of death in the U.S.”
He highlighted the rapid improvements in cardiac imaging through his career as a cardiologist. He said the challenge is how to make such advancements available to all the people of the U.S. rather than just those with the expendable cash to pay for the imaging.
Turning to AI, Califf suggested that using it to automate many of the administrative tasks that commonly consume clinicians’ days could give doctors more time to spend with patients, focusing on the human side of medicine and healthcare.
According to Califf, the American healthcare system remains overly focused on treating disease after it develops, instead of preventing it from developing. Hospitals, he argued, should increasingly be viewed as places people need only when preventive care has failed. “The purpose of clinics ought to be to keep people out of the hospital,” he said. “The best way to do that is to put the technology in the community.”
As he had when he was commissioner, Califf again voiced concerns about the role social media plays in spreading health misinformation through what he said is today’s fractured information environment. Combatting misinformation, he said, requires a change in how doctors get their message out. Academic medicine, he said, needs a stronger digital presence capable of delivering reliable, science-based information where people now spend their time online.
“We’re in a battle for information for what people are going to believe and do,” he declared. “We’re not even on that playing field. We’ve got to get out there on the playing field if we’re going to reverse the trends that are happening in the U.S.”