The Pandemic Wormhole
I’ve had the unique opportunity these last 6 weeks to be able to sit back and observe. After leaving a startup to reset and realign with myself, refocus on family and reflect on my next adventure, my intention to take a bit of a ‘career break’ at the end of February was met head-on with a global lockdown that has pulled children out of school and has caused the economy to practically grind to a halt. The timing has been kind of perfect to be able to take as much of an objective view into the reactions of the world while feeling somewhat detached from the fears and anxieties my peers were suddenly facing such as loss of employment, full-time care and teaching of children while working from home and the unexpected mental and emotional stress of isolation, uncertainty, and the threat to our physical health. Removing the stress of my work-life (as well as being an eternal optimist) has allowed me to live completely in the ‘silver lining’ dimension of this pandemic, such as being present for my children and my elderly parents, really taking self-care to the next level with consistent exercise and nutrition and illuminating all of the things I am so very grateful for.
It has also been an incredibly eye-opening experience to have had numerous, deep conversations with several professionals in my healthcare, insurance and education networks — from front line health care workers to senior executives in corporate or government organizations to startup founders — one thing is very clear: things are NOT going back to ‘normal.’ In fact, they cannot. This pandemic is effectively collapsing the timeline of how humanity is adapting to emerging technologies, the evolution of innovation and its impact on economies, climate, and the consciousness of society as a whole.
The Paradigm Leap
Unfortunately, any movement that a company makes now to try and catch up, keep up or get ahead to accommodate this emerging new world will not in many cases, be enough to ensure survival. We can’t speak in terms of “paradigm shifts” anymore. We are witnessing giant paradigm leaps. Quantum leaps. The crumbling of not only companies — but entire industries. Advanced technologies and their applications that have been revving on the sidelines have suddenly bolted out the gate and are in high demand by companies that have learned the hard way that their investments in technology were not aggressive enough. The problems they were solving for were step-wise implementations to address processes and operations of already outdated and broken systems (‘digitizing’ a form, anyone?). They were bandaids and duct tape to accommodate massive gaps in systems and from the refusal to reimagine something completely different. In retrospect, what we were calling ‘innovation’ were just graduated solutions to ‘ease’ slow-moving industries to make sure they were comfortable with change and that we didn’t rip legacy systems out of their hands too fast. There’s no more coddling to be had here. They’re going to be left behind because even the ones who try to innovate for them, will also be left behind.
I have a personal interest in Canada’s decades-long electronic health record (EHR) conundrum. My career having originated in healthcare and moving into life and health insurance has made it very clear to me that problems in insurance are tightly connected to problems in healthcare. Specifically health data. What companies and initiatives would not even exist today if Canada had already achieved an integrated, common EHR that so many other countries have? If we further examine the life insurance buying journey of a client — there are 3–4 potential touchpoints required to collect health data — whether by the advisor (application form), the insurance carrier (tele-underwriting), a nurse (in-person paramedical visit) and from a doctor (through APS). There has not been any meaningful innovation in underwriting to solve this in insurance, and my guess is because it is so closely tied to the disjointed client record (among other systemic obstacles of bureaucracy, privacy, and control). Not only is the process inefficient and high risk for poor data integrity, but a very crappy client experience as well. Now there are AI companies that exist that can take temperature, heart rate, respirations, blood pressure, O2 saturation, and stress levels through a camera on your phone, with very high medical-grade accuracy. That changes the game. Now mortality is impacted. Now we can go beyond a one million dollar limit in immediate coverage via simplified/non-medical issue. And paramedical companies should be shaking in their boots. We’re no longer needing to solve the business disruption problem of a nurse unable to visit a home during a pandemic. We are removing the potential need of a paramedical completely. Throw in the current massive wave of telemedicine becoming a part of standard clinical practice, the explosion of wearables for medical monitoring and assessment, verification of identity using biomedical signatures…now we are playing a different game, and we cannot underestimate how much we have to reorient ourselves to this reality.
So as leaders scramble to ensure that they are implementing ‘work-from-home’ best practices, it behooves them to also examine exactly what innovations, partnerships, and ‘paradigm leaps’ are happening under the veil of quarantine — and asking themselves how much time they have before what they are currently building is going to be obsolete. This is a time of gestation and entrepreneurs and innovators are heads-down working, partnering, and creating. We are not just ‘coming out of a pandemic’ and that ‘things will be different’. We are going through a wormhole, and we all need to be prepared AND EXCITED about what’s going to emerge on the other side.
