The annual physical exam is under fire. Increasingly, physicians believe that the yearly ritual of having our bodies poked and prodded is completely useless, save for the fraction of patients who have a chronic illness or predisposition to disease. Worse, the annual physical is estimated to cost our healthcare system approximately $8 billion for arguably little benefit.
America's demand for up-to-date, personalized health information appears insatiable. Yet, doctors seem convinced that this obsession is a waste of time at best and socially harmful at worst. Still, everyone agrees that preventive medicine is preferable to reactive medicine. Is there a way to accomplish this effectively?
We think there is. The answer is to work toward developing technologies that allow real-time monitoring of biomarkers.
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