What does healthcare look like in 2075?
Having some thoughts about what the definition of healthcare is in 50 years
Top of the morning, sapien. Welcome to Common Sense Medicine, where I try and keep you up to date on the latest and greatest in longevity science.
Between making the YouTube videos, being on a busy autopsy rotation, and life things, I have only been to the gym 1x a week for the past 2 weeks. This is an abysmal rate, one which rivals pre-gym Shree (circa March 2024).
We need to get back to basics. Getting up at 5:30am, going to the gym, and then going to work and eating the food which I cooked at night. It’s easy to be consistent when there’s nothing going on other than the gym, but when you add other commitments in your life, it becomes hard to prioritize your health.
I saw a post on LinkedIn the other day which said “You’re not a longevity genius, you’re only 25.” and the next reply mentioned that it would be cool to see people who are fit when having kids, a busy workload, and more. I’m aiming for that life, so I have to start building it here. As March concludes, I might push back my goal of starting running in April by 6 weeks (start in the second week of May), which would give me ~24 weeks before running the half.
With the hip this goal might seem a little tenuous, but will need to keep feeling it out. Onwards!
Other items on the differential:
An interview with the CEO of PreNuvo which I watched, and have some thoughts on
Another update on my hypertrophy cycle (which is flagging a little)
THE WEEKLY DOSE
Healthcare, but better
Healthcare still remains as a very frustrating experience to many people. They wait in a doctors office, get an incomprehensible diagnosis, and then shuffle out with a prescription. This is why people get frustrated and blame providers for their ails. Some people take a very active stance on this issue (probably you if you’re reading this), and go to their physician with even a suspicion of a subclinical change in order to get it ‘checked out.’
While both of these are two opposite ends of a spectrum, they’re focused on the wrong things — there’s a lot to healthcare which could get better, and will, in 50 years. I’m optimistic that there’s a different era of medicine which can be possible if we just focus on the basics of what makes a great experience for healthcare, starting from the outpatient world and diving into the inpatient world (whether we use those terms in the next few decades is beyond me, but I’m using them since I’m familiar with them in the 2025 world).
By 2075, I believe healthcare will evolve from today's hodgepodge of point solutions to integrated platforms delivering truly personalized, preventative care. This transformation won't happen overnight, but the foundations are being laid today. Let me show you where we're headed.
A Day in the Life
How will all these advances coalesce in the daily life of a patient in 2075? Consider Amina, a 50-year-old living in 2075:
Morning Preventive Check-in: Upon waking, Amina’s smart mirror displays a personalized health dashboard. It shows her sleep quality (tracked via bed sensors) and notes that her resting heart rate was slightly higher than average. Her AI assistant has already cross-referenced this with population health data and her own digital twin. It gently suggests a 5-minute breathing exercise (displayed in AR on the mirror) to reduce stress, and because it’s flu season, it confirms her immunity boost injection (administered by a wearable skin patch) is due next week, already scheduling a drone to deliver the vaccine to her home.
This kind of predictive, proactive care is routine – health nudges and preventive measures are integrated into everyday devices. Her digital twin simulated her risk of catching the flu given community trends and prompted actions to pre-empt illness.
Midday Medical Consultation (Anywhere): Amina has a mild knee pain while exercising. She speaks a query to her wristband: “I have a new pain in my right knee after jogging.” The AI triages the concern, referencing her history of arthritis, and immediately offers to initiate a teleconsultation. Within minutes, she’s talking to a virtual composite of an AI and her human physician.
The AI portion has already analyzed her gait data from her smart shoes and performed an ultrasound via her home health station. The human doctor confirms the AI’s findings: no serious damage, likely inflammation. Amina’s treatment plan is updated on the platform – an anti-inflammatory med is formulated by her home pharma unit (a device that 3D-prints pills on demand, authorized via e-prescription), and her physical therapy exercises are adjusted in her AR fitness app.
She never had to commute to a clinic; remote care and home diagnostics made this a quick part of her day. Such convenience is enabled by telehealth technology that by 2075 is so immersive it feels like an in-person visit, potentially using holographic projection or VR for rich interaction.
Continuous Monitoring and AI Guardians: Throughout the day, Amina’s implantable glucose sensor and blood pressure monitor quietly stream data. Rather than a doctor watching, it’s an AI guardian that monitors these in real time. When she eats lunch, the AI nudges her that her blood sugar is rising a bit fast – perhaps suggesting a post-lunch walk. In 2075, almost everyone with a chronic condition (diabetes, hypertension, etc.) will have these unobtrusive monitors that preemptively adjust treatment.
If Amina’s blood pressure were to spike dangerously, an AI might dispatch a mobile medical unit to her location within minutes. Emergency response is vastly improved: autonomous vehicles or drones equipped with basic ER equipment can reach patients quickly, guided by AI triage systems that detect emergencies from biosensor data. This reduces dependency on 911 calls – in some cases, help arrives before one even realizes they need it.
