The Transformation Issue | Idealog.co.nz
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and the quality of life diminishes – especially for those
who cannot afford quality healthcare. Physicians are busily
keeping people alive with medication, but patients aren’t
necessarily leading healthier lives.
But the rise of technology presents another
proposition: a move from the traditional bricks-and-mortar
styles of healthcare into a preventative system based on
a holistic, nuanced and customised approach to medical
care. Perhaps the most radical reform in healthcare
won’t lie in the realms of immortality or gene-editing, but
incrementally, in the way healthcare itself is being treated.Prevention, not intervention
One local company at the forefront of alternative
healthcare is Edison, which is based in Auckland and
launched in September last year. Its founder, Jay Harrison,
exclaims that Edison’s vision is to sell time.
“We want to become globally trusted traders of time:
preserving medical heritage with leading edge technology
advancements,” he says.
Its name is an embodiment of the ideology formed by
inventor Thomas A. Edison, who stated in 1903: “The doctor
of the future will give no medication, but will interest his
patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the
cause and prevention of disease.”
But it’s more than idealism, as the company’s binary
mission is to improve human health and expand the
human life span through the precision of technology by
taking a deep dive into a detailed analysis of somebody’s
health, right down to their DNA molecules.
Harrison says a convergence of factors has enabled
Edison and other companies in the broader medical
community to make these seemingly futuristic strides
in healthcare.
“We have access to genetics like we have never
had before, the advancement of artificial intelligence
allows us to partner with IBM or Google who have
built infrastructure we can tap into, and also wearable
technology – it has exploded in the last ten years.”
Edison’s alternative full body holistic treatment
is separated into three parts. Firstly, patients
experience a robust ‘baseline medical’: a series of
personalised genetic profiling, bloodwork, 3D body
imaging, mental and physical evaluations, wrapped
into a 90-minute consultation.
After it has collated the data on patients, instead
of simply prescribing medicine, patients are given what’s
called an Edison protocol: a comprehensive health
programme based on a patient’s genetic profile and goals.
This could see an unconventional prescription from a
doctor, of a change in diet, sleep pattern, medication,
or mindfulness practice.
Lastly, patients are consistently monitored through
its various tools. One example is the Oura Ring – a
piece of wearable tech that tracks the bio-markers of
the person 24/7. Plus, patients are given various touch
points throughout the year, where they visit a doctor
or clinician to re-assess progress, analyse biomarkers,
health developments, or to “recalibrate the biogenic age”,
which provides patients their chronological age – how old
somebody is – then factors in the age of their body, based
on good or bad health habits throughout their life.“From a management perspective, we can
nudge a client back into action, because we are seeing
them regularly, we are helping a patient lay down long-
term behavioural change,” Harrison says. “It’s not a
flash in the pan relationship, it’s a life-long relationship,
where their bio-medic team are working with them using
proactive treatment.
“We don’t look at anything in a silo, we have a whole-
body plan, or a holistic plan, with the idea that we have
tried to attune an entire system to the human body.”
As a result, patients have seen a range of positive
health benefits. Harrison tells me of clients who have
battled with elevated cholesterol levels for upwards of
twenty years, having previously tried everything using the
traditional route, from medication to lifestyle changes, yet
weren’t able to make significant progress.
He says after three months with Edison, clients
were able to completely normalise cholesterol and
cardiovascular risk markers.
“It’s not unusual for a client to lose 15kg in three
months because they harmonise their physiology,” he says.
But the benefits of a whole-body, customised
approach to medical care means patients receive
unexpected benefits as well, Harrison says, including
improved energy, better complexion, as well as improved
gut health.
“If we take a much more proactive approach, the
load on GPs and the current reactive model would reduce.
In essence, we could put GPs in a much more positive
context. We are currently in the transition, because right
now is when it is happening. It’s super encouraging for
GPs to work in this domain, and ultimately we would like
to be a part of this transition.”If we can keep
people healthier,
we can provide
small interventions
that means
someone doesn’t
have to go to
hospital, or if we
could reduce the
rates of obesity,
it could then
reduce the rate
of diabetes.CLOCKWISE FROM
TOP LEFT:
The Edison team,
the full body holistic
treatment and the
Oura ring.