In graduate school, as I was working towards my Master’s Degree in Physics, I remember the lecture when Quantum Mechanics fell into place for me. It was the lecture on Wave-Particle Duality.
Wave-particle duality, simply stated, is that a quantum entity can have the characteristics of both particles or waves, but cannot be fully described by either. Put another way, the nature of the experiment effects the nature of the observed quantum entity
A useful, common example of this is light. The wave nature of light can be observed by passing it through a prism, breaking it up into a continuous rainbow of colors, , whereas the particle nature of light can be observed by a photon detector, which measures a single, discrete impact.
These seemingly contradictory properties are not really contradictory; instead, they are what help define a quantum universe.
All good and well, but what does this have to do with healthcare?
Well, what my foray into quantum physics taught me was that it is possible to hold contradictory thoughts about an entity if you consider the role of the observer. So with that context, I would like to suggest that we ( the healthcare industry) have a created a new type of patient:
A patient with exists both in the real world ( The Real Patient ) and in the digital world ( The Digital Patient).
In fact, when we engage with our patients I would suggest that we are dealing with a unique entity – a patient with is both equally Real And Digital (RAD), depending on our perspective.
Patients aren’t just real. They aren’t just digital. They are a hybrid of the two. Patients are RAD.
Why is this important?
Because our world, and our healthcare organizations, for better or worse, have also become RAD, which means we need to understand how our RAD Healthcare Group engages with our RAD patient population, rather than focusing just face to face interactions or EHR engagements.
Why?
Because in a RAD universe they are the same.