Personalized Wellness and Longevity: After work, Amina engages in her personalized wellness routine. She meets a friend (virtually) in a guided meditation session led by an AI that has psychotherapeutic training – mental health care is seamlessly integrated into daily life, reducing stigma and improving access. She also takes a longevity supplement tailored to her genomic profile.
By 2075, advances in longevity science (senolytic drugs, gene therapies, organ regeneration) mean that at 50, Amina is only middle-aged with an expected healthy life ahead possibly into her 100s. Indeed, countries around the world have seen life expectancy climb well into the 90s on average, with many people living past 100 in good functional health.
Aging itself is managed as a condition, with periodic therapies to rejuvenate cells and tissues. Patients like Amina undergo annual “longevity check-ups” where their biological age is measured and interventions (cellular repairs, microbiome resets, etc.) are applied to keep that biological age lower than chronological age.
Integrated Support Systems: Amina’s healthcare is not just about reacting to problems; it’s a 24/7 support system. Her digital twin and AI caregiver network collaborate in the background. If she deviates from optimal patterns (say, poor sleep for a week or signs of depression), the system alerts her designated health coach (a mix of AI and a human professional) who checks in to see if anything is wrong.
Community health is also linked – since data is aggregated (with privacy protections), public health AI might detect a local air quality issue and warn individuals like Amina to use air filters or stay indoors on certain days, mitigating asthma or allergy flares. The system emphasizes health maintenance and prevention, aligning incentives (most countries by 2075 use value-based care models globally coordinated, rewarding keeping populations healthy rather than paying per treatment).
In this envisioned day, we see the culmination of precision, prediction, prevention, and patient-centricity. Care is highly personalized (driven by genomics and digital twins), largely preventive (with constant monitoring and nudges), convenient and decentralized (delivered at home or on the go through telehealth and mobile units), and empowered by AI (to democratize knowledge and provide safety nets).
The patient experience is one of being gently looked after by an ecosystem of intelligent systems and providers working in harmony – often invisible but stepping in when needed.
Crucially, human touch is not gone: Amina still interacts with human doctors, health coaches, and community members. Technology augments those relationships by handling routine tasks and crunching data, freeing humans to focus on empathy and complex decision-making.
If anything, 2075’s patient experience could be more humane because clinicians have more time for patients (AI handles the clerical burdens) and patients feel supported continuously rather than only during sporadic clinic visits.
Predictive Diagnostics and Longevity: Imagine being alerted of a cancerous tumor at Stage 0 (before Stage 1) because your blood’s circulating DNA was regularly scanned by your wearable and an AI noticed an anomaly – a routine fix before it ever becomes “cancer.”
Or avoiding a heart attack because your digital twin forecasted plaque buildup early and you received a non-invasive gene therapy to reverse it. These are the kinds of predictive diagnostics that will be commonplace. And should something serious happen, advances in regenerative medicine might allow new organs grown from your cells to be transplanted with minimal risk.
By 2075, regenerative treatments (lab-grown organs, stem-cell patches for heart muscle, tissue engineering for joints) and gene editing will likely have cured many currently incurable diseases, further altering what it means to be a “patient.” The healthcare system might spend more resources on enhancing well-being (think cognitive enhancement, optimizing mental health, extending healthspan) than on treating disease as we know it.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that if the innovations we see today continue on their trajectory, the experience of healthcare in 2075 will be unrecognizable by 2020s standards. It will be proactive, personalized, and pervasive.
Patients will have powerful tools and information to manage their own health, AI and data will guard them from the shadows, and when professional care is needed, it will be delivered efficiently and seamlessly through advanced platforms.
With these changes, the hope is that people in 2075 not only live longer but spend far more of those years in good health – fulfilling the ultimate goal of medicine to enhance the quality as well as quantity of life.
THE PRESCRIPTION
Q1 2025: Hypertrophy Cycle Progress
The upshot: This means I’m not going to the gym for a week. Kind of embarrassing at this point (haven’t shown an upward trajectory in a few weeks, with constant excuses and exhortations about going to get back on track). We’re doing it this week. In this wey, I think it’s good to track in public (both the foibles and the successes).
JOURNAL CLUB
I watched this interview with the CEO of PreNuvo and Dr. Mike. I talked a little about preventative healthcare scans in another issue, but this interview really captured a nuance of overdiagnosis and false positives which I liked to hear.
I think that Andrew really pushed a view of preventative healthcare which showed that ‘all info is good info’ and that they never “diagnose,” only “influence.” This seems like legalese to defer a decision around treatment to the actual clinician, and not on PreNuvo itself which made the call that a worrisome MRI finding had ‘high urgency’ or ‘low urgency.’
It’s hard, because I do love data and findings, but it is up to the clinician to interpret that and patients may want an a la carte service when it really is a partnership and they need to rely on the guiding hand of the physician too when thinking about their health.
REMEMBER, IT’S JUST COMMON SENSE.
Thanks so much for reading! Let me know what you thought by replying to this email.
See you next week,
Shree (@shree_nadkarni)