EDITOR’S NOTES
Of Empires and Experiences: What Does Your Data Mean?
By Mark Hagland A
nthropologists and other scientists have already spent numerous decades trying to piece together the history of humankind, to truly understand
what the lived experience of our species has been, across hundreds of thousands of years and longer; needless to say, the work remains daunting, for a constellation of reasons. One author who has taken up the challenge is Yuval
Noah Harari, Ph.D., who lectures in the Department of History at the University of Jerusalem. Harari’s book, , was first published in Hebrew in 2011; and once it was published in English in 2014, it garnered a huge amount of
attention for its very broad look at the evolution of human civilization. Speaking of that human civilization, , asked, “Can its full sweep be conveyed in one fell swoop – 400 pages? Not really; it's easier to write a brief history of time – all 14 billion years – and Harari also spends many pages on our present and possible future rather than our past. But the deep lines of the story of sapiens are fairly uncontentious, and he sets them out with verve.” Strawson is critical of parts of the book, criticizing Harari’s ad hominem attacks on contemporary liberal society, for example. But he gives him credit for tackling this sprawling subject. Indeed, there are passages in Sapiens that simply leap out at the reader, such
as this one, which follows Harari’s description of the prodigious memories that individuals had to develop in ancient societies, prior to written knowledge and widespread literacy. He writes that, “[W]hen particularly complex societies began to appear in the wake of the Agricultural Revolution, a completely new type of information became vital—numbers. Foragers were never obligated to handle large amounts of mathematical data. No forager needed to remember, say, the number of fruits on each tree in the forest. So human brains did not adapt to storing and processing numbers. Yet in order to maintain a large kingdom, mathematical data was vital. It was never enough to legislate laws and tell stories about guardian gods. One also had to collect taxes,” which meant gathering large numbers of data points—and that pitched society over time into a new era, with the Sumerians developing writing sometime between 3,500 and 3,000 B.C.E. Fast-forward several millennia, and we humans now live in a world in which
abstract information—words and numbers—now dominates our lives. Indeed, Harari notes, “Writing was born as the maidservant of human consciousness, but is increasingly becoming its master.” What’s more, he reflects, “Eventually, computers might outperform humans in the very fields that made Homo sapiens the ruler of the world: intelligence and communication.” Of course, as we’re all learning in the U.S. healthcare system, data alone
is lacking in meaning. Still, when it comes to assessing patient experiences, leaders in patient care organizations nationwide are endeavoring to understand the experiences of patients and families, while they work to make the patient experience a better one. As Senior Contributing Editor David Raths notes in his cover story (p. 4), the collective experience of the healthcare system of the COVID-19 pandemic heightened awareness of patients’ and families' perspectives. Patient experience work is gradually becoming less of an art and more of a science. The path forward will necessarily be a complex one, with many phases
and steps. That said, what we learn about the patient experience will reaffirm what has been the history-long story of humankind—making sense of the world around us.
2
hcinnovationgroup.com | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2023
www.HCinnovationgroup.com EDITORIAL
Editor-in-Chief: Mark Hagland 917-275-2426
mhagland@HCinnovationgroup.com
Senior Editor: Brenda Silva 941 200-4776
bsilva@hcinnovationgroup.com
Senior Contributing Editor: David Raths
draths@mac.com
ADVERTISING SALES
Sales Director: Anita Brodersen 847-744-2884
abrodersen@HCinnovationgroup.com
Sales Director: Steve Menc 814-450-5571
smenc@HCinnovationgroup.com
Sales Director: Julie Timbol 978-708-1762
jtimbol@HCinnovationgroup.com
Program and Virtual Events Director: Casie McAllister
cmcallister@HCinnovationgroup.com SERVICES
Art Director: Patti Connors
pconnors@endeavorb2b.com
Production Manager: Edward Bartlett
ebartlett@endeavorb2b.com
Director of Marketing & Client Services: Adrian Piazza
apiazza@HCinnovationgroup.com
List Rentals/Ad Contracts Mgr: Laura Moulton
lmoulton@endeavorb2b.com
Single Back Issues/Subscriptions:
subscriptions@endeavorb2b.com
GROUP PUBLISHER
Matthew Raynor, Group Publisher, Healthcare Innovation
mraynor@HCinnovationgroup.com
CORPORATE TEAM
CEO Chris Ferrell CFO Mark Zadell
President June Griffin COO Patrick Rains
CRO Reggie Lawrence Chief Digital Officer Jacquie Niemiec
Chief Administrative and Legal Officer Tracy Kane Amy Mularski, EVP City Services & Healthcare
30 Burton Hills Blvd, Ste. 185, Nashville, TN 37215 800-547-7377
www.HCinnovationGroup.com
Healthcare Innovation USPS Permit 544310, ISSN 2641-7502 print, ISSN 2771-7984 online is published 6 times annually, Jan/Feb, Mar/Apr, May/ Jun, Jul/Aug, Sep/Oct, Nov/Dec by Endeavor Business Media, LLC. 1233 Janesville Ave., Fort Atkinson, WI 53538. Periodical postage paid at Fort Atkinson, WI, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Healthcare Innovation, PO Box 3257, Northbrook, IL 60065-3257. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Publisher reserves the right to reject non-qualified subscriptions. Subscription prices: U.S. $66.25 per year; Canada/Mexico $81.25 per year; All other countries $118.75 per year. All subscriptions are payable in U.S. funds. Send subscription inquiries to Healthcare Innovation, PO Box 3257, Northbrook, IL 60065-3257. Customer service can be reached toll-free at 877-382-9187 or at
HCinnovation@omeda.com for magazine subscription assistance or questions.
Printed in the USA. Copyright 2023 Endeavor Business Media, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopies, recordings, or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the publisher. Endeavor Business Media, LLC does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any person or company for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions in the material herein, regardless of whether such errors result from negligence, accident, or any other cause whatsoever. The views and opinions in the articles herein are not to be taken as official expressions of the publishers, unless so stated. The publishers do not warrant either expressly or by implication, the factual accuracy of the articles herein, nor do they so warrant any views or opinions by the authors of said articles.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36
