Opinion: Dispatch from Davos: Hospitals of the future will not be traditional hospitals

I had the honor of taking part in a panel on the future of hospitals today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The central question before us was this: “How can providers be more effective at addressing the social determinants of health before more patients arrive at the hospital door?”

We started with the bad news. An estimated 100 million people a year are pushed into poverty because they cannot afford to pay for the health care they need. And too many people do not have access to the advances of medical care. That is as true in my home town of Philadelphia, which hosts prestigious academic health institutions, as it is in Johannesburg or Durban. Philadelphia has the dubious lead among major U.S. cities