CEO's greetings
Uncertainty has defined this decade. Uncertainty relating to health, the economy, energy, and even peace touches us in a way that most of us have never experienced. When the familiar things around us are shaken, we often wish for everything to be as it was before.
We often find aspects behind systemic crises that reveal to us that things were not better before after all. The systems we build are often based on principles whose basic assumptions become outdated unless they are actively reformed. When the basic assumptions behind systems that have formerly worked well fail to change with the times, sooner or later a crisis ensues and forces us to contemplate better ways of doing things.
This is why crises almost always give rise to a development leap, as the need for change, repressed by outdated beliefs, is finally released.
The basic principle of the healthcare system of treating all who are sick has been tested during the crisis brought on by COVID-19. What if we cannot treat every sick person? Examining the age distribution of the population, the development of the number of common lifestyle diseases, and the costs, it is clear that in the near future, the carrying capacity of the healthcare system will be in a more extensive and lengthier crisis than the one caused by COVID-19.
The discussion on the major challenges faced by healthcare is often focused erroneously on the functioning of the healthcare system in treating the sick. In reality, treatment of the sick has developed and actively reformed in an incredible way during the decades, and the principle of treating all sick people has naturally not become outdated. This active development of treating the sick should be continued, but it is not the primary solution to the crises healthcare will face in the future.
The solution to future crises must be sought by giving up the belief that the current healthcare system is able to treat every sick person in every situation. We must broaden our thinking and create a new principle according to which healthcare must systematically invest in maintaining the health of the healthy population to prevent the number of sick people from growing to a level that exceeds the carrying capacity of the healthcare system. We thus need a system that is built to prevent the onset of diseases.
An efficient, wide-ranging preventative health system needs to be supported by technology with which we can efficiently identify future health risks of healthy people and enable early, targeted preventative measures without the need to train healthcare personnel or individuals.
Nightingale Health is a pioneer of preventative health technology globally. Our technology, our health datasets, scientific evidence and regulatory approvals are internationally top level, and we can provide services for preventative health projects of any size. Our competitive position is excellent and we know of no other company in the world that can offer a comprehensive preventative health solution of similar quality.
Recently, one of the most significant journals in the field of medicine, Nature Medicine, published an article on a study that made use of UK Biobank, the world’s largest health data repository, analyzed with Nightingale Health’s technology, as well as four other significant international reference repositories also analyzed with our technology. An independent international research team noted that Nightingale Health’s technology identifies 24 common diseases with one blood test, offering a solution better suited to prevention needs than the clinical methods currently in use. In addition to its extensive identification capability, Nightingale Health’s technology does not require training for healthcare professionals to use it. They can use the prevention measures included in the current care guidelines, which enables rapidly adoptable, wide-scale, targeted, and systematic disease prevention.
It is time to take a development leap in preventative health and start building a healthcare system that stands on a solid base. We’re ready to make our unique preventive health solution available to healthcare professionals and consumers worldwide.
Teemu Suna
Founder, Chief Executive Officer