This Is Not Your Kid's Smartphone

The smartphone is reshaping our understanding and appreciation for using voice and breath to better understand the human condition.

Earlier this year, nine medical specialty societies issued a list of 45 tests and procedures that their members concluded are not indicated in all of the situations in which they are used. It was the latest salvo in a long battle over whether much of the care provided to patients is effective and advisable. But this is a complex picture, replete with issues of physician judgment, medical education, patient preference and the threat of malpractice litigation. Is there a way through these woods?

The parts of health care are not "connected" by an overall design. Institutions are where they are more as a by-product of personal and community history than via a grand plan to achieve a goal and, for the most part, they are self-governed and self-organized.