On April 20, 2018 Steven de Waal was one of the keynote speakers at the Labor Berlin “hauptstadtsymposium 2018 – Gesundheit von morgen: intelligent, global, leistungsorientiert” in Berlin.

New technologies lead towards a revolution

The title of his lecture was: ‘Disruption of Healthcare: Power of patients and impact on leadership‘ (download his presentation here). He has been talking about how the same technological revolution that caused disruption in the markets will affect the power and mentality of citizens, also in their role as patients. They now have a direct channel for data, information, organization and communication. That will influence their mentality and give them tools to influence and even initiate public debate, about healthcare in general and also about specific providers and insurers, when they feel an urge or necessity to do that.

These new technologies already influence their attitude towards politics and representative democracy, but will also further change their attitude towards healthcare. His main focus is on the social, political and civil revolution going on because of the new technologies that create a new direct information and communication channel between citizens worldwide.

“Growing wish of patients to manage their own health process”

Steven de Waal also analysed the impact of this modern power of patients on civil leadership in healthcare, the topic of his dissertation: ‘The value(s) of Civil Leaders’ (Eleven 2014).
As he is used to in his many international lectures on these topics and strategic developments it will probably provoke many questions. This is his main reason to prefer lecturing for an audience of strategically responsible executives. Some of the questions he raised:

• Do they recognize the growing power of patients, especially in their interaction with doctors and other professionals in healthcare?
• Have they already experienced the growing wish of patients to manage their own health process, including monitoring at a distance, planning their stay at home, planning their ambulant care visits?
• What type of fundamental change process in culture and behaviour in their healthcare organizations are they initiating and what kind of leadership do they think is necessary? Is it already there?