Luscii shifts ambition to radical prevention

Digital healthcare platform Luscii opts for radical prevention. "We have to look at prevention very differently," believes CEO Daan Dohmen. "You shouldn't start when the first symptoms appear, but when people are not yet patients." If lifelong prevention is to succeed, digital data and financing are indispensable, according to Dohmen.

"We still often talk about prevention in terms of two or three years," Dohmen said at the recent Luscii Connected Care Summit in Amsterdam. "But the stroke or cardiac arrest you get as a 70-year-old starts when you're 30 or 40."

Personal transformation

This insight struck Dohmen a few years ago when he began to feel the effects of his busy professional life. A swollen belly, shortness of breath and a ditto fuse made him realize that he was on the wrong track. Dohmen: "When my brother-in-law also died during that period, I realized that health is the most important thing we have. So I started exercising and started paying close attention to my diet and sleep. That not only transformed my body, but also my mind. I am happier and having more fun with my family. So I realized that if we want to solve problems with health, we have to look beyond healthcare."

Big Four

Dohmen finds an ally in American physician and author Peter Attia, whose ideas he reiterated in Amsterdam. According to Attia, eighty percent of mortality can be attributed to four diseases: cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and metabolic diseases, such as diabetes. These Four Horsemen of Chronic Disease, as Attia calls them, are all related to lifestyle to a greater or lesser extent. If we identify lifestyle factors in time and follow them consistently, we can make adjustments as needed and thereby greatly increase the number of healthy years of life, says Attia.

Datajourney

The opportunities to screen one's own health and collect and share the associated data have grown tremendously in recent years. Luscii itself, with a remote care app now used by seven out of 10 Dutch hospitals, is a good example of this. But Dohmen sees many more opportunities. "Before someone becomes a patient, he has already been to so many places. Not only at the pharmacy, but also at the gym. People have a smartwatch or are on Strava. There's all that health data in there that we should be able to take to a healthcare professional. Such a data journey can close the gap between healthcare and the citizen."

On the question of whether citizens should be expected to digitally record their own health, Dohmen does not have to think long. "You don't even have to ask that. A lot of people already do that. It's just a waste if you don't do anything with that data."

Smart networks

A seamless data journey hinges on smart networks. Dohmen sees such smart networks emerging in more and more places: between hospitals, but also between hospitals, general practitioners and home care organizations. Not to mention between new partners such as pharmacies and fitness centers. Technology need not be an obstacle, according to Dohmen. "The consumer market is not the problem. We already have integrations with a lot of fitness trackers with Luscii. With electronic health records, that's also getting better and better."

Clinical intelligence

One point of attention, of course, is the validation of all this data. Especially if they come from external applications, healthcare providers will want to ascertain their quality and validity. "That's where clinical intelligence plays an important role," Dohmen points out as the third building block of Dream 2030. "You can use artificial intelligence to determine whether things work. Moreover, you can use AI assistants to help predict diseases before symptoms appear. And it is possible to support healthcare providers even further by automating certain work processes and responses."

Obstacles

On obstacles on the road to digital prevention, Dohmen does not want to dwell too long. "I don't look so much at obstacles. When we fully committed to home monitoring with Luscii in 2018, we also constantly heard: the data is not there, it is not technically possible, people do not want it. Now it is reality. You have to show that it can be done. If it works, eventually the system bends with you."

Funding

Still, Dohmen acknowledges that funding is an issue. The current funding system is based on treating illness. If Dream 2030 becomes a reality, they will not occur, or occur to a much lesser extent. Will there ever be a payment title for non-eventualities? For now, the current administration is financially cutting prevention. "Terrible," judges Dohmen. "With that we are going in the wrong direction. We need to start looking differently and facilitate prevention over a period of thirty, forty years."

Shared mission

Whatever the politics decide, Dohmen feels empowered by working with technology provider Omron, which acquired Luscii earlier this year. "We remain Luscii, but now have a big brother standing beside us to help us scale up," he said.
"Omron and Luscii share the same mission," said senior marketing director Lucia Prada. "We want to promote health and improve people's lives by giving them the tools to live their lives to the fullest."